Paia Thursday March 14

Slipping into vacation mode a bit more with each day. Today was a chill at the beach day. I didn't take my big camera because I don't like to leave it on the beach while we swim, so I don't have many pictures. (A common conundrum!).

We had a quick breakfast and then got out of our little funky apartment. Ack! I just looked up the price of purchasing an apartment here. Remember this is simple living for these three days, just a rented one bedroom apartment found on the internet. These babies cost $300,000 to purchase! There is a $6,000,000 home just down the street, so I guess if makes sense. These are located next to the wind surfing capital of the world. Location. Location. Location! The apartment below us is getting renovated and they were drilling into the cement ceiling. Just a bit noisy, so we were happy to go to the beach.

Baldwin Beach is beautiful! I walked the length of it and found a pool in the ocean. Really! There was a band of flat rock aobut 20 feet out that protected the beach. There were actually a couple of people there swimming laps. You could just tell that they did it often. So you are swimming along with the surf coming up and slightly over the rocks and this perfectly clear/calm water to swim in. I asked a local and they said the nickname for the area is Mama's Beach. Go figure...any Mama would want to bring her babies here. There were a few young families there enjoying the calm shallow waters.

Mana Grocery store called out to me a lunch, so Mike took me there and we got some great food at their deli. I tried a raw pizza. No we didn't bake it in the sun. It was all raw. Oh my! I will try to recreate this at home. So good. It didn't hurt that we ate it on a picnic bench overlooking our next beach! Ho'okipa Beach.
Can you find the turtles in this picture?

There weren't any kite surfers this day because the wind was fairly calm.

This was where I spent some quality time reading. 

About 4 we went back to our place so Mike could get a bit of work done. I went into town to shop for the perfect beach hat. Mine is too floppy and blows around too much. When I came home Mike was not working! He was watching the first F1 (Formula 1) car practice of the year. The race is in Australia and will run tomorrow. Way to vacation Mike!