Day 16: Tunnels & Luau
One last snorkel adventure – at Tunnels Beach. This reef is so big you can see it in pictures from space. On our way over I captured a nice rainbow over the north shore backdrop – a pretty start to our day.
There was a sad thing that happened though, and I am sure everyone will be so disappointed when you hear what happened. When we went to put the camera in the waterproof bag on this morning, we discovered that we were missing the screw-on lens cover! Oh no! We had taken it off the day before after snorkeling to clean the case, and I was sure it was put back in the blue bag. But after a search everywhere, we were unable to find it. So no more fish pictures! I know, you are in great despair! I am so sorry for your great and terrible disappointment!
Anyway, the beach was gorgeous, and the snorkeling awesome. The reef is so huge we could not even hope to cover the entire thing. We walked down and entered a sand channel as far to the east as we could, swimming out pretty deep, then floating back to the west with the current. We covered quite a bit of the reef actually, and saw tons of fish, including some new ones we had not seen yet. No turtles though. We spent several great hours at this before grabbing lunch and heading back.
We spent a while at the pool in the afternoon and then got ready for our evening – the luau! We went to Smith’s Tropical Paradise for our luau. We were nervous when we got caught in a major traffic jam but ended up arriving in enough time for the imu ceremony. Usually, for the hour before the ceremony, you can tour their tropical paradise, so we had to skip that part. The imu ceremony was cool – they unearth the pig from the ground, and the owner explained some stuff which was interesting. After that, we then took a quick walk around the gardens to see them before dinner was served.
We both totally pigged out at the buffet. They had the pig of course, plus teriyaki beef, chicken adobo, sweet & sour mahi-mahi, lomi-lomi salmon, poi, salad, bread, etc. For desert, they had coconut milk, rice pudding, fruit, and coconut cake for desert. I will just throw in here, that Bill had FOUR pieces of coconut cake! The poi was not exactly bad tasting, it just wasn’t good tasting. Just bland blah. But the rest of the food was great, which is why we kind of pigged out.
By then it was dark, and they lit torches all around the ponds and the paths which was beautiful, and we went down to the show. The show was great, although my pictures of it are crummy. My little camera just isn’t capable of good illumination and zoom. They finished off their show with the Samoan fire dance, which was pretty cool.
Smith’s does a great job – they have great service, very friendly people, good food, and a great show. We were thoroughly happy with our luau experience!
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