Last Day in Hawaii

The day began with breakfast at the Moose Bar where a I had the Loco Moco. A local breakfast of a hamburger patty covered with fried rice then two fried eggs and topped off with brown gravy.

We drove to the rim of Diamond Head, but decided it was not worth the cost of admission to see the inside. I know there are many hiking trails, but we were all hiked-out and decided to enjoy the view from where we were. The picture is of the city just east of Diamond Head. You can see the houses flowing up the hillsides into the foothills of the mountain range.


From there we drive counter-clockwise around the island and stopped several times to see the surf, rocks, and in one picture, the blow hole. A formation in the rock that has an opening that faces the water and an opening on the top of the rock. When a wave hits the opening just right, water blows out the top hole.

On the trip to the airport, Leslie captured the rainbow over. A fitting end to a great journey.

Day two in Paradise

We started day two at the Rainbow Drive-in, a historic local dive, for breakfast. As with most meals, breakfast is usually served with white or fired rice. Spam was on the menu here as it is in most places. I intended to order it, but some how missed it.

We drove to the Bishop Museum to view some of the history of Hawaii. The museum included a planetarium, a hands-on science building, a small building of Hawaiian history, and the original building contained history of the Island, as well as, Polynesian and some Micronesian cultures.

There was artwork, relics, and samples of artifacts from all the peoples who came to the island. Including this mask that I believe looks like a famous (with kids) cartoon character. I will leave it up to you to decide if the writers at Sponge Bob Square Pants borrowed the image from here....


After the Bishop, we headed back to the northeast side of the island to see the Polynesian Cultural Center. It is a repository of cultural history owned and operated by the Brigham Young University. The students work for their room and board by teaching visitors about their cultural heritage. Here are links to the Center's website for each of the people they represent: Hawaii, Samoa, Maori New Zealand (Aotearoa), Fiji, Tahiti, the Marquesas and Tonga.

Leslie and I had been here before, but as it is a wonderful example of the cultures and peoples. There is also a production number that you can stay for that includes the dances of the men and women from the different cultures.

From there it was a late night drive back to the hotel. The next day held a final drive, sites to see, and packing for long plane flight home.

Hawaii Day 1

Day one on Oahu we spent taking Leslie's mom on an island drive. We stopped at Pearl Harbor and Leslie caught these shots. One of the memorial for the Arizona, one of the oil that still leaks up every few moments, and of the USS Bowfin submarine. We are in the airport heading home at this moment. We will finish up the blog when we get home tomorrow.

Second Half of Day 1

We started at Pearl Harbor and the Arizona memorial in the post below. The rest of the day we traveled in a clockwise loop around the center third of the island. Driving north, we stopped at the Dole Plantation. Here we saw various pineapple plants, a history of the plantations, a Koi pond, and a huge capitalistic enlargement of the gift store. This last was disappointing, what was a simple gift store with free samples of Pineapple juice 11 years earlier, is now 4 times the size and includes outside vendors selling everything from pearls to roasted nuts.

From there we drove on the North Shore hoping to show Sharon the huge waves that surfers jones for. Alas it was not the right time, we stopped at several beaches

We did observe some crazy people diving and jumping off of a giant rock. The lifeguards posted a note about the rock, but no one seamed to notice. "WARNING Jump Diving can cause serious bodily injury or death for your safety please stay off the rock"


We stopped again and I walked on the shore watching the reflection of the sunset in the clouds to the east. Later that evening we stopped for dinner at a local cafe. We ordered some local dishes including Kalua pork; a pig is roasted whole in a fire pit all day and then pulled.

Jungle Cruise (first of three posts)

On Saturday we had to layoff the diving, because you must be 24 hours clear of your last dive before you fly in a plane at any altitude. So we found ourselves on a Jungle Cruise. The first picture below is of the river. It begins with a variety of trees and the closer to the ocean they become Mangrove trees.
The second picture is of some interesting tree roots. They grow fan-like.
The final picture in this entry is of a home that you can only get to from the river. A nice place...if you do not want running water, electricity, or telephone.

Trouble ahead!!!!!

This is Rosie. She is the second alligator we encountered--and in the upper left-hand corner is the reason why these two have attacked our boat.

The second is Rosie at mid jump and the last at full extension.

Friday Dive day 2

Friday we dove again - this time "Blue Holes to Blue Corner" and then back to "Blue Corner" for the second dive. Afterwards we got to snorkel in "Jellyfish Lake", but those pictures will have to come later.

Kirk took all these pictures, but we also have an awesome DVD of the entire day because, Nick, the videographer, came on our dive boat, and documented everything with his high-def still and movie cameras!

The diving was, once again, a complete wonderland of underwater life. So many fishes, coral, turtles, sharks, and literally thousands of living creatures, I will never be able to name. It was total sensory overload.

The first photo is probably a butterfly fish, the second, a really cool brain-like coral and the third was a really big reef shark. Their eyes are so spooky looking, especially up close. And believe me, we got close enough!

Jellyfish Lake, 26 Sept

After our two dives we stopped by the Jellyfish Lake. You can read more about it here, but the short and simple is that this lake formed trapping two species of Jellyfish. Over tens of thousands of years with out preditors, they lost their sting. They adapted to becoming farmers and carry algee farms. In return for sugars, the jellys follow the sun all day, keeping their farms running. Here are four pictures and at the bottom a video. (We are in Hawaii now and have highspeed access. It will be another day before we are caught up. Please be patient.)

And on Thursday, we dove with dolphins

This was soooo cool. Mom, Ron, Danka, Kirk and I went out to "Dolphins Pacific" to encounter dolphins.

These are mostly rehab or rescued dolphins who are well cared for and provide amazing hands-on experience with beautiful, but still wild animals.

Danka arranged to take promotional photos while Kirk, Ron and I did the free dive with "J" and "Ekai" (pics one and two), and Mom got the full "symphony" experience which included swimming with and petting one of three dolphins - "Rubak" (pic three) really took a shine to her! - then watching "J" and "Ekai" underwater as they swam really fast and performed tricks, and finally, she got towed while holding the dorsal fin of "Leila". You'll have to wait for some more of these pictures, because our storage chip malfunctioned.

It was a truly amazing experience and we also got "kissed" or a "handshake" with a dolphin as well. Danka got some great pictures of those, and hopefully we can post later.

Wednesday in Paradise

Wednesday started with Leslie and her mother driving into town on their own. This may not seem impressive at first, but consider that there are no street names nor house numbers, 95% of the cars are right-hand drive, but the road systems is what we use in the states.

Once they returned, we picked up Danka and the five of us went to see a local artisan named Boong who collects trocus and clam shells and using hand tools and grinders make jewelery.

The first picture was from the side of his house. It is of a Radio Flyer tricycle. The second picture is of Boong and a shell that he used to make a necklace that is coming home for my mother.

The third picture is of a wood carving at a Thai restaurant in which we had a late lunch. From there we went to the museum of history and met Elvis the Cockatoo. The museum has pictures, carvings, and war relics.

The final picture is out of the door to our room.

Trying Tuesday, again

Okay, so I tried this earlier, and it wouldn't post to the internet.

On Tuesday, after a fairly lazy start, we met Danka and a guide at Palau Pacific Resort (PPR) for a gentle nature hike. This half-mile hike was to ascend 300 ft through many native plants with our guide who pointed out many indigenous trees and plants and their historical and traditional uses. It was a lovely walk/climb - we had to ascend and descend those 300 ft, several times. Not great on Mom's knees, which hadn't quite recovered from Saturday. Even if Ron, Kirk and I had recovered from Saturday, we also had Monday's day of diving to get over.

Anyway, these pictures are just a few of the amazing orchids in the lobby of PPR. The second picture contains two, absolutely huge blossoms on one plant. They were each at least 6-7 inches wide. Our camera's battery died shortly after that, so we'll try to get some pix from Mom's camera to post from the hike. We saw many interesting plants, trees, frogs and one or two (look away Aunt D) snakes.

It rained on us pretty good during the second half of our walk, and we all pretty much arrived back at the hotel looking like drowned rats.

After we drip dried a bit, we headed out to find lunch. We ended up at "The Taj", a fabulous Indian restaurant by any standards, and especially here in Palau. They had unfortunately discontinued their daily lunch buffet (now only on Fridays), but Robert, the very kind owner, suggested that he could make for us a sampling of many things for a set price. We each received a small serving of beef vindalu, buttered chicken, spinach with cheese (palaak paneer), grilled chicken and fish, yougurt with vegetables, rice, naan and roti and even a rice pudding for dessert. We had so much food left over, we couldn't even finish it all for dinner that night. Over dinner at home we watched "Pirates of the Carribean: At World's End".

Over all it was a very rainy, stormy day, but we had fun anyway.