Uwe! My last update was in Waikiki.
My original plan had been to stay in Waikiki for 6 days, but because the hotel was filled up with bridge players. So I arranged a car, and a few nights at Turtle Bay Resort.
The drive was outstanding. Rather than driving there directly (which isn't such a bad choice either), I went south from Honolulu to Aina Haina, and then up the east coast of the island. The skies were perfect, the shoreline has a number of nifty small islands just off shore, and of course on the shore side you have these enormous slopes - you are basically driving just above the beach, between a very green rock and the surf. I pretty much took all day to get there, and it was a day well spent.
The resort itself, I didn't fare so well at. The resort fee covers an hour of snorkling (among other activities, but that was the only one I was really interested in), but about 15 minutes before I got to the beach, the high surf warning went into effect, so the complementary equipment was not available, and stayed that way at least until I left.
So I wandered around the hotel a bit, and found a perfect little mound of grass to watch the sunset (not terribly brilliant on this occasion). While I was there, I met a young couple who decided to drive up from Waikiki as I had, and maybe stay the night if something was available. They reminded me that, with a bit of planning, renting a couple weeks of a condominium might be a better choice than hotelling it all week.
Shortly, I discovered that I had abandoned the charger for my camera in Waikiki - it had not been found by the hotel staff (I probably left it plugged into the wall), so I drove to Mililani to get a replacement. I managed to get to the mall with only a single error that I recovered from immediately. Radio Shack had a generic charger. But it would seem that I stuck my battery into it the wrong way around, or set the pins incorrectly, and thus promptly fried the chip on the battery that promises the camera it's the right one. That led to a second trip the next day, where Walmart had the next generation battery available. At this point, I'm almost better off getting a new camera. Oh well.
Second day I spent an hour or so playing in the surf, and then went wandering along the reef, looking for various fish (another lone butterfly fish - do they not believe in schools?) out to the northern most piece of Hawai'i to watch the waves break against the rocks. (From gossip - North Shore gets all of the surfers, while the shoppers are in Waikiki). In all, I think I spent three hours in the sun - which meant that the burn kicked in when driving back from Mililani. Ugh, what a miserable night of shivering because my skin was too hot.
That turned day three into basically an indoors day, with some venturing about by car. What I missed though, and strongly recommend to those venturing that way, is to take some time to explore the Waimea valley, which from what I saw from the road is astonishingly gorgeous.
I may rent a car just to go back there again.
January 17, 2010 12:49 AM
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