Nightglow Window

Thursday, January 18, 2007

Beach Day

Before dawn I drive up to Honolua Bay in what is becoming an enjoyable, albeit fruitless, hunt for some surf. Something is different today, though. No, it's still flat, but the clouds are gone and the wind is a bit less. I head back eager to get to the beach.

After yesterday's long, long day in the car, we decide to stay close to Kapalua today. So without a lot of preamble, we drive up to Kapalua Bay for the day.

It's a good call.

The bay is 200 yards wide and by now we know it pretty well: enter the water on the sandy north end, swim out over the shallow reef laced with fish, make a left as it gets deeper and visit several coral heads in the sandy center of the bay, head back right toward the top of the cove where several coral heads look like Dot candies, edge up to the deeps with some mild trepidation and look for turtles and other large creatures.

The underwater shots don't do it justice. We see Butterfly Fish, Unicorn Fish, Parrot Fish, Blue Boxfish, Yellow Tang, Moorish Idols, Angelfish, Pufferfish, Snowflake Moray Eels, and a rainbow of different corals.

I bake on the beach, the temperature in the 80s. Out the back, on the south side of the bay, a little peak keeps vying for my attention. It looks hollow and shallow and fun. I paddle out for a closer look.

The reef is way shallow and covered with red slate pencil urchins, but it's such a perfect little bowl that I can't resist.

I catch two or three fun little waves and the shallow, colorful reef races by just inches below the surface. Finally, I get a little too greedy and don't cut out in time. The reef drains and I'm drydocked, flapping around like a fish until the next wave comes, fills the reef, and rescues me.

Later, I ask the guy at the beach shack about the spot and he says it's called Scorpian Bowl, which I like.

(It's like rock climbing -- it's always a drag to put yourself out on the line only to find out later the climbing route you were on is called Daisy Field or Mr. Misty Kiss. "Yeah, see this scar here? I got that one on Mr. Misty Kiss." Just doesn't sound right, does it?)

So, Scoprian Bowl has a nice tough-guy sound to it and I bet the wave would be pretty incredible if there was some swell, but there isn't.

Sydney, Hannah, JP and Suze go to a luau in the evening, which gives Christy and I a night out alone -- which is nice at this point. We head down to Lahaina for drinks and appetizers and eventually have a small dinner in Ka'anapali.

It's a great day and we're sorry to be heading home tomorrow.