We slept in a bit after the long day and long drive. I was up around 6:30 and put on the coffee, with Noelle up soon after that. We were a little groggy and hung over from the trauma of yesterday and missing out on seeing the manta rays, but we still did have a sliver of hope.
We planned on calling the “Hang Loose” office as soon as they opened just in case they had some secret availability on one of their tours today that wasn’t showing up on their website. We figured everyone else on the tour from yesterday would be doing the same thing, so we called at 7:58am – 2 minutes before their listed office hour start time. A lady picked up from Hang Loose and I explained the situation and that we were looking for whatever options were available to rebook today. She asked how many we had, and when I replied that we had 4, she gave a reply of “Oh, so you’re trying to book an army”…not good. Then she said, “Well, it looks like we have availability on the night tour at 7:45, would that work?” YES – YES IT WILL WORK LADY – THANK YOU!!! We’ve got a second chance at the Manta Rays. If the Manta Rays don’t show up tonight, it truly wasn’t meant to be.
This is great news, but definitely going to be a challenge with our schedule. We had a very full agenda already, and were trying to get back at the VRBO early to pack up for our flight that leaves early the next morning. Oh well, we’ll figure it out later.
One additional big issue that was getting to dangerous levels was the smell of our dirty clothes. We were running out of clean clothes and really needed a load of laundry done. The floor had pay machines ($2 wash, $2 dry), but the mobile app instructions they had weren’t working and we were all out of quarters, so I made a quick run to a gas station and got $5 worth, and Noelle through the clothes in. Once the clothes were washed and dried, we hit the road around 10:30. We’re driving up the north coast of the Big Island to hit several spots, and are adding a drive over to Kona at the end of it, so let’s get going.
First planned stop was at Hawai’i Tropical Bioreserve & Garden. With the amount of beautiful plant-life that we’ve seen just driving around neighborhoods, we wanted to see what kind of fireworks a professional Hawaiian tropical garden might have. I didn’t check the price of the tickets ahead of time, and for $25 a head, these flowers better be life changing…
…and I think they probably were. If you can’t tell by the number of pictures, Noelle absolutely loved the gardens. It was a crazy steep ramp down into the main gardens, but everywhere you looked was some beautiful blooming plant that you’ve never even heard of before. It had it all – waterfalls, orchid gardens, a koi pond, and at the bottom more epic views of waves crashing into the volcanic shore. Noelle walked around in a trance state taking pictures and videos of everything.
The Gardens had an interesting backstory – a couple in their 50’s that just retired bought the overgrown land and just decided they wanted to transform it into a garden that they could share with people and spent the following 10 years doing just that. It had to be one hell of a project and made me wince a little at how much I’ve been neglecting my own yard maintenance. On the way out, we let the kids pick out a few starter seeds and plants from the visitor center to see if we can recreate a piece of Hawaii Botanical Garden paradise in Georgia’s climate – if we can get it past the agricultural inspection at the airport.
Our next planned stop was to drive up the road a bit to Akaka Falls, but one of the optional places that was on the list was Honomu Goat Dairy, and when we saw it on the road on the way, we pulled in. It was a cute little goat farm with 15-20 baby goats that was actually free to visit. You could buy goat food for a small fee and you immediately had all the baby goat love you could handle. Lydia was mauled when she sat down with the food in her hand. We pet the baby goats, bought some of the best goat milk caramels of all time and left with a few brown stains of happiness on our clothing.
With sugary fuel in hand, we left the goats and arrived at Akaka Falls State Park. Akaka falls is known to be one of the most beautiful waterfalls on the island of Hawaii. You arrive to a fairly small parking lot and pay a fee that covers parking and entry and they have a circular path where get to view 2 different waterfalls and variety of other tropical greenery. We did the suggested circular path to the right, saw the first water fall that was barely visible, then got to the main attraction – Akaka falls. It was definitely beautiful. One thing that was a little annoying is the greenery in front of it is fairly thick and you can’t see where the water fall lands into the water. I could get that on video with the camera on a selfie stick, but would have been cool to see. Just give me a weed whacker and I’d have that cleaned up for them in 5 minutes. Definitely worth the trip to see a massive 400+ foot waterfall like that.
We left Akaka falls and drove back up to the coast road a bit to arrive at our lunch spot – Pāpa’aloa Country Store & Cafe. It actually had an impressive assortment for a country store that was attached to the post office. They had pretty much anything you could want, but the reason we were coming was for the grill they had in the back of the store that looked like it was one of the best options in the area for lunch. Kids got their usual kids food – quesadilla’s and hamburgers. Noelle got the fish and chips – I went with some kind of fried fish sandwich. Food was fine – enough to keep going for the next stop.
10 minutes down the road and we arrived at the next point of interest – Laupāhoehoe Point Beach Park. It was a cool little camp ground with lots of locals arriving to setup tents / trucks for a weekend of camping. The best part was the point, a set of black volcanic rocks connected to a beach that you could climb up and watch the heavy surf smash into the side of everything. It also had some protected areas where you could jump down and wade or doggy paddle and not be worried that you were going to be smashed against the rocks. We gawked at the views for a bit, and took a quick swim around in the pool, then headed out after a stop at the restrooms that smelled like they hadn’t been cleaned since last year. Hold your nose girls…
After the campground (and really all waking hours of today), the girls were in the mood for some sweets. On the way to our next destination, we found a shaved ice place called Da Shave Ice Shaved ice and pulled in. It had only been open since May, so was basically brand new. They had some delicious shaved ice in MASSIVE servings. We probably could have gotten by with 1, but everyone got their own massive shaved ice that we did our best to demolish. I got mochi balls on mine, which is some kind of glutinous sweet ball that is popular in Japan. It tasted like a gummy without all the sweets – kind of cool texture on top of shaved ice. At some point, wave gave up and threw away whatever we couldn’t finish.
2 minutes away was our final scheduled stop on the original schedule is Waipio Valley lookout. Waipio valley is a huge stretch of valley between two huge mountains on the north side of the big island. The valley and beach below is supposed to be as close to the garden of eden as we have on earth. The road to get from the highway down to the valley is a very dangerous dirt road that they actually close during the week since they are trying to fix parts of it. They don’t let tourists drive down it, but on days that its open, you can get a tour guide to drive you down. That was not possible today unfortunately, so we only got to stare at the beauty from the lookout for a few minutes. Even from that high view, it did look breathtaking.
Ok – so adventure 1 is over – here we go on the unscheduled adventure 2 – a second drive to Kona to hopefully got a chance to see the Manta Rays! It was about 5:30pm at this point, and we had a long drive from the far north of the Big Island over to the the west coast. It was a long beautiful drive and our excitement was growing every mile we got closer. We didn’t have time to grab dinner, so we ate some of the leftover sandwiches that we had packed with banana bread from the country store.
We arrived at the harbor at 7:00, just before the check-in time for the trip and just in time to catch an insane sunset – the best one we’ve seen on hawaii with a full orange that looked like a painting.
We checked in with a new captain this time – Simon – and a different, much larger boat that is probably Hang Loose’s primary boat that they use for the tours. It was a double decker boat that had an upstairs and a downstairs. We knew what it was like to ride on boats at night and found a spot in the back, downstairs to hopefully stay warm.
On this boat, they had us go ahead and put our wetsuits on so we’d be ready to go as soon as we got there. We recognized one of the same families that was on our boat – the one that brought 3 generations of boys, including elderly grandfather to see the once in a lifetime event (this time they brought the grandma also). Once everyone got their seats, we got the safety briefing again and headed out of the harbor. This boat could go much faster than the last one, but the wind and the seas were VERY rough. The huge boat smashed right through the waves and we arrived fairly quickly at the same destination by the outrigger hotel.
There were quite a few less boats out tonight, and when we first arrived, our hearts sank a bit as we saw people in the water, but again – no one was screaming and no manta rays in the water. Noelle and I looked at each other with one of those “OH NO” looks, but the captain had a very positive attitude, which spread to us – they were coming. Just a few minutes later, WE SAW IT. A dark, menacing looking shadow appeared underneath a section of the blue light, swimming slowly around under the water – THE MANTA RAYS WERE HERE! Now we just need to get in the water to see them!
A fairly chaotic scene commenced from there. The captain issued orders left in right, everyone got their masks sprayed with soapy water to help prevent fogging, and everyone started to get themselves ready. You have to picture this – it’s incredibly dark out, except for under water where the blue lights were shining – the wind and surf was very heavy, and they are asking you to jump into the darkness, into the sea. Everyone was a bit hesitant – with no one really eagar to jump in first as you’d imagine. They asked for the strong swimmers to go first, and we got in line right after a group of 2 strapping german men that went in. Noelle and Lydia went in first. As soon as they jumped in, I immediately lost sight of Lydia and Noelle in the darkness. I jumped in and waited for Victoria.
I’m not going to lie, that was one of the scariest moments of my life being in the water with heavy waves and darkness, not really knowing the status of all of my family. Victoria got in the water and we swam over to a guy that was holding pool noodles that you were supposed to put under your feet so you floated horizontally when you’re looking at the manta rays. It was a little easier to float with that pool noodle, and we were instructed to swim over to the right side where they said Noelle and Lydia went, but were warned to watch out for the raft that was jumping. Victoria was holding on to me with a death grip and was getting a bit paniced by too much going on (along with her dad), but we doggy paddled over to the right side. I got smacked a little bit by the raft, but not badly and we made it to the right side where Noelle yelled for us. We grabbed ahold of the float (imagine a rectangle float in the middle with blue lights shining down the middle with PVC pipe going around the outside for hand grips) and looked down.
There they were immediately – black and white spotted sting rays. They didn’t look that big when they were floating aroudn on the bottom. They’d just slowly swim around underneath you, then they’d start swimming up, do a flip to get upside down, and then swim along the surface of the ocean to feed on the plankton that you could actually see swarming at the blue lights right next to you. There were at least 3-4 that were swimming all over the place around us. You’d be looking down at one, and all of a sudden one would come out of nowhere right on top of you to do a fly by inches away from your face. I spent basically the entire time screaming under water.
We were warned several times – you’re not allowed to touch them, but they can touch you (kind of like a vegas dance club according to the captain). I did my best job to not touch them, but did have them rub up against me once (which gives you 10 days good luck). Their skin felt slippery – like a slip & slide. The whole experience was surreal with manta rays doing flips right in front of you while you are a holding on to the raft for dear life when a massive wave would come by and try to rip it from your fingers. I had one hand on the camera since I was recording, and one hand on the raft, but I was not going to let go. I was a little worried about the manta rays on the surface since the raft would get lifted up and slammed back down, but they didn’t seem too concerned by it.
We stayed there watching the manta rays do tricks for 30-40 minutes. Victoria’s hands started to hurt, so Noelle went back with her. Shortly after that, I was started to get a little sea sick feeling from all the movement and made Lydia go back with me. It was scary swim back also in the darkness and getting on the boat was tricky since it was heaving up and down with the waves, but we all got back on in one piece. The boat even had a hot outside shower that you could jump in to wash the sea and chill off of you which felt great. We stripped off our wet suits, changed into dry clothes with a few extra jacket layers we brought and discussed what we’d just seen in excited tones with each other.
Everyone else in the water started to head back soon after, and right about then it started to rain hard. Luckily we were under the cover being on the first floor of the boat, but everyone that was upstairs had to pack in close together so they weren’t getting soaked. They loaded up the rafts, loosed the boat from the mooring and started heading back to the harbor. I don’t have any idea how they made sure everyone was there and accounted for in the darkness and insanity. RIP fellow crewmates if you were left behind.
The ride back was a bit rough, more so for the people in the front of the boat that were getting hammered by the rain. We were fairly well protected by their bodies and a few layers of dry clothes so it wasn’t cold for us. I was getting VERY seasick at that point and started looking for the closest rail to lean over, but they started playing some Bon Jovi music over the speaker, and the whole boat (at least the part that wasn’t wet and miserable) belted out “Livin’ On A Prayer”, and that helped push the nausea down for me. We were undoubtedly living on a prayer that night.
We made it back into the calm water of the harbor without losing our lunch and unloaded shortly after docking at around 11pm. We thanked the crew for an amazing experience and got back into our cars and headed out. We had the same hour and a half drive back and were even more exhausted once the adrenaline wore off. The kids were out instantly. I made it about 45 minutes and was falling asleep at the wheel and asked Noelle to take over. She did great driving the rest of the way, only turning the wrong way down a road and driving over one curb. We made it home around 12:45, but needed to stay up another hour to pack up now for our early flight tomorrow. No rest for the weary. I think we went to sleep around 1:45, but it’s a bit of a blur. I fell sleep as soon as my head hit the pillow, dreaming of the glory of swimming with manta rays after been given a fortuitous second chance.
