What a Fabulous Day in Hawaii

As of yesterday (Sunday), we have been here at Pu'u Kahea two full weeks, and it has flown by!  And yesterday was also our fourth day off, so once again, we loaded up in the dark and headed out with the Smiths for a great adventure.  Hanauma Bay and Diamond Head, here we come!


Hanauma Bay
Hanauma Bay is a nature preserve, and it's the first "attraction" we've had to pay for since we've been here.  So worth it!  It's a crescent-shaped bay, protected from the ocean by a reef, with lots of beautiful fish.  It's probably in the top three tourist attractions on Oahu, and gets crowded very quickly, which is why we wanted to arrive early to go SNORKELING!

The brownish parts are the coral and coralline algae, and that's where the fish love to swim and feed.

There weren't very many people when we arrived, but it did get a little more crowded as the morning progressed.

Thank you Fred and Joyce!

Photo of the Smith feet by Denise!

Tim and I were able to borrow equipment from our wonderful co-volunteers, Fred and Joyce.  They graciously offered to let us use everything they have--flippers, several pairs of goggles, mouth pieces, and even defogger so I didn't have to spit on my goggles!  Denise and Art invested in their own equipment because they're flying to Kauai when they leave here, and plan to do a lot of snorkeling there.

Tim was able to rent goggles with prescription lenses, and it made ALL the difference in his snorkeling experience.  (He says he looks like an egg-head in this picture, but he is a good enough sport that he let me post it anyway.) 

I bought a water-proof phone case before we came to Hawaii, AND a water-proof phone pouch so that I could take pictures when we snorkeled.  Both worked great--not one single drop of water got on/in my phone.  The problem was that by the time I got my phone camera turned on through all that water-proofness, the fish I wanted to photograph had swum away.  Just take my word for it--there were lots and lots of amazing fish.  Big ones, small ones, spikey ones, neon ones, dull and colorful ones, fat and skinny ones.  Oh so wonderful!  Tim and I had never been snorkeling before, and I was a little nervous, but I did okay!  There were a few panicky moments, but I think that's pretty normal.  It is very easy to become disoriented when your head is under water!

And as it turns out, I needed all that phone water-proofness to protect my phone from the RAIN.  It poured.  We could hear it and feel it on our backs.  But, what matters?  We were already wet.  When we became chilled and wrinkled, we decided to move on to our next adventure.  WE LOVED SNORKELING, and we will definitely do it again!

Diamond Head

According to our favorite guidebook, Oahu Revealed, by Andrew Doughty, "Many vacation destinations have that one thing that you're practically required to do.  In New York, you're supposed to visit the Statue of Liberty.  In San Francisco, you've gotta see the Golden Gate Bridge. And in Honolulu, you're supposed to climb to the top of...Diamond Head."  We drove into the crater through a tunnel, and then walked one mile up the side of it to the top.  It is a steep incline with a lot of steps at the end.  But at the top, it's so worth it!  (I must admit that I got really really hot on the way up, and really nauseated from the heat, and I did NOT walk the last 20 or so steps up to the very tip-top.  But my view was still amazing!)

That's Waikiki in the distance.

 

Can you tell we're inside a crater?

The trail is rocky, and winds around and around to the top.

See Denise and Art waving?

Resting at an overlook, catching our breath AND a cool breeze

This is the bottom of an artillery observation platform built in 1908.  At the end of the climb up Diamond Head, you go through a tunnel, then up a set of 99 stairs, then up a spiral staircase into this platform.  (After the tunnel, there's a alternate way that's a little bit longer, but with fewer and less steep stairs and no spiral staircase.  That's the route I took!)

When we reached the top, we watched a big, dark cloud of rain coming towards us.  The trip down was much easier, of course, but we were soaked again!  We had planned to have a picnic at the bottom, but ended up eating our sandwiches in the van.


Waikiki
With somewhat full stomachs and very wet clothes, we drove into Waikiki and stopped at the first interesting place we saw, which was the Waikiki Natatorium War Memorial.  The natatorium (big fancy elegant swimming pool) was built as living memorial dedicated to "the men and women who served during the great war" (World War I).  It's in a terrible state of disrepair, but we could tell it had once been beautiful, and we enjoyed the park where it's located.

We stopped in at a little cafe for some refreshment.  The girl who waited on us asked where we were from, and when we told her North Carolina, she was SO excited.  She is from California, but graduated from UNC-W, and recognized our accents.  She said she had been missing those Southern accents, and we were the first North Carolinians she had run into while in Hawaii.  It was a fun little interlude!

We found Waikiki to be beautiful!

Tim and I especially enjoyed the marina.

We finally decided that we needed head back to our side of the island so we would feel like working the next day.  We got on H1 and sat in traffic for an hour or so.  (So close, so close, but yet so far away!)

When we arrived back safely in Waianae, Michael, the Pu'u Kahea chef,  gave us leftovers from dinner--fried shrimp, roasted vegetables, and delicious brownies.  Thank you Michael.  Wonderful ending to a wonderful day!