Blue Hawaii

Riding the Great White Whale around Oahu

OK, I’ll admit it.  I came to Hawaii for some rather shallow reasons.  First of all, I wanted to break up the long flight from California to New Zealand into relatively comfortable segments.  More importantly, I’d been to every US state except Hawaii since last year after I easily convinced my colleague, David Herrington, that we drive over to Lake Charles, Louisiana for a catfish dinner while we were working north of Beaumont, Texas on an oil and gas facility inventory.   A couple day stopover in Honolulu seemed like an easy way to complete my state list.  From now on, I will feel no need to go anywhere in the US just to say I’ve been there.  Frankly, I could care less if I ever see most American states again particularly anything east of Colorado.  Not to say that there aren’t nice places to visit in the East and friends there I would gladly visit but why in the hell would I chose to go to Mississippi or New Jersey unless I was going there for paying work?

Had I more time and wanted to spend more money, I would have skipped Honolulu and Oahu (the populous island on which Honolulu is located) and headed to The Big Island (the Island of Hawaii) to see some volcanic activity in progress.  Maybe next trip.  Originally, I wanted to stay on the east (windward) side of the Oahu away from crowded Honolulu and the Waikiki Beach scene.  No such luck.  There are very few accommodations on Oahu outside of Honolulu and most are relatively expensive B&Bs.  Believe it or not, the cheapest hotels on Oahu are found just a few blocks back from the most expensive ones on Waikiki Beach.  I chose one recommended by the Lonely Planet Guide called the Waikiki Prince Hotel, a 1970-vintage six-story apartment building that had been converted into motel rooms.  Actually, at 74 bucks a night plus another 15 bucks a day for a parking spot for my white whale (more on my Crown Victoria later), it was a pretty good deal considering the location.  It came with a kitchenette including microwave, stove, and fridge and a balcony with a table and chairs from which I could almost see the beach.  And if I really needed to see the beach, it was less than a five minute walk from the motel.

Northwest of Honolulu:  tract homes in paradise

Breakfast on my balcony at the Waikaki Prince & my ever-present laundry

 

The view from my balcony - you can't quite see Waikiki Beach

Hot-babe-watching on Waikiki was low on my list of priorities (yeah, I'm no fun anymore) and hiking on some of the island’s trails was at the top.  After arriving around noon on Sunday, there wasn’t time for a long hike on the Windward side of Oahu, so I collected my Crown Vic (yes, yes, I’ll explain later), successfully navigated it to the Waikiki Prince (quite a challenge given the maize of one-way streets in the Waikiki area), then headed up past the University of Hawaii to the trailhead for the Manoa Falls Trail.  The trail started out dramatically through a forest of huge tropical trees and plants.  It was only supposed to be 0.8 miles to the falls but it seemed twice that far as the trail soon steepened and became treacherous with exposed tree roots and numerous muddy rocks which were now slick from the falling rain.  Add to the conditions, the throngs of Sunday afternoon hikers (including many young foreigners) and I wasn’t exactly thrilled with the experience.  When I finally reached the falls, I could barely get a decent photo because of the young Nordic-types who had climbed the protective fence with warning signs (they probably couldn’t read English, right?) and cluttered my view.  The photos I did get have big rain drops all over them because I forgot to wipe my lens.  My rain jacket was fairly useless.  It was so warm and humid that the jacket kept the rain out but I sweated like a pig underneath.  Back in Waikiki, I found a good but overpriced veggie sandwich and tasty pineapple fruit smoothie and got to bed early.

 

Impressive tropical vegetation at the start of the Manoa Falls Trail

Manoa Falls:  "Raindrops keep falling on my lens"

"Area Closed" sign at Manoa Falls does not apply to young Europeans

Manoa Falls Trail turns to slop in heavy rains

Here’s a little info about the Ford Crown Victoria baby whale that I rented from Dollar.  No, I wasn’t practicing to become a Denver city cop (they drive big Crown Vics).  Per my usual choice, I requested the smallest, cheapest car from Dollar through Orbitz.  At the rental desk, I reminded the agent that I wanted the smallest car they had.  “Sorry, we’re all sold out of small cars,” she replied.  Expecting a mid-size, you can imagine my surprise when I found a Ford ocean liner parked in the spot where they directed me.  “Bad gas mileage,” I sighed to myself but I knew I wouldn’t be putting many miles on her so I accepted my fate assuming they gave the worst cars to people who got cheap prices on line like I had.  The worst part of my whale was trying to park her in the tiny parking area under the Prince.  Entering the driveway, I had little more than six inches to spare between the sides of the car, the side of the building, and perimeter wall.  The best spot was right at the end of the driveway meaning I could back straight out with very careful reliance on both the left and right mirrors.  Once I even managed to turn the whale around in the parking area and backed into a spot successfully avoiding looming posts everywhere.  Instead of being annoyed, I saw the parking process as a challenge transporting me back to age 16 when I learned to parallel park.  The whale arrived back at Dollar this morning with no scratches – a notable accomplishment.

Yesterday, I was up at dawn (about 5:30AM – no daylight saving time in Hawaii) and headed over to the eastern, windward side of the island on the Pali Highway, a nice 4-lane state road which includes a couple of tunnels up at the drainage divide.  My destination, about 20 miles up the east coast, was the Hauula Loop trail.  From a mile inland from the beach highway, it ascended several hundred feet through evergreen forests (including Norfolk Island pines) to a ridge offering unspoiled views down toward the ocean and up to the divide some 2000 feet above sea level.  Some 4 miles later I was back to the whale and drove back to a nearly deserted beach where I parked and munched down my brown-bag lunch.  I noted that the two-lane beach highway is only a few feet above sea level and will be easy prey to rising sea levels.  My guess is that the highway will be gone in less than 100 years.  I shot some photos of one spot where sandbags have been placed on top of a small seawall to hold back the water during storm surges.  I would not recommend a long-term investment in one of the numerous pleasant homes set back a few dozen feet from the highway.

View of Oahu's windward (east) coast from Nuuana Pali lookout

Hauula Loop Trail on windward coast & Norfolk Island pines

View toward the Pacific from the Hauula Loop Trail
 

Hauula Loop Trail:  Tropical wilderness a few miles from Honolulu

Beach and coastal highway at Hauula:
A couple foot rise in sea level would make the highway navigable by watercraft only!

Sand bags used to reinforce sea wall a few miles south of Hauula.
Note my "family size" Ford Crown Victoria, an "upgrade" from Dollar Rent-a-Car.

After crossing the Pali Highway, I continued south along the coast coming to the southeast tip of Oahu where I followed a 1¼ mile trail to a lighthouse nestled on a steep-sided promontory jutting out into the Pacific.  The spectacular cliffs in this area were being hammered by waves with spray splashing skyward.  I returned to Honolulu by continuing around the southern end of the island.  For dinner, I found maybe the best food value in Waikiki.  For 10 bucks, I got a carryout from a Korean hole-in-the-wall which included about 8 good-sized pieces of fried squid, four veggie side dishes, and rice.  Back at the Prince, I washed it down with a bottle of Kona pale lager which I’d found at a convenience store in the morning.  There was some much food that I barely was able to finish it for lunch today before my flight left.

Makapuu Head - the southeastern tip of Oahu

 

Makapuu Lighthouse

 

Mesmerizing surf at Makapuu Head

And here are a couple shots for erosion control aficionados:





Wire reinforcement for road cut, Makapuu Head

Fear & Loathing on Waikiki

After dinner and again this morning, I finally did take short walks along Waikiki Beach.  OK, it’s nice with Diamond Head looming to the south but really the beach isn’t all that wide.  As pointed out in a recent New York Times article, Hawaii’s beaches are gradually eroding away as a result of rising sea level.  I took note of the little berm along the beach representing the upper level of the water at the highest spring tides during storm surges.  When sea level goes up another foot, they will start getting water at the hotel patios at fancy-smanchy resorts like the Royal Hawaiian which is only a few dozen horizontal feet from the water’s edge even at the present low tide which I observed.  The Sheraton Waikiki has no beach at all – only a sea wall.  Once the sea level comes up two feet, Waikiki is in big trouble as spring high tides (during Full Moon or New Moon) will bring water into beach hotel lobbies and Kalakaua Avenue which inland from the beach hotels.  Most of us will be long gone by the time this happens sometime around 2100, and hotel execs and investors are too small minded to give a shit about anything that far in the future.  All that matters is the bottom line for 2012, 2013, and maybe five or ten years after that.  Besides, most are good Republicans who consider climate change a conspiracy which pointy-headed liberals are attempting to foist upon the rights of good capitalists to build whatever they want wherever they want.  I have one regret about my inevitable demise before rising sea level has a major impact:  I will miss the opportunity to watch some of these fat-cat follies all wash away.

Evening stroll on Waikiki:
People on right side of photo are standing/sitting on highest (spring tide) berm.

At the Sheraton Waikiki you don't even get a beach for your 500 bucks a night
- only a seawall!

Waikiki Beach - early morning view toward Diamond Head.  It's not much of a beach.

The Vast Pacific
For nearly 3 hours we’ve been passing over the vast blue Pacific topped by a sprinkling of puffy white cumulous clouds stretching as far as the eye can see.  No wonder it’s been so tough to find Amelia Earhart’s wreckage which lies somewhere on the floor of the sea within a thousand-mile radius of where we’re now passing close to the equator.  It will soon be tomorrow when we cross the International Date Line before arriving in Fiji.  But just ahead is our intermediate stop at Christmas Island in the independent island nation of Kiribati (formerly the Ellice Islands which were part of the British colony of Gilbert and Ellice Islands). 

Written on 17 July 2012 somewhere over the Pacific en route to Christmas Island, KIRIBATI.