Hawaii - Feb 1, 2026 - Day 9 - Hanalei Bay

We loaded the car with all the things we needed for the day. Food, chairs, boogie boards and water/drinks. We headed out after breakfast at our place to make the 1 hour, 15 minute drive to Hanalei Bay.  It was about 10:30 am.

After going to 3 parking lots, we headed back to the 2nd one that still had a parking spot to park in along the beach.  We packed up chairs, our food and went to sit by the beach. The waves were pretty big, and there were a lot of surfers out there.  Instead of heading for the water, we decided to get AA's camera from the car, and walk to the pier that we remembered from being there a few years go.

This is definitely a place people come to walk along the beach, so we decided to join them. In total we walked 4.35kms and it took us about 1 hour 8 minutes.  We both took a lot of photos, and enjoyed our walk and the views.  

At the far end there is a stream that comes into the ocean, the water is sure cold coming in there, and runs really quickly.

Back at our chairs, AA set up the umbrella we brought and we enjoyed our packed lunch.  It was easy just to sit there and watch all the surfers, and people walking along the beach, especially under the comfort of the umbrella.

After a while, we moved down to a "safer" section of the bay to do some boogie boarding.  AA was worried Lola was getting swept away in the waves, so we caught a few waves, and then swam back to shore. We enjoyed the sun to dry off, and moved 1 more time, closer to the car to sit and enjoy the views and ocean before it started to drizzle and we packed up and headed back to the car.  We had a reservation at 5 pm near our place, so we had to leave by 3pm to get back.

After we went in the ocean...

Location number 3...

clouds rolling in.

a one-way bypass.

Once back at our place, we cleaned up, and realized we should have put sunscreen on before our walk along the beach.  We got a little burnt, both of us. 

Lola called her mom to have a chat, where they let her watch the Canadian woman's curling final (which she had been following all week by the scores, unable to watch).  But they went to an extra end, and we had to go for supper so, we had to hang up, and she got sent the video of the last shot of the extra end.

We walked to Brennecke's, which is right by the turtles at Poipu Beach, we had a reservation at 5, but had to wait for our table to open up.  Lola had a Maui Brewing Root beer, and AA enjoyed his Kona Brewing beer.  The food was delicious, AA had the fish and chips, while Lola had the Seafood Tom Kha Soup, with Ono, Shrimp and Scallops in a Thai Coconut broth.  We both enjoyed our meal very much.

After supper we headed to see our Turtle friends, but wow was it windy.  The sand was blasting us in the face.  But we saw the turtles, headed to see the monk seal, and the lone turtle at the other end of the beach, while waiting for the sun to set.  A man took our photo, and even asked us to look at each other with the turtle in the background, it was pretty amusing.

checking where the moon was.

We couldn't see the turtles coming to shore as the water was so rough, and we couldn't see any whales or dolphins in the water as the waves were huge.  It sure changed from the day before. 

We also tried to see if we could wait for the moon to rise, but it was too windy and "cold" and the clouds were sure rolling in, so we just headed back to our place to tend to our sunburns with Aloe, and pack our bags.  Lola beat AA in a few games of cribbage as well.

It was a relaxing day, but still got a lot of steps in.