Day 3: Happy Anniversary & Thanksgiving

Happy sixth wedding Anniversary to us and Happy Thanksgiving. I got up a little earlier than Shashi checked sms and voice messages all wishing us a Happy Anniversary. I showered and got ready to wake Shashi with anniversary wishes. Shashi as usual grabbed the newspaper left by our door to browse through the headlines. He jumped up in delight saying that though tremors were biggest on the big island a mild aftershock was felt in all the islands. Lucky for us phew just a mild aftershock. We all later gathered down for breakfast. We met a sweet French couple who were nice to talk to. Later Chandan and Payal met us back in our room to surprise us with Luau photographs from the previous night. They had sneaked out last night and purchased photos to gift us. A thoughtful gift indeed! The day’s agenda was to visit a north shore beach, stop at Waimea Falls park, visit Dole plantations and then get back to hotel. Later in the evening leave for the dinner cruise. We packed our bags with some swimwear, beach towels and flip-flops. The day was bright and shiny was best for outdoorsy stuffs. We drove to a north shore, there were so many surfers getting ready to catch the big waves. I believe there was some surfing world tournament due that week, was not sure as have never been a water sporty gal. There were some Almond and Macadamia trees by the shore. I got to pick a few fallen almond fruits and found a rock to break open them to see if I could find some nuts. Not a great tool for busting open almonds, a big disappointment and an effort in vain.

Anyhoo! Payal and I found a nice rock formation to stand on to experience the waves. It was so exciting for us, sure the surfers fighting big waves must have felt, what a dare? boo hoo. But that’s all the dare we may ever gather to do [hee hee]. The waves were big and swept the rocks and touched our feet it was a lot of fun. After the wave catching we headed to waimea falls. It was around a mile and a half round trip hike to and back from falls. The nature around was splendid, lots of tropical trees just like ones we would find in India. We were trying to recall most of names with the little botanical knowledge we had. The waterfall was beautiful. Not the great swimmers that we were, we changed to our suits and got life jackets for protection. The water felt chilly at first but once we were in was fun. None of us dared to swim to the falls as we were warned it got as deep as 30 feet close to the falls. Not exactly the dare devils we kept ourselves to the shore. We were booed by a bunch of people who swam past us, but we held our heads high not bothered and had our fun [sharam kis bath ki LOL]. I bounced around for a while and realized my feet no longer touched the surface, I tried hard not to panic and held my breath and asked Chandan for help. Luckily I hadn’t floated away much and he pulled me to shallow waters. Later payal and I literally kept to the "hardly any water" zone. We later dried ourselves and dressed up to hike back. We had our lunch at the Waimea Café, some Taro bread burgers & Fries. For drinks we got iced tea that hardly had any flavor. We spotted some peacocks and peahens which were a treat to watch.

Post lunch we made a pit stop at Dole plantations, some click-click here and click-click there and were back on the road to the Hotel. It was soon evening and time for Dinner Cruise. We drove to Aloha Towers where we were supposed to board the Altantis Cruise. We had some time to kill so took a walk in the Aloha Tower Marketplace. After a while it was time to board the cruise. We were seated in the lower deck and served cocktail drinks. Chandan & Shashi went for the blue Hawaiian and I took the Pinacolada. We went to the upper deck to catch the evening breeze and sunset. After a while we came back down for the dinner buffet. The menu was salad greens, mashed potatoes with herbs, buns, butter, cooked vegetables, mahi-mahi, chicken and pineapple cake, sliced fruits for dessert. For entertainment there was a live orchestra and hula dancers. Shashi and Chandan were invited and escorted to perform with the Hula dancers. We had loads of fun. After all the gala we went out and sat to enjoy the view of the city and the evening breeze. We got back to the shore, drove back to the hotel and retired early that night. It was a splendid end to our sixth anniversary.