Weekend with Albert

This weekend was for sure the best weekend I've had on this island. -- it included staying in resort-like accommodations, kayaking on the pacific, chanting Hindu style, and swimming with dolphins!

On Friday all of us WWOOFers packed a cooler of food for the weekend. Albert took us all to Captain Cook that evening. We went camping at the farm owner's beach house. This place was amazing! A huge lot with two full houses (the caretakers live on the property for free and do indoor & outdoor work for these people--I'm very jealous of their situation. We all actually camped outside except that Pramod and I didn't bring our tent to the island so we got to sleep in the "tree house" which was so nice!

Albert was also great: he made lots of fish meals on his camping stove for the group, fish that he had caught, and he cooked veggie burgers for me.

The next day we all took out ocean kayaks. By the way, it turns out that I get extremely sea sick, at which time it helps to jump off the boat into the beautiful, blue, warm water. We went over to the Captain Cook monument and snorkeled. We love snorkeling and just watching the fish. On the way over we saw dolphins! Pramod and I got out of our kayaks to swim with them but got scared seeing the nothingness that was below us and went back. That was our dolphin experience for the day--seeing them swimming and jumping from the safety of our kayaks.

That night, Albert and everyone else moved to a different campsite. Pramod and I hitchhiked to a kirtan which we found out about through Monica and her hosts. It was so much fun and we met some really great people who made us feel like Hawaiias a living spot may not be such a stretch. So that was fun and exciting. Pramod also met an Indian man living here who is married to an American woman.

After that night of chanting, we returned to the group at the campside. Not for long: we left them again the next morning to swim at Kealakekua Bay (again) where Monica texted us from to let us know the dolphins were there! And the were just jumping, spinning and swimming around and under us the whole time we were there! It was incredible. I was so nervous to do it but Monica reassured us and we could hear them underwater. I guess they will sometimes actually be interested in a person and swim side by side with them. We didn't get that close, but I'm so happy by what we did get. What a magical place Hawaii is!