Branching out

From Karin:

When you're spending every other day at the beach, you need to branch out and explore your options.  While we've enjoyed the surf and the ever-interesting people watching at Baldwin Beach, we forced ourselves to re-open the guide books, get some advice from our landlord and venture outside our recently acquired comfort zone.  Happily, we are DELIGHTED with what we've found and may have to part ways with our beach going hippie friends.

Baby Beach-  While the guide books can't agree on what to call this beach, we found it and we love it.  It is the perfect place for Davis to swim, dig, run, snorkel and "boogie board".  Does pushing it around and jumping on it actually count as "boogie boarding"?  To him, yes.  To the rest of the 4 year olds here who can already surf a real wave, not so much.  Anyway, it is a long stretch of white sand beach with easy entry to the water, some shade for Carter and tons of local families.  The best part....about 20 yards offshore there is a natural rock/coral shelf that acts as a huge jetty, constantly diffusing the power of the waves that roll in.  Inside this natural breakwater the water is extremely calm and shallow, not to mention crystal blue.  It's almost like having access to a 20 x 500 yard lap pool.  I'm so sorry we didn't find this beach while my dad was here....he would have loved to do his daily swim in such peaceful waters.  Throughout the day, as the tide comes in, our "pool" gets deeper and some very small secondary waves breach the shelf making it a little more exciting for Davis.  He's been an absolute water rat and has played with a different, "new friend" each day, making his life more fun and ours a bit more relaxing.  Today, I was actually able to read a few chapters in The Wave.  For those of you keeping score, yes, this is the book I made fun of Peter for reading.  It is captivating.  My bad.  Part of this book is about big wave surfing and therefore there are entire chapters devoted to Laird Hamilton, the father of big wave surfing.  I hope you've heard of him.  He's married to Gabrielle Reece, pro beach volleyball player, he gets the credit for inventing paddle surfing and he's one of the first guys to surf (and survive!) a 70 foot wave.  Did I mention that he lives here in Haiku?  Yeah, we're practically neighbors.  So one of the chapters is about Haiku and another one is about Paia, the other little town near us that we love.  It's a great read, made even better by countless local references. 

Even the parking lot at Baby Beach is beautiful

Baby Beach

Carter's first swim.  Seemed appropriate that it happened at Baby Beach.  Just for the record, all of the other babies at this beach are naked, too.  I can't vouch that they're all naked because they just had a major blow out of their poop filled Huggies, but that was Carter's excuse.  2-for-1 special:  First swim photo op + well timed quick bath. 

My new crush, Laird.  Hope to bump into him at Anthony's Coffe Shop in Paia, his favorite breakfast place and coincidentally (I swear!) my favorite place for iced coffee.

Davis trying to keep up with Laird.

Ka'anapali Bay-  While Peter's parents were here, Mike really wanted to do some snorkeling.  Due to the constant wave action on the North shore, there isn't really any good snorkeling around here, so we headed back over to the West coast where we were our first week.  This was a great beach for all of us.  Shade for Carter (a constant beach requirement), easy entry for Davis and Kathy and great snorkeling for Mike and Peter.  Thankfully, there were also great views for me since I'm often confined to a beach chair in my role as Chief Baby Wrangler/Sole Food Provider.  This public beach is actually right in front of the Ritz Carlton villas so it also has a beautiful stretch of well maintained grass which made for a great picnic spot.  We had a lovely day topped off by dinner at the Maui Brewing Company and Ono Gelato on the way home.  My flavor choice this time:  Seamist.  Lemon, lime, fresh mint and green tea...a perfect blend of refreshing flavors.  It was so light and you could taste each individual ingredient.  It reminded me of a mojito, our favorite citrus cheesecake (shout outs to Jim Tanton and Heather!) and the iced green tea at Starbucks.  So yummy. I'm going to try to force myself to have a new flavor each time (tough life, I know), but I'll be tempted again by this tasty little treat for sure.  Fortunately, there are new flavors to woo me each time we arrive.  Last time, Chocolate Truffle Raspberry almost distracted me from my beloved Seamist.....

Ka'anapali Bay from an overlook on the Ritz Carlton property

Looking south

Our picnic lunch

My beach boy

A rainbow of rental kayaks on the beach

Some inspiration from Ono Gelato's website...