Our day started with our usual serenade and hula
dancer. It’s so nice to have coffee,
look at Diamond Head, watch the surf and listen to Hawaiian love songs. Happy!
The last song sung is always Israel Kamakawiwoʻole’s version of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”. (Did you know that Israel died at the age of
38 and was laid in state in the Hawaiian Capital Building? He was only the third person so honored.)
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| Ko Olina |
We boarded a Marriott bus headed for their Ko Olina Resort
on the far side of the island. Here we
listened to a marketing presentation, kindly said no to their offer and then
collected 10,000 points. More
importantly, we got a day pass to the resort including showers and
lockers. Before hitting the beach we got
refreshments at their beach restaurant and enjoyed the lovely view.
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| Kihikihi (Moorish Idol) |
The restaurant overlooks their man-made bay and beach, along
with three man-made islands. It struck us
both that there was little “Hawaii” here.
In fact, this resort could be anywhere tropical as there is little real
Hawaiian interaction. And, it’s about an
hour away from Waikiki so you never experience that side of Hawaiian life,
either.
Even though it’s not our style Ko Olina is beautiful to say
the least. The beach was huge with
plenty of lounge chairs for all and there were buoys in the water telling you
where it was safe to swim. We swam and I
snorkeled for a while. Several honus
(sea turtles) had been seen in the bay over the past few days, but they eluded
me. I did get to see quite a few fish
and sea urchins.
The pool was glorious.
There was a big pool for noisy swimming: pool volleyball, pool
basketball and lots of floaties with screeching little girls. But the pool we visited was the Quiet
Pool. It was huge with two islands of
rocks, flowers and palms. And the pool
was four feet all around. Just perfect
for lounging and floating. Re Lax A
Shun!
The ride home was interesting as the bus was full and I had
to sit up front with the driver. He, Junior, is
a mountain of a man and full of stories. He was raised in a small two room home with 17 other relatives. His
grandpa watched the bombing of Pearl Harbor.
He killed his first wild boar when he was twelve. He was terrified as the only weapons he had
were his dogs and his knife. He has six
kids including three sons. Sons #1 and
#2 were full of promise and both headed for athletic scholarships, but then
they got girlfriends. Son #1 is now in
the Army and Son #2 may be headed there. No matter, Junior is still very proud of his children and says they are good
people. At the end of the ride we shook
hands (his hand engulfed mine) and said our Alohas. It’s always nice to meet good people like
Junior.
It was late when we got home so we strolled down Kalakaua
watching the street performers and enjoying the breeze. Ended up at Duke’s again….we both wanted our
own dinner of mango ribs! It was another
beautiful night with tiki torches and swaying palm trees. Hard to get tired of this!
Saturday morning started much the same as every other
morning we’ve enjoyed here. Then it was
time to walk back to the Hau Tree Lanai for breakfast. Yes, we had our anniversary dinner there on
Wednesday, but breakfast is an entirely different experience! Lots of interesting beach activities to watch
and great food.
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| Caching on a giant Kapok Tree |
We geocached our way home finding nine caches in Queen
Kapiolani Park and the surrounding area.
One cache we didn’t pick up was only 350 feet away from our breakfast
table. That's because it was 350 feet out into the
ocean and a kayak and good breath-holding were required to pick up the
cache. Maybe next time!
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| Coming in to the beach. |
Next up was taking a ride on an outrigger canoe. Mona decided to opt out of this one so she
was the on-shore photographer. The
captain of our vessel gave us brief instructions then we were off! We paddled out past the surfers and turned
the boat in. The captain and the mate
kept an eye on waves, waiting for the perfect one and then yelled at us to
paddle hard! We paddled furiously until
we were in the grasp of the wave and it sent us rushing to shore, right through
the middle of the surfers and swimmers.
Several surfers had to take dives to avoid us and we crashed into their
boards. We made it close to shore and then
turned to head back out. We rode three
waves and didn't kill any surfers.
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| Our hotel is behind Mona |
The rest of the day was spent swimming in the ocean and then
swimming in the pool. Did see something
a little interesting in the pool; two
women swimming in hijab. Yep, totally
cloaked except for their faces. Of
course, their men were in the pool with them and only wearing swimming
trunks. I can’t imagine how uncomfortable
it is to wear something like that in the water and hot sun. I shall refrain from beginning a tirade.
No matter the stores, it's still Waikiki and beautiful.
Aloha!
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