Kua Bay, a baby, and our fish lands on our plates.

We indeed hit the brakes a little today, starting with our morning swim at Kua Bay, about ½ hour drive south of our Hale. When we arrived, guides Ryan and Kekau had set up a tent canopy for us. Swimming here is a bit of a no-brainer, we do 400 yard laps across the mouth of the bay between 2 lava rocks. I guided Charlie for a few laps, using a technique Ryan had developed for keeping him swimming straight. It involves swimming in front of him while wearing a pair of bright red fins, and keeping the fins placed so he can see them. Slick. 

A turtle watched us swim our laps across Kua Bay from underneath a coral head.

Chris has made huge strides in endurance in open water this week. He charged across the bay this morning.

Sisters Kim and Angie played after their laps, running a rock like the surfers do.

Those pesky dolphins showed up again, spinning and splashing. We could clearly hear them underwater. A big turtle greeted us on the north end of the bay. I can only describe the color of the water here as yummy. After our swim, we lingered in the shade of our tent, and Kekau took Kyle on a couple of advanced adventures, the second with Heather to a deep water arch to swim under.

I like to cook, so Clare and Dan let me grill burgers once during every trip here. This time we also had salmon burgers, which was a popular option today for lunch. 

Some of us jumped in for an afternoon swim in Waialea Bay, which had become a little cloudy after a day of waves. Sticking with our rule of not swimming in deep, cloudy water when we don’t have to, we changed our original course to one that brought us to the south end of the bay, where it was really calm, and Kyle and I hung out with a very large turtle. 

Heather did some synchro swimming and drafting practice with Kimberly, Angie and Patricia. The bouncy yards across our bay flew by with a lot of coordination and laughter.

Our massage therapist Amanda soon arrived with her 5-week old baby, Mira. I’m the age where none of my friends are having babies anymore, but I’m not quite grandparent age either, which when you combine with the social distancing of the pandemic, results in me not having held a baby in over 3 years. This was quickly remedied by baby Mira, who is really calm and curious. She got passed around quite a bit while Amanda and her colleague Daniel took care of our guests' sore muscles. 

Cheese, crackers, and all kinds of spreads greeted our post-massaged guests, and we had some rose wine on ice. Chef Dan prepared some Ono sashimi, then seared some for our main course, and served it with baby potatoes and vegetables. It’s fun to know that we just landed that fish yesterday.

We finished our day by making a plan for swimming the Ironman course down in Kona tomorrow. With a week of great swims, fresh Ono and massage under their belts, I think this group is ready. 

Hopper