Last weekend, we decided to get out of the house and see some more of the island. The beaches are always a draw, especially if we have not been to one in a while, so we headed out to find Laniakai Beach, also called "Turtle Beach." We had been told that you can often see green sea turtles that come up onto the beach and this was something we definitely did not want to miss.
A while back we invested in a GPS. You might think on a smallish island this tool would not be needed, but I bet those things save marriages. The streets are terribly labeled in Hawaii and some of the names are also really similar. And there are also a lot more one way streets than you might think there would be. Anyway, we were able to plug in the name of the beach and off we went.
Well, even the GPS makes little mistakes sometimes and we ended up first at a beach called Chuns Reef, which is known to be a great surfing area. The waves are definitely strong and there were lots of surfers out there. We decided to stay and play for a while and then find someone to ask about Turtle Beach.
View of the beach (Chuns Reef) from our initial parking spot. We parked and realized that the beach looked way more sandy down a ways, so we took some pictures and then Mike and the boys walked up the beach while I found a better parking spot so we could get out some sand toys.
My boys
Boys walking up the beach toward me. This picture does not show my poor camera skills. It actually was that gray outside that day, lol. We even got slightly drizzled on.
How would you like to live here? Right on one of the beautiful beaches of Hawaii?
Brothers
Excited!!
Playing in the sand. Hawaiian sand always leaves us feeling like we could not have asked for a better play day. It is great for castles, putting your toes in, getting buried, you name it!
A view to the left of where we set up camp for those couple of hours.
After our play time at the beach was done and we were ready to head out from Chuns Reef, I found a life guard and asked him about Turtle Beach. He said it was really just around that little bit of land sticking out in the picture above. We had just missed it!
So, we packed up and drove down just a short ways. And what did we find, but a green sea turtle!!
I did not get great pictures of how many people were already on the beach looking at her. We learned that there are volunteers that stay on the beach from sun-up to sundown in order to keep the turtles protected. When a turtle comes up on the beach, they throw down a red rope about 6 feet out around them to let people know to stay back.
The volunteer told us that there are 29 turtles that are tagged and known well at the beach. They have information signs for those ones and they set them out so people can read about the turtles. This turtle was 45 years old and more than 200 pounds.
We also learned that they make their nest on the French Frigate Island, which is about 500 miles from Oahu. Long way to travel to lay some eggs!!
That blob is a turtle in the water. We were hoping he would come up onto the beach so we could watch him move, but he never did. We also learned that if the turtles are less than 25 years old, it is rare for them to come onto the beach because their flippers are not strong enough to allow them to "walk" a long ways.
A view of the mountains on the drive home.
We passed the Dole Plantation on the way home. That was our other option for an adventure if we could not find Turtle Beach. We are pretty sure these are banana plants, although we could not see bananas on them.
It was a fun day out with the boys. I guess you can tell I was the photographer, as I do not appear in any pictures!!
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