I’m bringing snorkel back

My back is peeling like a snake shedding its skin. It itches like crazy. It’s virtually all I have left of my Hawaiian experience. That and the coffee cup that I bought at Super K while in Maui.

Apparently the locals call getting burned while snorkeling “snorkel back.” Sounds appropriate right?

I’ve been thinking back on our trip, and we’re both trying to grip what memories we can and keep them in our brains. We packed our days with a lot of sightseeing. Our host Kim and her three kids were great sports and incredible hosts for accommodating two tourists on their island.

While they are there, Kim rented a beat-up Toyota 1992 Previa, an old van with lots of sex appeal. Kim doesn’t have to worry about getting it dirty or sandy from all their beach visits. The Previa doesn’t sport air conditioning, so we would jump in and everyone would say, “Turn on the air conditioning!” Which meant, roll down the front windows. The back of the van only had those windows that open sideways about an inch. They’re worthless.

Below is what I’m going to use as a journal for our time there. Read if you wish. It’s more for me, than you. But you are welcome to enter …

… and the sunset to our trip

(I’m jetlagged and I’m running out the door, so this post is going to be more unedited than usual).

Tina and I arrived home after leaving Hawaii at 10:30 p.m. local. We arrived in Chicago at 1:40 p.m. and we lost about 5 hours in transit.

I slept a little bit on the two planes.

But enough of that, we had an AWESOME time. Sunday was our last day and we squeezed every ounce of juice out of the last day, hence why I was so quiet. Sunday morning, we got up at 5:15 a.m. and we took a boat out to a dormant volcano called Molokini and snorkeled.

As we were cruising to our first snorkel site, I started feeling nauseas.

Then yours truly lost his shit all over the front of the boat. Yes, that’s right. I got motion sickness. I’ve never had it before, and it was awful. I couldn’t shake it, but pushed on. We snorkeled again in a area of water called Turtle Town.

We saw a few turtles, and I started to get queazy again in the current, so I got back in the boat.

We got back around noon. We showered and napped, before going out to hangout on the beach again and then watch the sunset.

I have a lot of stories, that I hope I have time to tell. We had an amazing time, and I can’t believe we’re back. The place is very tempting to just sell everything and move to an island and live like a local.

If you ever get a chance to visit Hawaii … GO!!!