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!

Vacation Travelogue - Hiking Diamondhead Pt II

Well, I have some of the missing photographs of the Diamondhead hike. I have to comb though the original RAW (NEF for Nikons) pictures to find the ones I wanted to add. I do shoot everything in RAW format so that I have full data when it comes time for some serious editing. What I post here are just the quick conversion to JPG with a little color correction.

From just about as high up as I can get near the top of the observation point. This is Honolulu. If you look carefully towards the center you can make out the Royal Hawaiian Hotel where the luau was.

Here we are looking right down the edge of the volcanic rim. I was waiting for the shot to clear but the flow of people just didn't seem to stop. You can also see one of the secondary observation positions near the center of the picture. 

Just about the full extant of the Diamondhead crater

And out to sea

The top of the observation point.

Inside the observation area. I'm guessing a large pair of spotting binoculars were mounted on that stand. 

Looking out through one of the observation slits

Looking up the spiral stairs, these exit out of the funky tower on the top.

Going down the stairs you can find two more levels for the main observation area.

One of the residents of Diamondhead, a mongoose.

Vacation Travelogue - Pearl Harbor Pt 1

We were at Pearl Harbor on Tuesday. I took so many pictures that I'll have to break up that day into several posts. that will give me a little time to edit the photos as well. It was quite the experience, very moving to take the boat out to the Arizona memorial. Unfortunately we could not go into the memorial itself, the landing pad had developed a crack in it and was considered to dangerous to allow the boats to dock. While I'm disappointed about not being able to go inside I do appreciate their safety concerns. About 1300 people a day visit the memorial the multitude of people coming and going could make things quite dangerous. Currently the memorial is closed to visitors for an indefinite period of time.

Oh and for those that are curious, we could not see the volcanic plume from the island of Hawai'i. It is about 200 miles between O'ahu and Hawai'i.

We started off with what we thought would be a visit to the memorial, but at least we got to take the boat out and see it up close.

First look at the memorial from shore. I used my big telephoto lens for this one.

A model of the Arizona, BB-39 inside one of the two small museums nearby

A model of a Japanese carrier, I think this one is the Akagi.

A look at where everything is located from Pearl Harbor

A very large model of the Arizona beneath the water.

A Japanese torpedo that was dredged up from the bottom of the harbor. It was intact when it was found. The navy took it to see and blow it up. They then recovered the aft section.

The memorial with the battleship Missouri, BB-63, in the background.

About as close as you can get to the memorial right now

These are markers indicating where it ship was moored.

The infamous landing, that is currently cracked, resulting in the memorial being closed to visitors.

A good look from the starboard side of an Iowa class battleship.

Vacation Travelogue - Taking it Easy

Its been a long time since I went on a real family vacation. My mom decided that she wanted to take everyone to Hawai'i for her birthday. How could I say no? We opted to go to the island of O'ahu, since the group was just to big to island hop and there is plenty to do right there, including a visit to Pearl Harbor. Of course the one thing I forget to pack is the charger and spare battery for my camera. It was a couple of days before I could get to a shop in Honolulu that had what I needed, so it was just my phone camera for a couple of days. We elected to take the first couple of days easy to acclimate to the climate and not pack the itinerary with so much that everything was rushed. I can safely state that I never acclimated to the high humidity levels on O'ahu though!

We arrived early Saturday afternoon, spent Sunday on the beach which was just a 100 yards away or in Kailua which is the small town we were staying in. Monday was pretty much the same but we did venture to Honolulu for a luau at the Royal Hawaiin Hotel. Very touristy but a lot of fun. That will lead us into Tuesday, our visit to Pearl Harbor.

Our first bit of wildlife, an Anole on a rock heading into the house. There was a whole colony of them in the backyard around the pool.

One of the local denizens of Kailua, a real free range chicken. They are all over the place and there are signs asking people not to feed them.

Another bit of wildlife near the back patio, a day gecko

A visit to the Punchbowl to visit one of my wife's distant cousins that was killed on Guadalcanal. This national cemetery is located inside a volcanic crater.

Left wing of the main memorial in the Punchbowl, this features mosaics made of crushed class you can just make out some of them in the picture.

The center of the main memorial

And the right wing

Looking out over the cemetery grounds, the cousin's burial plot is somewhere on the left side near the entrance (which you can just make out in the distance there).

One of the mosaics from inside the memorial itself. This is the liberation of the Philippines. This is where my great uncle was wounded and would later die from those wounds.

Honolulu as seen from the lookout point on the rim of the Punchbowl. They definitely have a height limitation here!

A bit of the interior of the Punchbowl from the rim. This is a closed cemetery, no burial plots are available. 

At the luau, with a rainbow over Diamond Head, (another volcanic crater).

A study in contrasts, my tiny mother (5' nothing probably a bit shorter now) next to the lead Samoan dancer after the luau