Hawaii 2010
Having recently been on the world's longest zipline, I was eager for more! The promise of 9 ziplines seeing the beautiful landscape of the Big Island? Sign me up!
We had a wonderful guide, a stop at Tex's for ridiculously good malasadas (the Hawaiian and Portuguese take on the jelly donut), and then off to the zipline! Much to my surprise, Sophia/Ray/Annie's mom joined us, and heck, I think she had more fun on the ziplines than the kids did!
Sadly no pictures, although Alicia, Sophia, Daniel, etc. probably have theirs somewhere (and the manta rays, too). I wasn't about to hang upside down or starfished' for 2,000 feet on a zipline dangling my SLR, although in retrospect maybe I should've, as I could've used the extra weight to make me go faster! We did have one accident where Tony went too fast and bounced off the brake, tho... and a few where people got stuck.
Honestly I think the people who got stuck got a better deal, as they got to see more of the streams and landscapes from high in the air than the rest of us suckers did.
We then got packed off to the dive shop, Big Island Divers, for the manta ray night dive. Turns out this is the number one night dive in the entire world (!), and for good reason. You wait for sunset to enter the water, descend to the bottom, then manta rays from 600lb to 1500lb swim over you, while you sit on the bottom in 35 feet of water, shining your dive light up to attract the plankton that the manta rays feed on. Above you on the surface, a hord of snorkelers shines their lights down.
The experience is truly surreal.
After feeling like were were in a scene out of Aliens or Event Horizon or Star Trek... we were all low on air and came back to the surface, where we then had a quick dinner at the only restaurant right on the pier, Bite Me. Then surprise surprise, another early morning awaited.