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Cindy’s
spring break from school was the second week in April, and since she had
never been to Hawaii, we planned a trip.
Rather than trying to see everything in one week, we decided to
concentrate on Oahu and the big island.
Although I have been to Hawaii many times, I’ve never stayed in
Waikiki, so it was a logical place to start.
After
her last class on Friday, April 6th, we headed to SFO where we
caught a late afternoon flight to Honolulu, arriving at 10:00 PM.
We took a shuttle to a local motel and went to sleep immediately as
we needed to check out, move to Waikiki and still catch a 6:00 AM tour to
Pearl Harbor. Fortunately, the
Hyatt Regency was able to get us into our room overlooking the beach
at 5:30 AM Saturday when we arrived by taxi.
The
Pearl Harbor tour included a dozen people and we spent a couple hours
visiting the new museum exhibits as well as the Arizona Memorial.
On the way back, the bus took us up to the National Memorial Cemetery
of the Pacific at the Punchbowl before driving through downtown Honolulu and
past the ramshackle apartment building where Barak Obama once lived.
The bus
driver dropped us off at the International Market which we wandered through
for an hour before having lunch at an outdoor venue where there were local
musicians playing Hawaiian music.
After lunch we walked the three blocks back to our hotel and visited
the pool in the afternoon.
Easter
Morning we got up before light and took a taxi up to
Diamondhead where we hiked up to the lookout point.
 The
weather was great and we had great views of the city and surrounding area.
There were no taxis when we got back to the trailhead so we continued
walking down to the main road where we were able to get a cab back to town.
Just as we were leaving the park, five emergency vehicles turned up
the road to Diamondhead with sirens and lights flashing.
The driver said someone must have fallen, but when I checked the
paper the next day I could find no mention of an accident on Diamondhead.
We
showered and then headed out to find a place to have breakfast. Across
the street at The Outrigger we found
Duke's,
apparently owned or at least named after the father of Hawaiian surfing, and
had the breakfast buffet. We walked down to The Royal Hawaiian Resort
arriving just in time for the start for the annual Easter egg hunt.
A 74-year old tradition, there were about 300 children who cleared
the grounds of a couple thousand eggs in less than a minute! We walked
through the pool area and lobby of The Sheraton before heading back to The
Hyatt. We went out to the pool for a couple of hours and had lunch
poolside.
Cindy wanted to ride an outrigger canoe so we signed up to ride four waves
in the surf of Waikiki Beach. After waiting a half hour, we were
grouped with four other people and paddled the 20-foot outrigger canoe a few
hundred yards into the ocean and rode the 4-foot waves back to shore.
We repeated this adventure three times and had a lot of fun.
 Afterwards,
Cindy decided to take a surfing lesson. This did not go as well as her
instructor did not have the patience to teach a first time surfer and she
ended up aborting the lesson before she was able to stand on the board.
For
dinner we went to Japengo at our hotel for Pacific Rim cuisine and had a
great Easter dinner.
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Monday
morning our jet lag continued and we woke up before 5:00AM. We walked
across the street to the Moana Surfrider Resort and were able to get a
beachfront table at their Beachhouse Restaurant where we ate breakfast.
Although it had rained overnight, the weather now was fine and people were
starting to populate the beach.
After breakfast, we stopped by "Big Wave Dave's"
 surf
shop and met Dave who we had tried to get together with on Easter. Dave had
been recommended to us by James Bradley as an excellent surf instructor and
we both wish we had made the connection before we had to leave. We packed
and I walked down to the car rental office where I stood in line for an hour
to pick-up our reservation. I picked up Cindy and the luggage and we drove
out of Honolulu en route to the North Shore.
We stopped for lunch at The Shrimp Shack,
 a
food truck serving fresh shrimp which has been featured on The Food Network.
A short while later, we arrived at
The
Polynesian Cultural Center where we planned to spend the afternoon.  We
toured most of the villages and learned about the peoples and their
traditions. After the parade of
canoes, we left to check into The
Turtle Bay Resort
just a few more miles up the coast.
Turtle Bay is beautiful and we have a room facing the ocean. We changed
into our bathing suits and went down to the pool before dinner. The pool
overlooks the ocean where there were a dozen surfers attempting to ride
8-foot waves. The hotel actually has bleachers set-up where guests can sit
to watch the surfers. We ate dinner at Leonardo's, a very good Italian
restaurant at the hotel before returning to our room.
Tuesday
morning we awoke to rain. We ate breakfast and then Cindy took a lei-making
class followed by a coconut palm weaving class while I went to the hot tub.
It cleared up around 11:00AM so we rented bicycles and rode the 12 miles of
trails the resort offers. Aside from spectacular views of the ocean, we
came across a huge grove of banyan trees with their roots supporting heavy
branches. We returned to our room and ate a pineapple for lunch which Cindy
had bought at a farm stand yesterday.
Tuesday
evening Cindy took a Zumba class. Afterwards, we met at The Surfer Bar
where we ate dinner and watched local musicians entertain the hotel's
guests. A large screen played surfing videos while a half-dozen Hawaiians
with varying levels of talent strummed guitars and ukuleles. We did
purchase a CD from a 16-year old artist who has promise.
Wednesday we ate breakfast and then took some photos around the resort.  Cindy
took a hot hula class while I packed our belongings in advance of
checking-out. At 10:30 AM we left Turtle Bay continuing west on the
Kamehameha Highway to Sunset Beach, home of the
Banzai Pipeline, the most famous and dangerous surfing location in
Hawaii and possibly the world. Waves are biggest in winter, but there were
still scores of surfers plying the 6-foot waves today.
We
stopped at The
Dole Plantation on our way back to Honolulu.  After
taking the 20-minute train ride through the pineapple fields and the
self-guided garden tour, we ate lunch topped off with pineapple ice cream.
I
dropped Cindy at the airport and then returned our rental car. The flight
to Hilo was less than an hour and true to form it was raining when we
arrived. We rented another car and drove about a half hour up towards
Hawaii Volcanoes
National Park. We had reservations at a guest house only a couple miles
outside the park. In the dark it was somewhat difficult to find the house,
but once there we had no problem getting in.
We had a restful night and got up early to drive to the main building for
breakfast before we left. We drove over to the Kilauea Visitor
Center to plan out what we wanted to see in the park. We drove past the
steam vents to The Jaggar Museum which offers the best view of both the
Kilauea Crater and
Halema'uma'u Crater. This second crater is very active with large smoke
plumes visible in daytime and a glowing lava lake at night.  The
last time I was here there was no activity here at all. We drove to the
other side of Kilauea and parked so could hike down into
Kilauea
Iki, the smaller crater which last erupted in 1959-60. We hiked the
4-mile loop down to the crater floor and back up the other side. Before
returning to the car, we walked through the
Thurston
Lava Tube.  Finally,
before leaving the park, we returned to the Visitor's Center to watch the
various movies about the park which we missed earlier.
Around noon we left for the three-hour drive to Kailua-Kona. We stopped at
a black sand beach, and a fruit stand for lunch before arriving at
The Hilton
Waikoloa Village. The hotel is huge with two trams and several boats
ferrying guests around the property. Our room overlooks the ocean.  We
went to one of a dozen pools for a while before having dinner at a Chinese
restaurant on the property.
Friday I did some laundry in the early morning, and then we walked to the
other end of the property and swam in one of the pools that had a slide.
Friday
afternoon, Cindy had arranged to go to Dolphin Quest where she and a group
of five other guests were able to swim with a dolphin. I stayed on the
shore taking photos of her dolphin encounter, which she enjoyed very much.
The session only lasted 45 minutes, but each participant got to hold and
play with the dolphins individually.  We
purchased a DVD of the session which I am sure she'll be anxious to share.
In the evening we dressed for the luau
 which
featured a Hawaiian barbecue and show. The hula dancers were very good but
we liked the fire dancer the most.
On Saturday we decided to get away from the resort and drove the 25 miles
back to Kailua-Kona to explore the town. I had spent a few days here on my
last trip staying at a local infamous motel...Uncle Billy's. One recent
guest had given Uncle Billy's a five star rating because they didn't have to
leave the property to buy drugs! We had a great breakfast overlooking the
beach and starting point of the Ironman Triathlon each year. After an hour
of wandering through the local shops, we boarded the
Atlantis
submarine for an hour ride beneath the bay.  There
were only 9-passengers in a submarine that can accommodate 48 so we all rode
on one side of the sub and we got to see twice as much as usual as the pilot
did not have to retrace his course so everyone could see. We got as deep as
107 feet below the surface and were able to see large schools of fish
amongst the coral as well as a few large fish around 50 pounds. Many of the
wrecks around Hawaii were marked with buoys in the 80's courtesy of Jerry
Garcia who loved to dive in this area. Paul Allen currently owns the
largest house on the harbor.
In the afternoon we drove up the mountain to visit the
Mountain Thunder
Coffee Plantation. It took
some effort to find, even with our GPS, but after 20 minute we came to a
small sign and a half dozen cars parked on the side of the road. While
waiting for our tour to begin, we watched several TV episodes about the
company. Mountain Thunder is apparently the largest organic
coffee grower in the Kona region. The one hour tour teaches you about
growing, picking, sorting, selecting, roasting and packaging the beans. We
ended at the gift shop where I bought a pound of their best beans for
$55...such a deal!
We drove back to Waikoloa but stopped at the Queens Marketplace for lunch at
a Thai restaurant before returning to the hotel. Cindy was anxious to pick
up her dolphin DVD and I went swimming before we met back up in the room.
We ate dinner at the boat landing just downstairs from our room.
Sunday
was our final day in Hawaii, but our flight was not until 9:00 PM so we had
the full day to enjoy ourselves.
We swam in the morning;
 played
miniature golf and checked out at 1:00 PM.
We had planned to continue driving clockwise around the island as I
wanted Cindy to see the
Waipio
Valley where I had hiked the last time I was here.
 We
drove to the overlook and had a great view, but did not go down into the
valley. We reached Hilo where
it was raining, but still walked around the town for a bit.
I got a message from my sister that my dad had been taken to the
hospital, but after several frantic phone calls, it seems his prognosis is
OK and he’ll be released after spending the night.
We ate dinner at Ken’s Pancake House which is very popular and got to
the airport by 7:00 PM for our flight home.
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