Friday, August 6: Today we had the Alala scheduled for a morning snorkel cruise. Instead of leaving from the Marriott and A-Beach, Ocean Sports called and said they were changing the boat and the pickup location due to Sea Smoke problems. We left out of Kawaihae harbor, meeting at 8:30 or so at the little blue shack right at the interesection in town. As with last year, Ocean Sports does do a nice program and the holo-holo card discount was ＄93.00. The boat cruised around the bay and headed for 69 beach to snorkel. The water was perfectly clear and we had very little wind, yesterday it was blowing.

The Fuji FinePix XP10 worked amazingly well underwater. For the price it is really worth not having to deal with the worrying about my Canon camera and seawater. I should have picked up one a long time ago. Costco again, to the items you need at the price you can afford (＄159.00).

After the onboard lunch, the bar opens up and the sailing begins. Its interesting that the sail is just really a short distance back to the harbor but they are PR masters of stretching things out!

The afternoon was a lazy beach day at the Mauna Kea and dinner at Roy’s in the King’s Marketplace. My Chili Pepper Ahi was delicious as was Anna’s butterfish. Sandy’s Ono was a little off tonight. But … the chocolate souffle dessert was awesome.

Strolling around King’s after dinner, Anna and Katie took us to an art gallery where we saw work from the artist Alex Gupton, he has amazing pen and ink drawings, click here.

I soaked the Fuji in water for about 10 minutes, I am anxious to see the photos and videos!

Thursday, August 5: Sandy worked in the morning and I got on the phone to book ourselves on Anna’s tomorrow snorkel cruise. The local price started at about ＄108 per person and ended up with the holo-holo card at ＄93.00. I’m not sure why they don’t just give the locals the rate to begin with. I know that it is business but …

Sitting here booking the cruise, I got the brilliant idea (Sandy had been after me all summer) to find a waterproof digital camera for underwater filming. I talked to the local Costco and they carried the Fuji FinePix XP10. Googling opinions, I determined that it was worth the purchase and trip to Costco. Off I went and Anna and Katie came over to do laundry, again. They spent the morning snorkeling in the bay.

Dinner was flank steak from Costco, it is quite good. The Mauna Kea night sky telescope observation was the night’s activity. When we tried to book the Mauna Kea visitor’s center afternoon trip, the only time they has was on Friday, so this was the second choice. While interesting, the presenter was tired and the activity was pretty boring. Nix this activity for future reference.

We are anxious for tomorrow’s snorkel cruise. They did call me and, due to boat problems, rebook us on the Alala leaving Kawaihae harbor instead of the Sea Smoke for A-Bay. Oh well, no worries.

Wednesday, August 4: The days are now flying by. Anna and Katie sceduled themselves on the morning Dolphin Cruise from the Mauna Kea and had a blast. They jumped in the water with the dolphins as soon as they were spotted. Sounds like a lot of fun!

This morning I worked on the patio table. I used the power sander and the polishing compound doing 10 minutes per quarter. I followed that up with a Turtle Wax coat and that is as good as it is going to get, at least for me.

Golf at 2:30 wtih Pat and Gene. They are both, for their age, quite good. Gene is very fluid and Pat is pretty accurate. The thing that I notice is that they are both very relaxed about their strokes. In their day, they both were pretty good. I think we all had a good time. We were out from about 2:30 to 5:30 or so.

Wine tasting at 6:00 at the Mauna Kea with Anna and Katie before dinner there at their Manta Restaurant. The wine tasting was entertaining and fun and the dinner was quite good, an excellent outdoor restaurant for future reference. It was interesting pulling up at the guard shack in the Subaru, it was like “what do these local want” type attitude. As soon as I said we had reservations, the attitude changed 180° hmm…. Just a funny observation!