Pontooning

Another thing everyone should do while they are in Hawaii:

Rent a pontoon boat and head out to the sandbar in Kaneohe Bay.

The view is just incredible.

Of course, it will rain on you for five or ten minutes. It pretty much does this every day, no matter where you are on the island.

Bring an umbrella.

And don't complain. You're in Hawaii.

But then it clears up quickly and the glorious skies are visible once again.

We had twenty-eight people in our group. The kids all had a blast playing on floats and running around on the sandbar.

Katie swam around with a life jacket that was entirely too big for her.

You have to check the tide charts before you reserve a boat. The sandbar is only exposed when the tide is really low. Some days it is the size of a football field, some days it is a little smaller. If you don't read the charts, you will arrive to find there is no sandbar at all.

This is Coconut Island, although you may know it as "Gilligan's Island". Remember in the opening credits of Gilligan's Island when they showed the USS Minnow beached in a little cove? This is where that scene was filmed. Now it's part of a military base and there's a big, ugly building there. But it's still pretty cool. I saw every episode of Gilligan's Island ever made when I was a kid.

I'll bet my children don't even know who Gilligan was.

Maybe I'll do a unit study on it with them and call it retro-homeschooling day.

It's pretty cool how parts of the sandbar are covered in water that is only ankle deep. It looks like you are just walking out into the ocean.

The teens played ultimate frisbee for quite a while. How many people do you know who can say they played frisbee on a sandbar out in the ocean? I mean, well, I know a lot of people who can say that, but do you?


This is the sandbar!


This is the life!