North Shore | Malaekahana Beach Life

Once we reached the North Shore, ultimate laziness set in. All we wanted to do, all day, every day, was drive to Ted’s Bakery for coffee and breakfast, fill sacks with fruit from a roadside vendor, and spend every moment in between on our beach, playing in the water, swinging in a hammock and/or stuffing our faces with tropical fruit.

my failed shaka attempt

Every morning Sly woke up early to swim in the ocean. The ocean still freaks me out a bit (okay, a lot) so I was happy to stroll along the beach before the crowds arrived and cheer from the sidelines.

One of our favorite things to do in Hawaii is buy loads of tropical fruit from the fruit stands on the side of the road. On this trip we literally purchased bags full of fruit, so much so that our fruit lady always slipped quite a few freebies into our bag(s). Breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks, we ate fruit at nearly ever meal.

Our favorite fruit was liliko’i, or passion fruit. We ripped the liliko’i in half, scooped around the edges with a plastic spoon (stolen from Ted’s) and slurped down the tart insides as if taking a wonderfully sweet and sour shot.The best and sweetest liliko’i fruits were slightly brown and wrinkly on the outside. We frequented our favorite fruit lady so many times during our trip that by the time we left, we didn’t even need to ask for our fruit. “Couple pounds of wrinkled  liliko’i again?” We smiled and nodded. She knew us well.

We brought a brand new tarp with us to Hawaii which meant we never tested it prior to our trip (as usual). As a result, we spent a good chunk of the morning struggling to set up our tarp in direct wind. The tarp caught the wind like a sail and was impossible to tie down. With each failed attempt we grew more and more agitated. Finally we came to the conclusion that we didn’t bring the correct type of sand stakes and gave up.

Instead I found a shady cove of trees a few steps from our cabin and set up our hammock. Sly jumped back in the water while I swayed gently in my little tree hideaway.

Unable to resist the call of the ocean, I eventually joined Sly.

We body surfed and swam and splashed each other in the face (grrr) and laid on the beach until the waves crashed over our legs and our butts sank deeper into the sand.

Hours later, we washed up in our outdoor shower, changed, and hiked along the beach to a coastal trail that we saw from our cabin. The little trail passed by a field of grazing horses on one side and foamy crashing waves on the other.

The sun gently slipped behind the mountains embracing everything in its warm glow one last time. In its place, dark storm clouds rolled in over the ocean. The waves crashed violently against the rocks and the wind picked up even more.

For some, this was the perfect time to catch a wave, but for us it was the perfect time to grab a bite to eat before a potential downpour.  We stopped by Giovanni’s shrimp truck just up the road from camp and placed our order only minutes before they ran out of garlic shrimp. We barely had enough cash to order one plate of shrimp, which we split. Good ol’ Giovanni’s – as good (and as garlicky) as we remembered.

We returned to camp by nightfall and once again were greeted with a spectacular view. On our cabin deck we sipped on beverages, ate some more fruit, and talked the night away. A few nearby campers stumbled into our site in an attempt to access the beach, and were completely startled to find two dark shadows sitting on the porch watching their every move. Meanwhile, our closest cabin neighbors built a huge bonfire and invited us to help ourselves to their stash of beer. And yet another set of neighbors spent the entire evening in a tent they pitched beside the cabin.

After a long and lazy day of doing nothing, we were content to simply sit on our porch, watch the glowing, moonlit, ocean, and listen to the crackle of bonfires and the muted giggles of campers who finally found their way down to the beach.

It never did rain.

Good night, Malaekahana.