Despite living on a mass of land that is, at it's greatest dimension, only 44 miles long and 30 miles across, we continue to find new places to explore! Although technically this new place we discovered over the weekend isn't within the confines of the approximately 600 square miles of Oahu land, but nearly 5 miles off the coast. Thankfully, one of our good friends purchased a boat upon moving to Hawaii shortly after we arrived, otherwise this weekend's trip would not have been possible.
On Saturday, we made the first of which I am sure will be many, trips to the Kaneohe Sandbar. During low tide in Kaneohe Bay, a beach in the middle of the ocean emerges known as Ahu O Laka. We arrived at the sandbar, a 10 minute boat ride from the small harbor on base, around 9:45. And like something out of a Corona beer commercial, we were pinching ourselves at the calm serenity of our panoramic surroundings. On multiple occasions, when the magnitude of our souroundings would randomly breakthrough the barrier of our present mindset/experience into that of a reflective, third person perspective, we would stop and ask one another, can you believe this? We live here? Is this real life?
We arrived at the tail end of low tide, and the exposed beach that we pulled up to gradually receded back into the vast turquoise waters of the bay over the course of the early afternoon. By high tide, the water was now nearly waist high. However, the rising tide didn't impede on our beautiful Saturday.
The guys, in true "boys will be boys" fashion, proceeded to have an informal, but very intensely competitive, whiffle ball game in the shallowest portion of water they could find. The phrase "work hard, play hard" perfectly encapsulates the personality of these guys and it was quite entertaining for us girls to watch.
Supposedly Kaneohe Bay is the most active hammerhead shark breeding ground in the world. Although hammerheads themselves aren't a big threat to humans based on their temperament and their anatomy/location of their mouths, the months of May and June are when the sharks give birth and which therefore attract other predatory sharks that prey on the new pups. For this reason, only a few brave souls in our group (with spear guns in hand) decided to snorkel around the deep cavernous drop off surrounding the sandbar and the nearby Chinaman's Hat Island that we boated over to later in the afternoon.
Jordan and two others decided to hike to the top of Chinaman's as well, in order to take in the view. They proceeded to do this barefoot and paid for it in pain for the rest of the week. The pain afterall was temporary, and the picture of them with this view, is priceless.
Luckily, I did not read this article about the increased activity of those predatory sharks until we were safely back on shore: http://www.mcbhawaii.marines.mil/News/NewsArticleDisplay/tabid/6999/Article/165533/sharks-increase-presence-around-base.aspx. However, it's not like we were completely unaware, as multiple times over the last month and half, the beaches on base have been shut down because of shark sightings close to shore. I guess that's just one of the few problems that comes with living in paradise! See, I told you life here wasn't perfect!
Overall, it was a fantastic day. Lots of sunscreen and hats are recommended or you may end up looking like a tomato like a few people in the group that went. And falling asleep in the sun, is definitely not recommended hahaha...
Notice it's all the boys who are sunburnt. Not the mature ladies of the group, who responsibly protected their skin from sun damage and unnecessarily advancing the aging and wrinkling process. Silly boys!
Can't wait to hear how you all spent your weekend!
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