Vacation Travelogue - Kaena Point and the North Shore

A day dedicated to hitting the north shore. The area is quite large and we split into a separate vehicles because everyone wanted something a bit different from this trip. My group drove up the center of the island based Wheeler Army airfield, Schofield Barracks and the Dole Plantation. Didn't really have time to stop and apparently there is a small museum at Wheeler that the public can get to. Our goal was to head to Kaena Point State Park and hopefully spot Albatrosses and sea turtles.

Unfortunately it looked like we had missed the Albatrosses by at least a week although we did find nests and broken eggs. The area is absolutely beautiful and quite different from what we had seen so far. We were fortunate to spot one sea turtle at Laniakea Beach as we drove down Highway 83 (Kamehameha Hwy). We managed to get a late lunch at Giovanni's aloha Shrimp truck on the way back on Hwy 83 as well. Had Shrimp Scampi there, wonderful, I would go back in a heartbeat.

A few pictures from the day

The hills above the beach

A bit of beach, very rugged with coral and lava flows preventing surfing in this area

A mass of broken coral washed up from the reef off shore

Lava rock strewn across the beach

An entire family of crabs living in this area. You can just make one out in the center

Tidal pools along the beach

If you look close you can spot the small fish living in this particular pool

This is Keoki (the Hawaiian form of George). They can identify them by the pattern of scales on the head. 

Volunteers will go to a beach to spot turtles that are sunning themselves on shore and cordon them off with a red rope so people don't get to close

Waves along Laniakea beach where Keoki had come ashore

He has three barnacles on his shell just above his left front leg.

No pictures of the Shrimp truck. I was to hungry to think about it!