Mahalo!

The flight to Hawaii was really long, about 8 hours in total. I was worried that my sickle cell would flare up but it held up. The main thing is that I can't go into the water as much as I would like to because my core body temperature drops when I'm immersed in water. Plus my right leg and knee has been paining me all week long and is causing a serious dent in this holiday. Every day it is getting better, the pain a little less, but I've been taking painkillers around the clock to keep from getting into a crises while on vacation.

Norio has been really worried, he wanted to cancel the whole trip because I was having pain the 2 days leading up to it. But this is one of those once in a lifetime vacations that I would have totally kicked myself for missing. I very stubbornly told him, "Sickle cell took over my graduation, my birthdays, and every single major holiday in the last 4 years. it's NOT taking my vacation dammit!"

I've done pretty much everything that I've wanted to do so far, just stayed on shore though, I don't want to antagonize myself into a crises. The house is beautiful, the beach is surreal and the ocean is absolutely sublime. I totally can understand why people have their weddings here, it's so romantic.

Tomorrow morning the plan is to go kayaking and 'swimming' with the dolphins. I'll be onshore about 2 miles away but I hope Norio can get some good pics for me.

Hope you all are doing well and aloha from Kona!