Friday, September 12 – Hanauma and Olomana

HANAUMA BAY

Okay, I’ve messed up this report miserably. In going through the pictures and previous notes, I find out I’ve screwed up the chronology. Golf did NOT get to the tidal pool on Wednesday, as previously reported -- that day she got only the pictures of me on the gate, then they went to the Pali Golf Course. She went to the tidal pool on Thursday, after they had been driving all over Kailua as previously reported, and that was when they snorkeled at Kaupo Beach, the beach that’s four buildings northwest of Robin’s Nest, found the anchor chain, and found out her mask was leaking – or she assumed there was something wrong with the way she was using it. So that’s when, after she “lured” Larry there under the guise of “let’s snorkel here,” she was able to struggle through the tide to get to the tidal pool while Larry, kindly and patiently, waited at Kaupo Beach.

So actually her joy in her first visit to the tidal pool was Thursday, not Wednesday, as was posted earlier. So I apologize for any confusion – believe me, she’s confused ME now more than you! And I was there. I tried to correct her, but she wouldn’t listen to me. . . . . I am shocked, shocked and appalled that golf would forget the date she first made it to the tidal pool. Abysmal . . . .

Now pick up Friday:

golf was excited. She was very eager to get to Hanauma Bay to go snorkeling this morning. For a non-swimmer, she just loves snorkeling.

Larry and golf arrived at the parking lot around 9:30. It was already pretty crowded, but not miserably so. They paid their entry fee, at which time they found at that, if it’s one’s first visit there, one has to view the video to learn not to feed the fish nor damage the reef. So they waited 15 minutes for that. The history part of the bay was somewhat interesting, but they were so eager to get in the water, it was mildly annoying. Then the long walk down. There is a little shuttle that runs up and down ($0.50 for the trip down, $1.00 for the trip up). But they didn’t mind walking down.

They found a place on the beach to spread out one towel and pile the other stuff on it (they’ve been taking their cameras with them to the beach because EVERYONE keeps saying NOT to leave anything of value in your car. They figured it was probably safer on the beach with a lot of people around to witness any theft, but technically, probably, if a thief wants it, the stuff is gone. Nevertheless, they never had anything stolen from car or beach.)

How to express golf’s total frustration . . . . her masked leaked terribly, even worse than yesterday. She was fighting the incoming water all the time, and she was close to miserable. She kept tightening it but all that did was give her a headache and then it would fog up. Poor thing nearly drowned, fighting with it.

And there were very few fish! Just a few little convict tangs. Nothing like what they were expecting, such as they had seen at Maui and the Big Island. And where they were, there WASN’T any reef, there wasn’t even any “live” rock. It was all just “dead” rock. They didn’t know if it had all been so damaged by over-use or what, but they both agreed it wasn’t worth fighting golf’s problems to stay in the water as they felt there was not much to see. Perhaps if they had gone farther out, there might have been more fish, but golf probably truly would have drowned if they’d done that. So they came out of the water, and Larry walked to the other end of the beach to see if he could determine if the snorkeling would be better there. While golf waited for him to return, she started examining her mask to see if she could find anything really wrong with it (generally, if something doesn’t work, she assumes it’s probably her fault). AHA! She found a kink in the plastic seal around the edge of the mask. It looked as though it has been pinned under the packaging and been damaged while it stayed so long in the packaging with this edge caught. Well, that was somewhat a relief. Just get a new mask (it had hardly been a major investment) and then she could snorkel again. But they felt they might as well retire from here for this morning, so they caught the shuttle up the hill and left, after taking a few pictures from the top of the hill, looking down on the bay. Below is golf in her men's large MPI parrot shirt -- it rather dwarfs her!

The bay was beautiful, no doubt about it. They just didn’t find a lot of fish there – and no reef TO damage. But maybe they were at the wrong place at the wrong time.

When they had been at the Makai Research Pier on Wednesday, they had seen some divers with scuba gear going in the water there. They had been told that that was a place where scuba lessons were giving so maybe the snorkeling was good there? But they didn’t stop at this point in time. What point was there in trying again? The mask would just leak again. She needed a new one.

So they gave up on snorkeling until they could get golf a new mask. But on the way back to the ranch, they stopped at the Halona overlook/blow hole (between Hanauma Bay and Sandy Beach) and took pictures there.

Then they stopped one more time at Waimanalo Beach. This beach is so gorgeous! (though the jellyfish warning was posted!)

It was still relatively early in the day, so back at the “ranch,” golf called the golf course right around the corner from where they were, Olomana Golf Course, and they got a tee time and went over there to play.

Larry on the first tee

They had a good time playing there. They got paired up with a man and his wife who were fun and entertaining. That couple was on a cruise, and this was the first time his wife had been out on the golf course with him (she didn’t play) (they were both retired and she’d never seen him play golf! The mind boggles . . . . but this may be more prevalent than golf would have thought because she plays more than Larry does!).

Anyway, the course was very pretty, but apparently Oahu has been experiencing a kind of drought because every water pond, stream, etc. (and there were a lot of them!) was all dried up and was just a dried alligator surface of dirt! Easy to retrieve those stray balls that should have been lost in a water hazard – but then not so easy after all, because there were SO many balls left after the water dried up that you couldn’t find YOUR ball!

Still, there were some interesting scenery of trees and rocks that Larry and golf DON'T see in Georgia!

By late in the game, though, it was starting to get cloudy again.

After playing golf, they went back into Kailua and since they were tired after a long day, they just ate pizza at a restaurant in the shopping center where the Safeway was.