This was a pretty amazing beach on Maui. Each island had a departing point for souls. On Maui, this was the point in which natives believed that souls departed and were reunited with their ancestors in the afterlife. Because of this, many battles were fought near here. The legend is, that if someone didn't have any ancestors to usher them into the after world, that their souls would fall into the ocean and attach to a rock. Juliet was CONVINCED that we were going to some haunted, scary place when we were describing this place. Once we were here, though, she loved it. Both girls usually both LOVE to pick up rocks (I have to clean out Leah's coats and backpack every few weeks, as she's up to 5 pounds or so of fancy, "crystal" rocks that she's picked up and stashed in each spot). However, neither girl dared to pick up a rock here.
This beach had the best turtles. We saw turtles at some point at nearly every beach we swam in. However, this beach had the biggest sea turtles. The law is that you have to stay 10 feet away, but these guys were so big and there were so many, that it was impossible to do that here. They loved to swim along the rocks. One of the biggest guys was like 4 feel long and reminded me of a dinosaur. Leah loved being near these guys the first time we came here. Juliet was scared out of her mind and wanted to be far, far away from these giant beasts. Leah and I had a lot of fun watching them swim. I never got the best pictures of them, though.
Juliet had the most fun ever with her $1 raft. She loved to play in the waves. She used this raft exclusively for the first part of the trip, for the second part she used arm swimmies.
Here is a random sunset picture that was taken the evening we went to Black Rock for the first time. Juliet loved the moon. She kept telling me that the moon reminded her of God's thumb nail.
Nobody jumped off the cliff the first visit, and the sea turtles were so cool that I knew I wanted to come back to this beach. So, we did. Before we left for vacation, Juliet was filling up bowls of water and putting straws in them to drink out of. I got annoyed, and asked her why she was doing that. She said she was practicing drinking out of a coconut. So when someone was selling coconuts on the beach, I knew we needed to get one. The coconut water was really good--way better than you buy in the stores. We all enjoyed it.
On this day, the water was really wavy. Juliet was fine with her swimmies as long as she was past where the waves broke and one of us were in the water, too. One time, she was getting out of the water a few feet a head of me and a wave just totally took her down. He hair and face were full of sand. She was scared of the water for a bit, but then I told her that she was bigger, and stronger than the water. She believed me and went back in (with us, of course).
They also liked to bury each other.
Chris decided he would jump off the cliff. Leah wanted to watch, so Chris took her to the top of the boulders to a secure spot to let her watch.
And then he jumped. I like this succession of pictures of him jumping.
After that, Leah decided that she *really* wanted to jump. So, we took her. If you kept walking/climbing past the highest point, there were lower cliffs to jump from. I wanted to jump from high, but talked myself out of it. I jumped from 5 feet, which was plenty high enough for me. I had to time my jumps so I didn't jump on a sea turtle, though. Leah jumped from 10 feet. I was so worried. I swam in the ocean in front of her and just kept reminding her to JUMP OUT, not down. As I was in the ocean treading water waiting for her to jump, I was thinking we had made a terrible mistake, but she jumped out, and was SO DING DARN proud of herself. After we got back, she said that after she jumped off the cliff, she knew she was brave, and was ready to get her ears pierced. I wasn't at all ready for that. By her logic, she has always liked the way pierced ears looked, but was nervous that it would hurt. But when she jumped off the cliff, she realized she was brave, and could handle the discomfort.
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