Kona-Day 4 Turtles, turtles, & more turtles!

Today was kind of a relaxing day but still one of driving. We started out by having breakfast at "Pahui'a" at the Four Seasons Resort Hualalai. The drive down through the community of Hualalai reminds me of Maui-well manicured lawns and golf courses. At the end of the drive is the resort. Above are pictures of the 3 different pools we saw.
The Four Seasons beach area.
The view from our table at the restaurant. I had Meyer Lemon Ricotta Pancakes with fresh berries and maple syrup-yummo. Dad had their buffet which looked good. Plus the juice of the day was guava-grapefruit which was very tasty. Your dad didn't like it, however.

Above are some creatures we met at the resort.


We were 4-wheeling in our Dodge Caliber as we went beach hopping to all these out of the way places (I mean dirt roads) to see the beaches of Kona (some better than 0thers). We were probably the only people who went to these beaches, looked at them, took a picture, and then headed back into our car. We've been in Hawaii for 4 days and have yet to go in the water (except when I put my feet in by our cove). I'm not much of a snorkeler and your dad is definitely not a beach person. It kind of boggles my mind that we like Hawaii so much. But I've got him committed to going to one of these beaches early in the morning next week (with our swimsuits on and getting into the water) so that we can say we've been to the beach.
Our last beach stop of the day was down this little road of million dollar homes (some of them were amazing). There were a few shoreline access areas so we pulled over at one of them. The shoreline was not sandy but all black rock. As we're standing there looking out, I notice a turtle swimming in front of me. Then dad yells out, "there's another one." To my left was a sea wall with a guy sitting on it. He's watching this turtle get bashed as the waves push it into the wall. Then there's another turtle. Pretty soon we were standing on the wall and it was like feeding time at the zoo-all these turtles starting showing up. We figure we saw at least a dozen different turtles in that one little cove-it was amazing. We sat on the wall for a while and just watched them. I was taking pictures like crazy. Some turned out, some didn't. For your sanity, I've only posted a few of the pictures I took. At one point, there were seven swimming together in a little group.


This is the guy who kept getting bashed into the wall but he seemed to like it.
You can just see my shadow on the wall as I'm taking his picture.

They were everywhere. The pictures below are another story.


After having seen all those turtles, we drove home and as I was putting stuff out to eat on the table on our lanai, I happened to look down at our little cove and there was this guy. I ran down and started taking pictures like mad. I was only about a foot away from him at times; especially, when he was eating the algae on the rocks-very cool to watch. He had a buddy but he never came close enough to get a good picture. As I'm writing this, he is still down there and every once in a while raises his flipper in greeting to me (at least that's what it looks like to me!)
In our guidebook, I kept seeing the word "vog". I thought people don't know how to spell fog or they're from Germany and that's how they pronounce fog. But no, I've come to find out that "vog" is fog caused from the volcanic junk in the air. Apparently, sometimes it can be quite toxic. This is what it looks like when there is vog - very hazy.

I think tonight we might go see a movie. Tomorrow is Father's Day so Dad and I are heading up to Mauna Kea - approx. 14,000 ft - to see the sky at night.