(more and higher resolution photos here)
On Tuesday we woke up to sunshine peeking through the clouds and we were lucky to keep the sun with us (as well as intermittent clouds) for the rest of the day. We started off the day with breakfast at MAC 24/7 before heading to Kailua State Beach.
The drive to Kailua took us through Pali Lookout.
The beach is known as one of the most beautiful in the world, and of course it is, but we quickly realized that our snorkeling gear was useless as the water was filled with a lot of sand and no fish. Below I can be seen giving my opinion of the snorkeling:
We needed the opposite of that, so we decided to change plans and head back west to the opposite side of the island to Kahe beach, also known as “electric beach.”
Before that though we stopped for shaved ice.
The road from to Kahe is majestic, weaving through the lush forest covered cliffs with low hanging clouds drifting through the slopes. We could tell why Avatar was (partially) filmed there.
When we got to Kahe we realized it was an entirely different situation than Hanauma bay. The beach is very small, and could be quite dangerous if you’re not careful. Sam was not feeling up to it, so she stayed on the beach while I spent about 90 minutes splashing around hovering over the coral hundreds of yards from shore.
It wasn’t as good as Hanauma bay, there weren’t nearly the same amount of fish and although I tried to scour every inch of the coral in every direction I couldn’tfind a single turtle. The real reason we chose that spot though was the report that dolphins were often seen there. When we got there we realized it was the same spot we’d paid to snorkel and “swim with dolphins” (in which we weren’t allowed to enter the water with the dolphins) two days before.
After snorkeling we changed plans again and headed to Pearl Harbor. We arrived around 3:30, which is apparently after the last trip to the Arizona memorial leaves. I’m guessing that time schedule places the median age of visitors to the memorial around 70.
Rebuffed at Pearl Harbor we went back to our airBnB and walked to Waikiki beach to watch the sunset.
We walked all the way up to the fishing area in the north and saw another green sea turtle on the way.
Walking back a little bit we sat on the end of the rock pier north of Waikiki to watch the actual sunset.
