We spent the last five days of 2009 in Hawaii, primarily on the Kona side. It was an amazing time. We had warm, sunny weather, did plenty of snorkeling, went to a luau, saw turtles (including while snorkeling), visited Blue Sky Coffee, the Kona Brewing Company(fresh Wailua Wheat and Pipeline Porter were out of this world), saw steam rising from Kilauea caldera and lava flowing into the ocean, visited the southern most point in the USA, spotted one nene, and we had the amazing luck to spend barely a half hour at the Black Sand Beach but we were in the right place at the right time to be the first humans to see a baby Hawksbill turtle as it crawled up through the sand of its nest and ventured off into the ocean (click here for video)!
Pictures are over at flickr, but here are a few highlights…
Lies
Turtle
Snorkel
Luau
Sunset
Lava
Gecko
Palm trees