Debbie's Blog

I've been getting some complaints lately - but here, finally, are the promised pictures of our trip to Hawaii. It really was the trip of a lifetime, and so many people did so much to help us enjoy it. THANK YOU.

Jeff and I flew to Honolulu, arriving on a Sunday night in mid-June, after a very long flight. We met a nice couple from Pennsylvania, Barb and Jerry, on the plane. After collecting our luggage, we were surprised to run into them again, sharing our shuttle from the airport to our hotels in Waikiki.

Our hotel, the Waikiki Prince, was cute. In internet reviews, it got a mix of rave reviews and crazed rants from former customers, so I was not certain what to expect. Since we were only staying in Honolulu for 2 days, I went for the cheapest place I could find within walking distance of a beach.

I’m not quite sure how to describe the Prince, but we thought it was a gem. Definitely in serious need of updating, but then again, it was a short block’s walk to Waikiki, and within a stone’s throw of three ABC Stores, which provided us with most of our sustenance while in Honolulu. Jeff said it best, “At least it’s not the Hotel Carter!” Poor guy, he’s not going to get over that one anytime soon, although I thought the Hotel Carter was just fine (mid-town Manhattan for less than $100, and not too many bugs, although it would have been nice if the door lock worked!)

That night, we only had time for a nice walk on the beach. I was surprised to find that the sunset was so early, about 7:00 p.m. So we had a nice walk in the dark along the beach – the ocean is magical!

On Monday, we were up very early to catch our shuttle to Pearl Harbor. The lines are notoriously long, and they say by noon, there is almost no hope of seeing the memorial. So we opted to get there very early. There were probably 500 (maybe more) people in a line circling a large field. We jumped into the pack as quickly as we could, only to find we’d gotten mixed in with a very large tour group – Eddie’s tour group. Eddie was a great guy, and moved us to right in front of his tour. And oddly enough, put us in line right next to Barb and Jerry. We had a great time laughing and talking with them while in line, and later, in touring the memorial.

So here I digress, as our line snaked forward, I had Jeff hold my place while I went in search of a restroom. I asked the park ranger, who pointed to yet another very long line (had to be 30 women in it). She took pity on me when she saw my very unhappy look, and whispered, “it’s not nearly as nice, but there’s a small building out back with more bathrooms.” This turned out to be one of those types of buildings you find in parks and roadside rest areas – outside bathrooms, but not outhouses. Quite adequate. Since Pearl Harbor is an all day kind of an excursion, I totally resisted the urge to clue in other tourists, and as a result, had that building pretty much to myself for the entire day – walking past that other line that never seemed to be any shorter than 30 or 40 poor females.

Well, by the time I rejoined Jeff, Barb and Jerry, they had the tickets to the memorial, stamped for 9:30 a.m. Not being clear on what, exactly, the tickets were for, (okay, I did NOT read the guidebook carefully), I stopped another park ranger, who explained about the short movie and the ferry ride over to the memorial. He said, as long as you have a couple of hours, you should go next door and tour the submarine while you are waiting. You’ll have plenty of time.

This is what we did, thinking nothing of it. Barb and Jerry had wandered off, so Jeff and I went over to the submarine exhibit, bought our tickets, and boarded the sub. It was fascinating. We had the sub completely to ourselves, and took a leisurely and extremely interesting tour. As we left the sub, I was astounded by the long line of people waiting to board. Apparently, like the restroom tip, we were the only ones to get the “take the sub tour now” tip from the park ranger. Now that the first groups were getting back from their memorial visit, the sub was rapidly becoming a standing-room-only tour. It was a preview of our entire trip – everything went smoothly! By mid-trip, I was starting to hope for this kind of ease in my everyday life! We had an excellent visit to Pearl Harbor, and then returned to our hotel mid-afternoon.

For our next adventure, we figured out how to take the bus to Hanauma Bay, about half an hour bus ride. Hanauma Bay is supposed to be snorkeler’s paradise – a must-see stop in Oahu. Hmmmm. It was okay. I’m glad we went, but we were to experience far better snorkeling later in the trip. We had all of our gear and went happily into the Bay to snorkel. Our first taste of salt water on the trip and first reef snorkeling. The water was a little rough. The reef was anywhere from 18 inches to a couple of feet below the surface, so the occasional large wave pushed us into scraping the reef. We saw maybe a handful of different varieties of fish. Of the kinds that were there, there were often larger schools, so there was a lot to look at. But the rough water, and the long distance that we had to swim out, made the snorkeling somewhat challenging. It was on this trip that we decided that when we got to Maui, we should hire a guide for our first shore dive, rather than go it alone. This turned out to be a wise decision, and good enough reason in itself to have experienced Hanauma Bay. I do want to say this, though. Between my sister and me, we had no less than 7 guidebooks to Hawaii. Pretty much every one had favorite spots that one must go see. I’m convinced that they pick a handful of places to direct the tourists to, and keep the rest untouched. In Maui, we were to find on our own, several beautiful, uncrowded beaches and bays that surpassed anything we found in the guidebooks.

The Bay park closed at 7 p.m., and the last city bus left at 5:30. We didn’t even get to the park until 4:30, and it’s a 10~ 15 minute walk from the parking lot to the beach. There was another family on the bus with the same dilemma, so we made a pact with them to share a cab back to Honolulu. Not being the most trusting soul in the world, I once again found a park ranger to check out my options. This ranger told me that there was a later bus leaving from the nearby town, only about a 15 minute walk from the parking lot. That sounded pretty good, and I thought would make an excellent ‘plan b’. Gotta love those park rangers. When Jeff and I came back from our snorkeling adventure, there was a message on my cellphone from the other family. They lost courage (they did have 2 kids under two years with them, so I can see that), and grabbed the city bus back, which pretty much would have left us stranded.

When we were finished with our snorkeling adventure, Jeff and I headed into town, following the park ranger’s directions. She was spot on, except it was a 45 minute walk, not a 15 minute walk. As we trekked along the road, I became increasingly more worried – is there really a town, will there be a bus, will we ever get there, are we stranded….. Happily, the answers were yes, yes, yes and no!!

The bus ride was a neat experience for me. There are a lot of Japanese people in Honolulu, and a lot of Japanese is spoken. I remember enough to catch snippets of conversation. Two young teen girls were seated very near us, and were in an extremely animated and loud conversation (in Japanese). It was fun to eavesdrop. In twenty minutes of non-stop teen girl drama, I caught: “my uncle…….the wedding………shopping for shoes…………stuck at the house………and I want to go to the mall, but my mom said no.” The Japanese adults on the bus were shooting glares at them, but everyone else just stared in fascination.

That night, we walked along Waikiki beach at sunset, and found a lovely patio restaurant. It was great to step off the sand and into the restaurant. How fun! And also a treat to eat real restaurant food after several meals of either airline box lunches (crackers and cheese, but wrapped fancy) and food from the ABC stores (ABC is the Honolulu version of Walgreens but with food).

Tuesday morning – we’ve been in Hawaii for about 36 hours, and are barreling along in our adventures. Thanks to Jeff, we were up at the crack of dawn (5:30 a.m.) and on our way to Diamondhead Crater. We walked half a block from our budget hotel to the very posh Sheraton with the Porsches and Ferraris and long line of taxis in front. That’s my tip, stay at a cheap place and use the concierge and taxi stands of the high dollar joints around the corner!

What a great climb to the top of the crater and the lookout. It was a trek, and took about an hour and a half. The first part is a standard mountain hiking trail with switchbacks. The last part are steps (hundreds) some built and some carved into the mountain. There is an old military lookout post at the top. It was well worth the experience, and we had spectacular views of the lighthouse, the Honolulu shoreline, and the ocean. What was also amazing is that after three hours of hiking and sightseeing, we were still back at our hotel before 10 a.m.

When I first booked our airline tickets, I was under a deadline to make the ticket reservations or lose my frequent flier points. So I just picked a date a year away and got two roundtrip tickets to Honolulu. I didn’t know anything about Hawaii, and figured that if I had a year to plan it, I could figure things out. What this meant in reality is that I learned that we really wanted to go to Maui, not Oahu (where Honolulu is located). So we had to take a small, inter-island flight from Honolulu to Maui. Some things about that experience stand out in memory: the terminal where we had to wait for two hours (check-in early to avoid being bumped, since the flights are full) had one lone sandwich stand. For lunch, we each got a ham and cheese sandwich and a small drink - $30. United’s box lunches didn’t seem so outrageous anymore! Then, when our flight was finally ready to board, we got bad news. We had a 1:00 p.m. flight. An early flight (from 9:00 a.m.) had been cancelled. So here’s what they did, they let all of the 9:00 people board our plane. Then they told the rest of us (it was a full flight) to go out to the plane (one of those where you walk across the tarmac and up a flight of steps into the plane), whoever got a seat could go, and whoever didn’t was to come back and wait for the 4:00. Yes, it was a mad dash across the tarmac. Jeff was on the ball though, as soon as he saw the flight attendants start moving, he had us in line at the door, even before they made the announcement. That meant that we were the first of the one-o’clockers out of the door. Jeff, obviously, is a pretty fast runner, and I can get some speed going when I have to. We were very proud of ourselves for snagging seats on the plane.

Ha ha ha. Selfishness does not often get repaid in kindness. The revenge of those left behind. Unbeknownst to us, although it sure makes sense in hindsight, the airline treated the luggage the same way it treated the passengers. Yep, only half of those of us who made it onto the plane had luggage that made it onto the plane as well. The rest of us, well, we got to know Michael B., who works in baggage claim in Maui, pretty well. The Maui airport, at least by baggage claim, is open-air. A Starbucks kiosk is located next to the baggage carousel where our bags were supposed to arrive. Between Michael’s good sense of humor, lovely Maui breezes, and a smoothie from Starbucks, it wasn’t a bad way to spend the afternoon. We met up with my sister, Darcy, who had the good sense to fly in directly from Chicago. Our bags did make the 4:00 flight, and our Maui adventure was off to an okay, and somewhat funny, start!

We were pleased with our condo. It was spacious, nicely located, and had a nice courtyard and pool. I spent months searching for the lowest priced and decent digs that I could find (yeah craigslist), and was very pleased with the results! We spent Tuesday night getting settled in and acquainted with Kihei, the town where we stayed. I heartily recommend Kihei – it’s not very touristy, but it is close to everything a tourist could want.

After our snorkel experience in Honolulu, we definitely wanted a guide for our first shore dive in Maui. First thing Wednesday a.m., we were off to the dive shop to get geared up and to meet Leo, our guide. Leo took us to Turtle Town, aka the Five Graves (there are 5 graves of Japanese from WWII, although I never saw them) Five Caves (those we saw – same thing??). Darcy did some swimming and checked out the park and the beach. There are lots of wild roosters around Kihei, which we found to be very funny. Check out the pictures of our new feathered friends at Turtle Town.

Leo, Jeff and I had a wonderful dive. Leo showed us all around, got us acclimated to swimming (pretty much forever) out to the dive site, and in general, helped us figure our way around underwater. A tank of air in Hawaii, with the warm water and light weight, consistently lasted us about an hour. Back in the Midwest (shiver shiver), we get 30ish minutes. So what a delight on our first dive to see that the air just lasted and lasted. Also, instead of a double 7 mil full wetsuit and the corresponding weight required, we were diving in 3 mil shorties. How fun – and it required only about half the weight. Warm water diving is so relaxing. We had no idea.

My favorite, of course, were the turtles. We saw nearly a dozen in each of the three dives that we did at Turtle Town. This is a very popular dive spot, and those turtles thought nothing of us. They were quite willing to be photographed and to let us swim reasonably close. Naturally, as with any part of nature underwater, we were very careful not to disturb or harass anyone, but it sure was fun to swim with the turtles.

After Leo left, Jeff and I enjoyed another dive in Turtle Town, which greatly boosted our confidence for more shore diving during our vacation.

Wednesday night, the three of us went to the Lanai Luau. What I will always remember is that it was very beautiful, very nicely done, good food (except Poi, which didn’t thrill any of us), and very hot. We had a great time, and Darcy took wonderful pictures. There’s a reason everyone visiting Hawaii should go to a Luau. The narrator was a terrific storyteller, accompanied by the dancers who acted out the stories. It was a wonderful introduction to the culture and history of Hawaii.

Thursday morning was our first boat dive. We met the boat around 6 a.m. I made the mistake of telling the captain that we were relative beginners. Chalk it up to nervousness. Harrumph – no more of that nonsense. We were nearly the best divers of the group (maybe one other person was better). But, naturally, since we were considered to be the novices, we jumped into the water first. By the time that the yahoos in our group got their act together and joined us in the water, we’d used up about 10 minutes of our air. That’s the last time we made that mistake. Jeff is not at all a beginner – he maintains great buoyancy, swims nice and trim, and keeps track of his direction. I’m not half bad, although I haven’t quite got the confidence I should have for my level of experience – it’s that nagging thought that not a lot needs to go wrong for things to get bad in a hurry when underwater.

Anyway, we had a guide, Stan, and another pair, a father and teen son from Texas, in our group. Sorry if you are from Texas, but…. When we lived in Colorado, it seemed the state hobby was making jokes about those Texans who show up every Christmas thinking they can ski (sometimes they can, but usually you can ride the lift and pick out the Texas folk). Well, apparently some of them show up in the Pacific thinking they can dive. I’ll say this for Midwest scuba diving, given the cold, the lack of visibility, and the sometimes choppy waters, scuba instructors are strict and careful. This meant that Jeff and I were far better prepared any of the other tourist divers we came across on our trip, who, from what we could tell, had mostly been ‘resort-qualified’. Anyway, those two Texans had gear flapping all over the place, bounced around the water, and one of them couldn’t keep his mask on right. They used up a lot of air, bumped into things, and between the two of them, something seemed to be going wrong the entire dive. We did two dives with them, and this was true for both hours. Stan was a fairly inexperienced guide, as well. Nonetheless, the first dive was fine. Not great, but okay. Jeff had high hopes for it, though, as it was supposed to be one of the best dive sites out of Kihei. Hmmm. When we got back onto the boat, the other two groups diving off the boat had seen octopus, shark, and a 4’ barracuda. We saw the other groups, reef and a few fish. Honestly, how can you miss a barracuda swimming around you for an hour? Stan must have led us away from all the good stuff.

The second dive went better, in part because Texas dad gave up early and surfaced. His son was a bit better diver, and even he left early. That meant that we could really dive. We met a turtle on the bottom. We stood on the sand perfectly still, and the turtle came over and bit my fin. It was pretty cool. This dive involved drifting, too. Now that is wonderful. No swimming. Just get down about 40’ and hang out and let the current move you along. When you surface, have the boat drive over. Very very relaxing.

The spots we had been to so far are heavily dived. We bought a local book on diving in Maui, and from that book, chose a shore dive that was not too far away. Well, we picked a spot that seems to be widely overlooked. On Friday, we headed for a new shore dive all on our own. The beach was a mile or more long, and Darcy enjoyed sunbathing and visiting with other beachgoers. Jeff and I had a fantastic, hour-long dive over incredible reef. This reef was very much alive and vibrant. It was like swimming in a fish tank. We saw dozens of varieties and hundreds and hundreds of fish and a few large turtles. These turtles were definitely spooked by us divers and moved off in a hurry – another sign we were in a relatively untouched dive site. We had not marked our take-off point very well. Jeff thought we came up right where we had started (he was right), but I disagreed. Fortunately, Darcy had made enough friends. I couldn’t make out faces of the people on the beach very well. I thought I saw her and called out. It wasn’t her, but the people on shore did a shouting relay of sorts, and found her for us. Good thing too, because I didn’t listen to Jeff and was heading away from our car!

By Thursday, Jeff was ready to take a break from diving (we did an early morning dive), and try out some genuine Hawaiian surfing. He had a terrific two-hour lesson that got him up and running. We came back on Saturday, and he spent the whole day surfing on his own. When I watched the surfers, I simply could not figure out how they learn the timing of the waves, which, I guess, is pretty much the trick of it. Jeff got himself to the point of being a beginner surfer, which left him satisfied with the whole experience. Since we were already at the beach, Jeff also took a parasailing ride. I watched from the shore. It was not exactly a thrill ride – you sit in what looks nearly like a chair and are gently lifted into the sky. The descent was equally gentle. Jeff said that indeed it was not a thrill ride, but he loved the view and the sailing in the sky. I did think about doing it, but was really enjoying swimming in the surf on the beach. Darcy too enjoyed some great swimming and sunning.

At the Luau, some fellow diners told us about a sheltered bay that offered terrific snorkeling. Darcy, Jeff and I spent a lovely afternoon snorkeling in that bay on the northern side of Maui. The beach was a black rock (not sand, but rocky), and was very sheltered. There was a beautiful hike from the road to the beach, which we enjoyed nearly as much as the snorkeling. We met some colorful characters who lived in a trailer nearby and are trying to reclaim the “Kingdom of Hawaii”. They had a lot of dogs, and apparently no shower facilities…..

The snorkeling was very good as there were many varieties of tropical fish, along with turtles. Our dinner companions said they had seen a shark, octopus, and several eels. Come to think of it, I believe we saw some eels, but no shark or octopus. Our snorkeling adventure did give Darcy a great opportunity to see many of the same sights that Jeff and I had been experiencing in our scuba diving, as the bay was very shallow, and all the critters were rather close to the surface. I enjoyed all the sights without having all the work of scuba!!!

We took a couple of rolls of pictures with disposable underwater cameras. Throughout the trip, one of Jeff’s greatest hopes was to see a shark, which never happened. Imagine the injustice of it all, as when we got our film back from developing, one of our rolls had been mixed up with another diver’s roll. The roll we got consisted of 2 dozen snapshots of sharks!

For our last day in Maui, we did the “drive to Hana”. I forget the exact statistics, but the t-shirts say something like: 53 miles, 622 hairpin curves, 5 hours, yada yada yada. I’m sure there were that many curves, as well as some cowboys pulling horse trailers, lots of tourists, dozens of waterfalls, great photo ops, and the kind of driving one normally does not do voluntarily. The drive to Hana is definitely one of those experiences that, since we’ve done it, we never have to do it again. I’m glad we went, but I’m not sure I’d recommend it to someone else as a “must do”. We took lots of wonderful photos. We did stop at a state park with a black sand beach that was breathtaking and had a fantastic picnic. But we’re done now!

ALOHA!