Another Amazing Adventure

Today was just spectacular, there is no other way to describe it. Michelle picked the Ka'ena Point hike in the hopes of seeing monk seals. We were all in for a real treat today. We started on the west side and walked out to the northwestern most point of the island, an easy 5.5 miles round trip.
Here's our little troop starting out: Amber, Dan with Madison, Hope, Charlie, Erik, Evan, Owen, Erica, and Michelle.

I just love these flowers, they remind me of fiber optic lights.

What a view.

Owen and Evan hanging out.

Hey wait, that's not Erik-it's Charlie and Erica! Thank you Charlie!

Part of the old road had washed out so we got to take a trail.

There were so many nesting pairs of albatross. Owen saw them nuzzling and asked if they were married.

Michelle and I took off running when we found out there were monk seals. We ran around looking everywhere for them so a very nice man pointed them out to us. Right there, we went right by. The monk seals are not to be disturbed so we were trying to be fairly quiet, Erica comes running down the hill right toward them and gets about 5 feet away and realizes there are animals lying there! Her expression was priceless-she sure did better than I did spotting them though.

This is a real albatross flying. They are huge. While we were walking toward the point Charlie yells, "look at the bird!" It flew over like an air plane.

Owen and I looked in the tidal pools for awhile. We saw tons of snails, camouflaged fish, various worms, really cool stuff.

Do you see all of the snails? There are at least 5. Tip-look for eyes.

Wow, sleeping monk seals. How amazing is this.

I love this picture, we look like a rag tag band. Here's the 11 of us.

Here is a panorama of Ka'ena Point, to the left is the North Shore, to the right is the Wai'anae coast.

Here's our little family.

We found some very tiny but beautiful flowers. The environment is harsh-rocky, sandy, hot, dry, and windy but yet there are so many gorgeous things to see.

This is really interesting. Michelle pointed out to me how, one can see the difference in the ocean between the North Shore and the Leeward side. If you enlarge this picture, the ocean up by the horizon has white caps then you will see a white line where the north and the Leeward meet and below that is the calmer Leeward side. Interesting, huh?

Two curly girls.

The end of our picture perfect hike. After the hike we headed to the Army beach in Wai'anae for a late lunch. While we waited for our food, the kids played in the gentile surf. Loads of fun. Thank you so much you guys!