Day 34

Today I painted the trim below the soffeting for three hours straight, it got rather monotonous but it was okay. Anyway earlier while making breakfast Derek was talking about this black sand beach him and Todd went to yesterday where there are lava tubes and you can swim in one with skylights. Sabina heard about it to and after work she said, you wanna maybe go try and check it out? We meet almost everyday now at 1:30 and go off on an adventure. We are so lucky she has a car and is fun to hang out with. So we started north towards to the airport area. It was the furthest we’ve been that direction thus far and it was a peculiar feeling passing the airport for the first time since we got here. It brought up feelings of our arrival and first impressions of everything. It was an interesting drive. The big hill on our left had black streams of lava rock flowing from it that were one-hundred years old but the pattern almost made it look fresh. Also, for my dearest mother, on this highway there were bushes of very bright flowers in purple, orange, pink, red, just filling the sides, I’ll try and get a picture sometime. Another weird thing was the sides of the road are embankments of black lava rock with a different type of graffiti on them. People haul white smooth stones from the ocean and write things on the lava with them by lining them up to spell things. Names, years, dedications, all sorts of stuff. I even saw a little note it Japanese. So we were supposed to take a turn by mile 83, we found it and turned on something that did not quite look like you sjould drive on it. This is a very local secret spot, sort of. There was a huge octogon house/fort thing where we parked and maybe four other people on a vast expanse of black sand beach. Gorgeous bright blue sky day. We walked on a little lava rock mordor path to the left and found some little private sandy beach section, archways, and walked back. Then we took the car a little further down to the lava tube area. It is just off the path into some trees and there is a huge hole in the ground surrounded by rocks (like the well in apocolypto but not so deep) with a little wooden ladder leading into the water. We climbed in and it was very cold, but clear chest deep water, not salt water. We walked through under the stone to a skylight. You’ll have to see the pictures, but it was just serene and calm, a little eerie in the dark corners, but so worth it. After that we went back to the beach and tried letting the waves push us forward on the boogie boards, it was cool but hell on your knees. It was a nice moment after we all pull out a book around the same time and just read for about half and hour in companionable silence. Its nice we are all similar people who enjoy that sort of thing. When we go tin the car o go home Jeremiah couldn’t find his shirt or hat anywhere and we decided to just leave without them. We were talking about where we could have left them and Sabina says how bad she is about leaving things on the roof of her car and Jeremiah shouts “There it is”. On the side of the road his hat, sunglasses and shirt in a cute little pile, we stopped and grabbed it and had a good laugh. On the way home we stopped at the harbor for sunset, not many clouds so it was the usual pink-orange orb that looks bigger then in Oregon, but oh well. When we got home Marianna had been making vegetarian chilli all day and we got a large portion to take for dinner. It was delicious! A very awesome day with easy work and a great rip afterwards, we are sure gonna miss Sabina and her rental car and knowledge when she leaves. She seems to know everything and the safe way to interact with the ocean, which we are clueless about. She is always saying “So . . . its okay”. I can swim but I get tired really easy and am always kind of freaked out about waves and getting in and out off rocks and she always makes sure I’m okay, its very nice and reassuring.