Snorkeling at Black Rock & A Drive on the West Side

Each part of the island has different types of beaches, which I love. The sand granules feel different under your feet (some are really fine while others are more course), the water is a little different color (depending on the tides and the reef(s) in that particular area), the sandy part of the beach is a different length and shape (which changes your laying out/walking on the beach experience a little), some beaches have a lot of trees creating more shade, but also more branches on the beach, some have no trees at all, the sand bar under the water is a different depth, the waves are different sizes, the wave breaks are different, etc... a different beach for every mood I suppose. 

Today we went to Black Rock in Lahaina/Ka'anapali area. The West side is the more touristy side, but the beaches are really beautiful. 

Brannon soaking up the sun with Catamarans in the distance.

Me soaking up the sun.

Black Rock is also a good place to go snorkeling, which we wanted to do while we're here.

Snorkeling! Here fishy fishy fishy...

After we left the beach, we went for a drive north up the west coast. It's a beautiful part of the island, very different from a lot of the other parts. Different vegetation, different beaches, cliffs, etc... We saw a beautiful double rainbow at the start of our drive that Brannon snapped some pictures of while we were driving (don't worry - he wasn't the one driving).

Double rainbow.

Then we continued driving up the coast, past Ka'anapali through Napili and through Kapalua. We ended up giving a couple people a ride to Windmills (also called Punalau Beach) because their car broke down and they were camping there. So we got to briefly see this camping spot that some of our friends had told us about. Next time, we'll have to camp up there - it was really different and pretty.

We stopped at Honolua Bay for a brief minute on our drive back, which is a beautiful bay - I don't think I've ever seen water that crystal blue. If we had more time before the sun went down we would've walked down to the bay and swam a little. But we continued on and pulled over to watch  the sunset on the side of the road. 

Hawaii rainbow.

Windmills - a great spot for camping right on the beach. Isolated on the north west side of the island. You can kind of get away from reality for a bit up here, and no phone service, which was a little freeing for the short time we were up there.

West side sunset.

Both of our phones died shortly after taking this photo, and we both had a little bit of a panicked feeling, knowing we were on the complete opposite side of the island, with few travelers passing through, with no businesses around, and if something were to happen to our car, we'd pretty much be out of luck. Then we started talking about how it wasn't that long ago that cell phones didn't exist - and how it's funny that we (as a society) have become so dependent on them in such a short period of time. And it's like that with most media these days. How quickly we become dependent on something that shortly before did not exist?

Well, anyway...it was a beautiful day, from beginning to end!