Sea Sickness, Sore Throat & Sunburn

Okay, before I start, let me say that Darren and I are still having a blast. Despite the title of this post, we are loving the island, the sun, and the surf.

Monday night, Darren complained of a sore throat. I thought it was just all the talking we had done with Steve? and Amanda at the Luau. Unfortunately, he woke up Tuesday morning with a very sore throat. It's obvious one of this glands is swollen and it really hurts him to swallow. But off we went to go Snuba diving.

It took a bit of getting used to (okay, a lot), to remember to breathe completely with your mouth. Darren wasn't overly comfortable in the water, but after a lot of convincing, he headed out, holding onto the float holding the air tank. I was okay underwater, until I started breathing out through my nose, which made the seal on my mask break and my mask fill with water. Towards the end, I actually started feeling nauseous. I've never been motion sick in my life!

Despite Darren's apprehension and my inability to breathe, Snuba diving was a great experience. There were plenty of fish down there and it was a great experience to be able to feed them and watch them swim around. Hopefully the pictures we took with the underwater cameras will turn out. If not, we shelled out the $35 (yes...35!) bucks for the DVD that he recorded while we were down there.

Darren's throat was still hurting and I was still feeling a bit queasy, so we decided to just head back to the condo. We have other days to go up to the canyon. We need to enjoy ourselves and if that means taking a day off and resting, that's what it takes.

Somehow, my pasty white skin is now a delicate shade of red. I swear, I was wearing sunscreen, but I still got it. Not badly, enough to wake me up when I rolled over, but that was about it. Darren of course is just getting dark.

We had breakfast and lunch at the condo. It's working out great. For dinner, we tried Brenneckes. Everything I read said it was really good and reasonably priced. We were not impressed. We made reservations, yet when we got there, we had to wait. You can't tell me that everyone sitting down had reservations. Then, after finally getting a seat, the menu had a lot less choices than I'd seen before. And the prices were a lot higher than I expected. They were about the same as Duke's. However, Duke's had a great atmosphere, very Hawaiian, nice, yet relaxed. Brennecke's is on top of a booking agent for tours, and it looks more like a diner. A very old, worn out diner. Darren had some fish, and I had shrimp scampi. You would think a $27 bowl of pasta would fill me up. Not even close. I've made better shrimp scampi at home.
Oh well, you live, you learn. We still haven't found a place that tops the Lemongrass Seafood Grill. We plan on going back there on our last night here (unless something is able to top it!).

Wednesday we are thinking of heading North, up towards Princeville area. The great thing about this island is nothing is too far away. Hopefully Darren is feeling better. He had a rough night - wide awake at 1:00 am. He's still sleeping now, so hopefully he'll be able to get some rest so that we can have a good day.

The roosters are still crowing. I no longer want to kill every rooster I hear crowing (just the one who likes to do it RIGHT outside our condo). The breeze coming off the ocean is absolutely amazing. It keeps our non-air conditioned condo relatively cool. I'm going to miss the sound of the surf hitting the beach. I'm going to miss the smell. The smell of freshness and green. I'm going to miss seeing the ocean on one side and the ancient mountains on the other. There's still so much of the island we haven't seen yet. It's hard to believe that our full days are 1/2 over.

My mind has been on my family a lot the last few days. I hope and pray that everything is going well back home with my brother. I pray that he is healing well after the surgery and that the tests come back clear. I pray for my mom, that she continue to find the strength that our family needs. She is our rock and our comfort. But I realize that is a large weight on her shoulders. I ask for your prayers as well for my family.