Are we tan yet?

Today we enjoyed our last day of extra sleep due to late, aka 9:30 a.m., morning practices. After a breakfast at the always rice-enthusiastic Gateway Café, we headed down the infamous rusty, slippery stairs, and were greeted by an IM heavy set that thoroughly tested our stroke endurance.

After the girls did dryland on the pool deck and boys lifted with Coach B, a couple people headed to Waikiki for some beach time, while a majority of us went out exploring. En route to Sandy Beach, aka “Joby’s Beach,” my van spotted some scenic cliffs and had to stop by. We ran into another van and carefully trekked around the steep rocks to check out a small cave. The water was the brightest shade of blue and the views of the surrounding seaside cliffs were beautiful!

Sunset Beach turned out to be just what we wanted—ocean time and a place to lay out. James Verhagen ‘16 and Tony Shen ‘18 suffered some battle wounds from some intense body surfing, and the boys took up a game of football while the girls worked on getting rid of our East Coast paleness. On our way back to the pool, we decided to drive a bit further to check out some other cliffs and did a bit of off-roading in Olivia Samson’s ‘16 van.

 At afternoon practice we split up into sprint, mid-distance, and distance group to finish our workouts for the day. Surprise: Mid-D and D group finished before Sprint group!! We actually sat in the water for a while in disbelief until Lexi reminded us we were done…

Tonight was our first night on our own for dinner. Vans split up to go to sushi, authentic Hawaiian food, and Duke’s on Waikiki Beach. We all reveled in the deliciousness of non-cafeteria food, and turned in early in anticipation of our first 6 am practice tomorrow.

AnnClaire MacArt ‘18