Breakfast of fruit and toast on the balcony, high 70s temperature as the sun came up.I should say now that we both arrived in Hawaii ‘walking wounded.’ I usually have two colds per year and generally throw the worst of them off after 2 or 3 days; Chris is rarely bothered with colds and has the constitution of an ox.But a few weeks ago, pride coming before a fall, I had a triple whammy of a mild stomach upset, followed immediately by viral flu (doctor’s description.) One week later, just as I felt I’d got over the latter, it morphed into a streaming head cold. Recovering from all this palaver, I arrived in Hawaii with a sort of mild, post viral fatigue. Even the short walk to and from the Halekulani left me a bit exhausted and breathless. To cap it all, days before we flew out, Chris developed a horrible lower leg sore (eventually diagnosed as ulcerated and needing antibiotics) which disturbed his sleep and was very uncomfortable. Lucky white heather! Ah well, age doesn’t come alone…
I was now glad I hadn’t booked tickets for the Diamond Head walk – that amount of uphill slog in the heat would have been beyond me. Instead, we decided on an easy day of exploring in the car.
It was SO good to leave the city behind. Fairly quickly, the suburbs thinned out too and by 10.15am we were at the turn off for Hanauma Bay, a Nature Preserve and Protected Marine Life Conservation area, renowned for great snorkelling.
We were VERY lucky to get in here as Hanauma had somehow dropped off my radar and we hadn’t booked it in advance – normally essential. It often closes by 9am when maximum numbers are reached.But we were waved through by the Rangers patrolling the entrance road, paid $3 to park and joined a tiny queue to enter the Preserve itself, costing $25 per person.
After a short talk in the hot sunshine about the Bay and its rules – eg don’t stand on the coral, even though it looks just like rocks – a little shuttle bus took us down to the beach.
It’s a truly stunning area, the shallow sea umpteen shades of turquoise with unspoiled hills behind.
After hiring snorkels and masks from the small friendly outlet, we found a grassy spot for shade.
Hands up, we have done very little snorkelling so are very much beginners.We enjoyed it a few years ago in the Greek Islands where it was good fun but perhaps not ‘wow’ with mostly small striped fish of the same type darting about.
Still suffering congestion, my first attempt at snorkelling resulted in a fair bit of coughing and spluttering (I’m sure a few folk nearby must have thought a rescue was on the cards)before I managed to control my breathing and got used to the mask. Suddenly, I was looking down on sizeable, multi coloured fish weaving above and around the coral. This WAS wow! It was absolutely wonderful with various types of Tang, Butterfish, Triggerfish, Parrotfish….I found out some of their names later after checking an information board at the Volunteers Hut. But there were also several fish with incredible colours which didn’t seem to be listed.I felt like I was in a scene from Blue Planet.
We took turns to go in and out of the water, amazed at what we were seeing(albeit I know we are newbies and perhaps easily impressed.) I chatted with the two elderly ladies at the volunteer centre, lovely people who very enthusiastic and interesting as they pointed me in the direction of a beached Monk Seal.They thought the seal was more interesting than the fish!
I appreciate that it’s an endangered species and of course it was good to see it but I couldn’t agree. Scotland is home to some of the largest seal colonies in the world (mostly big Atlantic Greys) so seals are a very common sight pretty much everywhere. The ladies were both taken aback, unaware that we had seals at all. A chap then reported to them that he had been bitten by a fish which had drawn a little blood.They confirmed it was nothing to worry about, the fish(a Triggerfish I think) wasn’t poisonous and was just protecting its nest.
We enjoy bird watching and always like identifying local species, even if they are very common – below, a handsome Red Crested Cardinal and a Myna bird(very vocal.)
After a couple of hours, we headed back up to the main visitor centre and bought some lunch – just nachos to share but they were not the best. Should have stuck to fries. Also tried some Pineapple and Raspberry Shaved ice, great for cooling down as the sun was hot now.
The rest of the day we spent driving up the coast which was really beautiful – if there was one island we under-estimated about how lovely and interesting it would be, it was Oahu.
My next ‘must see’ was the beach used in ‘From Here to Eternity.’ Popularly called Eternity Beach, it’s real name is Haloma Cove. It was used in the famous steamy ‘clinch in the surf’ scene between Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr, quite risqué over 70 years ago. We viewed the bay from the car park and it was a dramatic spot with black volcanic rocks and heavy surf crashing onto the tiny beach itself. Looked pretty dodgy for swimming unless you stayed in the immediate shallows. A lot of Hawaiian beaches are not safe especially in winter, given rip tides, undertows and huge surf.
Driving on, we pulled in at the parking for Makapu’u Lighthouse. Normally I would have been raring to go up the trail to it, but I’d knocked myself out a bit with the snorkelling.
Instead, we admired the fantastically scenic view over Makapu’u beach with other crescents of sand visible beyond.
Looking back to the lighthouse…
There had been very low levels of habitation until we got to Waimanolo which itself was fairly small.I liked that about this bit of coast.
The beaches by Waimanolo looked to be stunning too.
Heading south again to Waikiki, we hit some heavy-ish Friday late afternoon traffic.Quite a shock to return to the built up areas around Honolulu after where we had been.
Picked up some food from the handy ABC supermarket near the Ilikai, jet lag now kicking in a bit more after a terrific day. Dinner on the balcony tonight, watching the fireworks. I also popped down to listen to the Hawaiian band playing at the hotel and they started off with a good, foot tapping song. But they soon reverted to the similar, quite tuneless songs of the night before. A dance group also performed, looking spectacular in their crimson costumes.
Picked up an excellent Coffee Ice Cream at the parlour in the Ilikai then headed up to our apartment.
Regrets about Oahu– quite a few! Not getting to the Bishop’s Museum, not hearing the Royal Hawaiian Band or visiting the Ala Moana Shopping Centre for the fancy, big name stores (though I’m not really a shopper but it sounded well worth a wander.) And not seeing more of the island.
Tomorrow – morning flight to Kauai which was the island that had most pulled me towards our Hawaiian trip. Would it be as good as I’d hoped…?
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