Day 11: Big Island of Hawai'i
On this day we dealt with covid. We took my father-in-law to the resort urgent care right away in the morning to get him tested - yes, he was positive for covid. He got a paxlovid prescription. In a bit of a leap, he had started taking it the night before from the sister-in-law's prescription so that we could get him on it right away.
Since my husband and I had self-tested positive the day before, we didn't even have to get a test at urgent care, and fortunately we both got paxlovid prescriptions, too. Apparently the doc says that the island doesn't have great health care, so it's better to really head off the virus with the anti-viral if possible.
Then there was a big saga getting the actual medicine, because the urgent care admin had a bunch of typos in names and dates for us. But we finally got it.
Obviously we didn't do a whole lot. My FIL is 78 years old, and so he's of the most concern. He was feeling really weak from it, so we were making sure he was hydrated, etc. My husband and I just felt like we had colds. I did a bunch of walking around outside to get my 10,000 steps.
Jumping ahead, it turns out that we four (husband, FIL, one SIL, and me) were the only ones out of our group of eleven to get it. That's good, but surprising that it didn't get passed around more.
Day 12: Big Island of Hawai'i
So, paxlovid is pretty amazing. Just two doses (evening before and this morning) and my husband and I were feeling much better. We did a short and easy hike - outside so no real risk, and actually we didn't even see anyone on the trail.
Hiking: Manuka Nature Trail
- time: 1:00:02
- distance: 2.18 mi
- ave pace: 27:32
- elevation gain: 373 ft (corrected)
The family had a charter boat scheduled to take us out around sunset to swim with manta rays. This was a sketchy idea for me to begin with because I get motion sick, but I didn't want to back out and keep my husband from missing it since we'd already missed the snorkeling. Only my husband, his two brothers, and one brother's family (sick SIL and their two kids) came along.
Well, I took some Dramamine, but there was a lot of chop and it wasn't great on my stomach. By the time we got to the location and we got in the water, it was a bit better - being in the the wavy water is somewhat better than sitting in a boat on it. But it was a lot of time in bouncy water and my stomach just really wanted things to STOP MOVING. I wasn't the only one suffering - the SIL also gets seasick, and one of her sons.
If you aren't familiar with the "swimming with manta rays" thing (I wasn't before this), what happens is at around sunset, the boats put out floats with lights that shine down into the water. The lights attract the phytoplankton, which in turn attracts a lot of fish and manta rays. (It only works when the Sun goes down because the Sun up, the same thing happens everywhere, not just in the location you want.)
Then we got masks and snorkels and got into the water. We put a flotation noodle under our chest and ankles so that we'd be laying flat in the water, face down, and then we grabbed onto the float with the light. After that, you just wait for the manta rays to show up. Actually, one of our two boat people got in the water with super flippers and pulled our float with the light and all of us around to where she thought she saw manta rays - she was amazing!
And they did! It was really pretty cool to have these big animals just gliding under you. They would circle around and go up and down in the area. Sorry that I don't have photos, but a BIL had the waterproof camera and I didn't get photos yet.
We were probably floating out there almost 30 minutes before we said we were done. The super boat woman started pulling us back to our boat...and wouldn't you know that THAT is when my stomach finally gave up. Fortunately I hadn't eaten much, but whatever I had, I puked up while she was hauling us back, LOL. Fortunately once we got back in the boat, it was a pretty quick trip back to the dock. And then home and bed!
