Hawaii Day 8: time to say goodbye

Marc's vacation beard
One last sunset on the lanai

On our last morning in Hawaii we wanted to make the most of it. We got up early, despite only 6 hours sleep, and went back to the beach where the turtles live to snorkel there one last time. The day before my snorkel mask had broken so that of the two rubber straps on the back of my head, only one was still intact. I was praying it would hold through this one last trip in the water, although without the upper strap my snorkel more easily filled with water, it did not break further. We visited the turtles one last time and watched them happily. We got out of the water and sat at the edge and watched them from outside the water for a half hour, silently saying goodbye. We went back to the hotel, ahead of schedule and swam again in the pool, amused by one of the residents telling fish stories to some unwilling listeners.

We stopped at the farmer's market to load up on fruit to take home. When we told the man from whom we bought 10 papayas for $1 our plan he told us we would not be allowed to take them on the plane-- he said only pineapple is allowed because of some kind of fruit fly quarantine. We decided to risk it since they were only $1 and also bought a pineapple.

We went back to Island Lava Java to print our boarding passes for our flight, and to grab lunch to go. By the time our food arrived we had only one hour until boarding and we still needed to get gas, return the rental car, and get to the gate. I have never cut a flight so close before. As it turned out, boarding was delayed 20 minutes, and the airport (most of which is outside) was unbearably hot, so we were glad we only had to wait about 25 minutes. We hopped on a short flight to Maui and then had a mad dash across the airport to catch our flight to Seattle. It was at Maui where they scanned our bags and took away the papaya. I was not surprised, but sad for sure.

We arrived back in Seattle at 10:30pm, and home after midnight. It was overcast and cool in Seattle and I had done such a good job putting all thoughts of real life and responsibility out of my head that it took me two full days back at home before I could really function. Still enamored of Hawaii I looked up the Hawaiian Dietetic Association to see if there were jobs on the Big Island, but didn't find much outside Honolulu.

We had a truly fantastic, restful, wonderful trip. Maui a few years ago was our best vacation ever to that point and this at least matched if not surpassed it. We we definitely go back, and maybe some day life will even take us there to live.