The Big Island: Spending an Easter on the beach in Hawaii

This past Sunday was Easter Sunday and the second time that we have spent this holiday in Hawaii. We started the day with a hike to see the petroglyphs on the big island. These ancient carvings are many centuries old, with their exact meanings unknown.

 There are literally thousands of these carvings in a fairly small area.

Then, after spending a couple of hours checking out the petroglyphs, we met up with some old friends of mine who live on the island and they had a treat in store for us. They know of a very cool beach called Makelewena Beach, which is not used by tourists, and is only accessible with a 4-wheel drive vehicle. There is NO WAY that a rental car or even a non-raised 4-wheel drive vehicle could make this hairy trek (see the video below).

It was a bumpy ride, but the whole family loved the experience!

It was also really nice to be on a beautiful beach with very few people.

Devin, the son of my college friend, really enjoyed digging in the sand, and of course, I enjoyed capturing images of him.

As we were hiking back to the trucks, we came across this sea turtle who was parked up on the rocks. We have swam with these large creatures many times, but it is still exciting when we see them up close. This guy was probably about 3 feet long, but some of the larger turtles can be double that size.

I had my Canon 100-400mm lens with me, so that I could get some really nice tight shots of the turtle without invading his space.

Just after seeing the turtle, I came across this lone tree on the shoreline. I love the composition of this images, with the lone tree and rock with endless ocean in the background.

Here is a group shot of my family and Julie's family just before departing Makelewena Beach.
We left this beach, went to the market and bought a bunch of food to BBQ, and then headed for another beach to cook up Easter dinner. What a great way to spend Easter in paradise.

These last two shots were taken from the beach at "mile marker 69", where we were treated to yet another pretty Hawaiian sunset.

Stay tuned for the upcoming blogs including our trip to the volcano! Aloha.