Adventures On the Road

Super late post…but better late than never right?

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It wouldn’t be a trip to Hawaii if I didn’t drag my family to the North Shore to look for Sea Turtles. 

This time, they were on to me though – I had to bribe them with the possibility of finding seashell treasures (for Brooklyn), the probably of fresh fruit from the fruits stands (for Lucy) and a convenient stop to the North Shore Macadamia Nut Company Farm Stand for treats for us and souvenirs to take home with us (for Nathan). 

And then I had to find clever ways to convince them to go back up there, two more times! 

But, patience pays off, and we did indeed find Sea Turtles! 

We lucked out by seeing one lone sea turtle at Hale’iwa Ali’I Beach Park – and that find felt amazing – as we watched surfers tackle the waves, and this little turtle peek its head out of the water. 

Our other sitings may have included the sketchy side of the road parking, waking the girls up from their car nap, and scampering across a busy road….BUT, there were so many people on the beach!  The whole scene just SCREAMED ‘there are sea turtles here!!!!’.  I feel like we just missed seeing them on the beach, but when we watched the water, I swear there were like 20 sea turtles swimming around.  For some reason, they didn’t hear my coaxing, ‘come on sea turtle, come on back to shore – don’t you want to take a little nap in the sun?’  This also led to the question, where do sea turtles sleep at night?  Turns out the answer is that they mostly sleep on the surface of the water in a ‘floating’ state.

I honestly could have stayed out on that beach all day watching the turtles and seeing if they were going to come back to the beach.  But the two little 4 year olds (and if I’m honest, Nathan too), had about a 20 minute time limit before they were telling me, ‘I know mommy!  I saw them already!  You already showed them to me’.  To which I wanted to say, ‘but don’t you want to keep watching to see what they’re going to do, to see if they come to the beach, to see if my dream of seeing sea turtles on the beach is about to come true????’.  The answer to this question, without me even saying it aloud, was a unanimous NO. 

And so, we saw Sea Turtles swimming in the water in Hawaii.  And with the help of a zoom lens and the magnifying tool in our editing software, we could really see them after the fact. 

But, I do warn my family, don’t be surprised if you all get dragged up to the North Shore again on some other trip, because these Sea Turtles Tales are not over!!