I don’t have the constitution for a beach day. More specifically, I don’t have the melanin. I burn pretty quickly. I also dislike the feeling of sunscreen. I wear it! Obviously. I’m just saying I don’t enjoy the feeling of it. And I don’t like being cold, which means swimming in the Pacific isn’t something I do, at least not off the coast of California.
Today was a great beach day. Counter to all that above…I didn’t burn. I applied sunscreen and sought out shade enough to avoid death by sunlight. And, y’all…swimming in the ocean here in Hawaii is goddamn heaven. It’s NOT cold. I can stay in that shit all day. And we did. We stayed out ALL day. It’s the only place in the world I’ve ever been to where I can hang with a beach day and be excited about it. Like, I do the beach here and I’m like “I get it. This is living.”
We ate poke. We saw sea turtles, both in the water and sunning on the shore. We saw lots of fish. Fish fishing other fish, in fact. That was cool. The waves were big. Really big. But not in our little cove. We adventured, walked all the way to the far end of the beach and back. It was windy, but not too bad once we settled, and then it died down even more from there.
It was a pretty perfect day. The black lava rocks around here have this effect of rendering the ocean all that much more blue. Aquamarine close to shore, and then a rich azure to deep blue as you go further out. It’s stunning. And it was nice and hot today, which is my favorite weather to swim in because of the aforementioned “I don’t like being cold.” Glorious day.
Now it’s windy again outside, which means the palm trees are swishing in the night. Liz opened the window. They almost sound like the sea, rising and falling in the gusts.
I don’t feel like I’ve gotten to know the Big Island that much, really. Bits and pieces. But, I can say today was my favorite day. This was a very, very good beach day. One of the best.
Night night.