secret beach

We headed out past La Perouse bay and walked along the Hoapili trail through the lava beds.


where it was really hot. Along the way we saw whale spouts and at least two whales surfacing

heres a blow up:

which was really cool. I subsequently read in a National Geographic article that for every whale you see at the surface in that channel (a protected area for the whales), there are many, many more nearby but deeper underwater.

The path was a little hard on the feet, and ended up in a few rocky bays where people had taken their 4x4s on impressively bad roads and camped out. There really wasn't much in the way of nice beaches though, and Chloe and I settled on a narrow spit of lava and padded out over the lava stone and coral pebbles into the water to watch crabs scuttle around on the sides of the lava flow. We ate the turkey sandwiches that we had made and then started back on the trail. Shortly after the trail started, we noticed a path which led to a remote swathe of green which in turn led to what looked like a rocky cove, so we followed the trail down to the water. A beautiful sandy and secluded beach awaited us


which appeared to have been settled at some point, so we were careful to stay away from the old walls. The waves reflect off the lava peninsula at the right, so some very strange waves come through the cove, but it made for a cool and exciting (you always had to look around to make sure you weren't about to get clocked in the side of the head by an errant wave) swim. While I was relaxing and looking out over the water I saw a whale breach and then come crashing down into the water. We subsequently saw four more breaches, but only managed o catch the splash of one on film

I think most people have seen photos of whales breaching, but it is one of those experiences that is hard to convey in pictures or in print. They really are spectacular animals, and it made our chance "discovery" of the beach that much more special. The only time I had seen whales in the wild before was from the cliffs of torrey pines park in San Diego, and they were definitely not breaching!

We headed back to the hotel after we ran out of water and caught up with Dave and Sandy for a while, who had been in the area (Wailea) shopping.