Yokohama Bay & Kaena Point

Posted on July 4, 2020 by sandersnm

We took advantage of the long holiday weekend and drove out to Yokohama Bay and Kaena Point. Lucky for us, the beach was empty and the hike wasn’t crowded at all. Highlights from the hike (besides the unreal views) include a Hawaiian Monk Seal swimming up on us as we dangled our feet in the water completely oblivious, the baby albatrosses, spotting a baby needle fish and a sea cucumber. Quite the wildlife adventure! We rewarded ourselves with some fantastic Puerto Rican food!

Empty beach!

Such a stunning view.

Baby albatrosses!

Sea cucumber

Baby needle fish

Yay friends!

Favorite view from the day.

Hawaiian Monk Seal!

Mofongo with garlic shrimp. So good!

Maui: Trip 4

Posted on January 11, 2019 by sandersnm

To ring in 2019 we headed to Maui to celebrate our friends getting married! We had a beautiful sunrise and some great views of Molokai and Lanai on our flight over.

Lanai

Windmills on West Maui.

We arrived on Saturday morning and had breakfast in Paia at Paia Inn Café.

Pineapple mint jalapeño juice. Delicious but so spicy!

Huevos Rancheros Verde: cumin black beans, two eggs, salsa verde, lime crema, queso fresco, with corn tortillas, and cilantro

After breakfast, we drove around and then headed to Lahaina to check in and get ready for dinner. We made reservations to visit our favorite restaurant, Mama’s Fish House, for dinner.

Crispy Mahi-Mahi Rolls with poha berry and Hamakua mushroom brandy sauce

Seared ahi special

Mama’s Stuffed Fish: Stuffed with lobster and crab, baked with a Macadamia nut crust

On Sunday, we walked around Lahaina and then met at Hale Pa’ahao Prison for the rehearsal before the rehearsal dinner at Old Lahaina Luau.

Hanging out at the prison!

Monday was the big day! The girls started their day at the Royal Hawaiian getting ready for the ceremony. We all got to wear the most incredible flowers in our hair! Caitlin was just stunning and we had a blast getting beautiful!

Beautiful rainbow to start our morning!

Getting beautiful!

Can’t get over how beautiful the flowers were!

Just stunning!

Next stop, the prison! It was a beautiful ceremony with more unbelievable flowers. After the ceremony, we boarded a whale watching boat to cruise around Maui, Lanai, and Molokai. We saw whales and an incredibly sunset.

Jake and Kersten!

Next stop was Down the Hatch in Lahaina followed by dancing at Monkeypod to ring in the new year! It was such a wonderful day celebrating!

Lahaina at night

Shots for Jake’s birthday at midnight!

Mitch’s Sushi

Posted on January 5, 2019 by sandersnm

We recently tried Mitch’s Sushi for the first time and it was AWESOME. Everything was super fresh and delicious!

Moorea

Posted on January 3, 2019 by sandersnm

After our cruise ended, we stayed an extra two days on Moorea in an overwater bungalow. This was an item on my bucket list that I never thought I’d have a chance to cross off. I don’t think I can truly put into words how awesome it was to stand on our deck and be able to see fish, stingrays, and sharks clearly. We spent every day walking outside, jumping into the water, and snorkeling for hours.

On our first day we checked in, grabbed lunch, and hopped in the water to snorkel. After snorkeling, we enjoyed some champagne, a sunset, and some pretty awesome stingray watching.

Saying bye to our ship from the ferry to Moorea!

Loved that we could sit and look at the water inside!

Quite a view.

This stingray seems to be missing it’s tail :(.

Huge pufferfish!

Spotted eagle ray. So graceful!

After our sunset, we headed to dinner at the crepe restaurant. At night, the blacktip reef sharks come to visit the restaurant so we had quite a few friends hanging out for dinner.

So cool.

Mango Rotui!

Delicious crepes for dinner!

After dinner, we crashed after our big day and got some sleep so we could do it all over again!

We woke up on Friday and started our day on stand up paddleboards in the lagoon. We saw tons of fish, sharks, and took in some great views. After that, we grabbed our snorkel gear and jumped in the water. The day brought more fish, more sharks, and a snowflake eel!

Pufferfish

Butterflyfish

Wrasse

Giant spider conch shell

Triggerfish who constantly protected her nest by attacking us as we got in the water.

Snowflake eel. So cool!

Longhorn Cowfish

Triggerfish

We ate dinner again with the sharks and organized ourselves so we could spend the morning in the water before we had to check out!

We woke up on Saturday and made the most of the few hours we had left. We spent the morning in the water with some familiar fish. We went pretty far out in the lagoon and on our way back we encountered a giant moray eel…which is the scariest thing I’ve seen in the water snorkeling and diving. He was really annoyed at us and came pretty far out from the coral and made it known he was pissed by baring his teeth at us. Pictures do not do this thing justice. Pretty cool that we got to see this without an incident!

View of our bungalow from the water.

Loved these tiny blue fish!

Giant moray eel

Another shot of the giant moray eel.

Super sad our bucket list vacay is coming to an end.

Had the best time ever!

Beautiful flowers in the lobby as we were heading out.

We checked out of our hotel, grabbed the ferry back to Tahiti, and headed to the airport to hang out until our flight left. No words can describe how incredible this trip was and the pictures only start to do everything justice. So thankful we were fortunate enough to see this part of the world! ❤

Cruise: Taihiti

Posted on January 2, 2019 by sandersnm

Our last stop on our cruise was Tahiti, the largest island in French Polynesia. We had one full day there and took full advantage of it. We started the day by having a lovely breakfast in our room, wandering around Papeete and visiting the market, then renting a car to drive around part of the island. Once we picked up the car, we headed North to start our trip around Tahiti Nui (we only had time to drive around the larger part of the island).

Lovely view for breakfast.

First visit to the market.

After stopping at a black sand beach and waterfall, we continued our rainy drive by a bright colored church and stopped at a botanical garden. Unfortunately the botanical garden seemed pretty desolate. However, we did see a Galapagos turtle but we were somewhat concerned since no one seemed to be there.

Our final stop on our tour of the island was the Maraa grotto. It was pouring down rain but well worth the stop. We met the cutest kitten and wished we could have taken her home with us!

Sweetest thing.

Such a cool photo of them walking away.

After a decent amount of time at the caves, we drove back to Papeete to return the car and explore more. We walked around the city, visited the market for lunch and souvenirs, and eventually made our way back to the ship to eat dinner and pack our bags for an early morning departure.

Loved the pearls everywhere.

Cruise: Raiatea

Posted on December 31, 2018 by sandersnm

Our next stop was Raiatea, where we actually docked vs. anchored in the bay. We were the very first people off the boat and rented another car to explore the island. We drove all the way around the island to see as much as we could.

After we circled the island, we walked through Uturoa and then had lunch on the boat. In the afternoon, we did a drift snorkel in a coral garden on Tahaa (Tahaa shares a lagoon with Raiatea). It was pouring rain when we left, which made for an adventurous boat ride across the lagoon. It cleared up and the snorkeling was incredible. We drifted right over a really shallow coral garden and saw a ton of fish and beautiful coral.

Enjoying some delicious fruit after our snorkel.

The water was so clear!

Bora Bora in the distance

After an amazing afternoon, we were the last to board the boat. We caught an amazing sunset from our balcony before a delicious dinner.

Cruise: Bora Bora

Posted on December 30, 2018 by sandersnm

Our next stop was Bora Bora, which is tied with Fakarava as my favorite stop on our trip. We were here for a day and a half, which was the longest port stay of the trip. We arrived in the afternoon and anchored off Vaitape. On our first evening there, we took a sunset cruise on a catamaran and explored the lagoon. It was an incredible evening and a great way to explore the water.

First shot of Bora Bora from our balcony.

Reading and enjoying the view.

Pulling in to anchor.

Getting ready for our sunset sail.

Just slightly windy.

Overwater bungalow mansions. These were insane!

After our sunset sail, we ate dinner at the food trucks in Vaitape. We decided to split a HUGE portion of fish. It was quite delicious and we enjoyed spending a night off the boat!

Food trucks.

Fancy food trucks with baskets of bread.

Huge portion of fish for dinner!

After dinner, we took a tender boat back to the ship and headed to bed to prepare for our early morning start to explore Bora Bora.

We woke up the next morning pretty early to grab the earliest tender boat and get to shore to explore. We rented a car (Fiat Panda) and drove around the entire island. Our first stop was Matira Beach, which we had entirely to ourselves. We were standing there enjoying the view when all of a sudden a stingray swam just inches from the shore. This was our first stingray spotting of the trip and it was such an awesome sight to see! I will never forget standing there and glancing down to see it!

Beach to ourselves.

Bungalows on the beach!

Stingray!

After a lengthy stop at Matira Beach we kept driving around the island. We stopped at various places to check out all of the views. We also had our first encounter with a land crab who was not overly pleased to see us!

Josh enjoying the view.

Land crab.

After we drove around the entire island, we went back to have lunch at a restaurant off Matira Beach. We had a great view of the beach, ocean, and stingrays!

Quite a view for lunch.

After lunch, we returned to Vaitape to return the car and meet up for our afternoon excursion of snorkeling. We spent quite the afternoon in the water. Our first stop was a coral garden where we saw a variety of fish, oysters, a huge stingray, and a blacktip reef shark. After that, we headed to our second stop to snorkel with stingrays and backtip reef sharks. It was shallow enough for us to stand the entire time as they swam around us. It was a surreal experience!

Oyster in the coral garden.

Such clear water.

Love the blue of the water in this picture.

After our tour was over, we headed back to catch a tender boat back to the ship and just enjoyed room service after a long, fantastic day!

Lanai: Trip 2 – Day 3

Posted on May 30, 2018 by sandersnm

Our last day started with a short hike to view Puu Pehe rock. Such a beautiful morning and we had it all to ourselves!

Decided to stop and explore the tide pools.

So beautiful!

I wasn’t ready for the picture :). But what a good picture of Josh!

Selfie!

After our hike, we went back to the hotel, packed up our stuff, and checked out of the hotel. Our last stop on our trip was Shipwreck Beach. It was QUITE windy but we had a great view of the largest shipwreck!

After Shipwreck Beach, it was time to return the car and head to the airport. We had such an amazing time and packed a TON in to a weekend!

The Big Island: Trip 5

Posted on December 11, 2017 by sandersnm

A couple weekends ago, we met our friends Lindsay and Channa on The Big Island for a quick trip. They were visiting from Seattle so we decided to crash their vacation for a couple days.

Saturday was a bit rainy so we slept in and then walked into Kailua for brunch. We ate at Daylight Mind Coffee Company (which was delicious) and then wandered back to our hotel.

My delicious (and pretty) latte.

Fish tacos

Papaya bowl and avocado toast

Such pretty flowers

After eating plenty of food, we decided to go on a short walk to the End of the Earth. We watched a few people jump off the rocks and enjoyed the spectacular view of the ocean.

Taking in the view

After a relaxing day, we walked to dinner and enjoyed the evening!

On Sunday we decided to go snorkeling at Two Step. Great location with tons of fish! Videos below!

After lots of snorkeling, we worked up an appetite. We ate lunch at Da Poke Shack before saying bye and venturing back to Oahu! The poke was DELICIOUS.

The Big Island: Trip 4 – Day 6

Posted on November 17, 2017 by sandersnm

Of all the amazing days we had planned on our trip, I think I was most excited about this day/night because we had our Manta Ray night snorkel. This had been on my bucket list for a few years so I was REALLY looking forward to it!

The snorkel definitely did not disappoint. We went with Wahine Charters and I would highly recommend them to anyone! We took off from the harbor, had a half hour boat ride filled with stars and arrived at the site ready to hop in the water. We held on to these light boards and the manta rays were attracted to the plankton that are attracted to the light. They do somersaults and almost look like they are going to swim straight for you and turn at the last minute. It was so incredible it completely took my breath away.