Hawaii 2004

sorry for the delay in getting this uploaded,
and I may do some picture updates later.

So the wife and I headed off to Hawaii in March, 2004. And as I usually do after a cool trip, I worked up this page. And as usual, some of it's to brag about how much fun we had... But we met and dealt with so many cool people that I wanted also to recognize some of the businesses I think you should patronize if you ever head to the islands. For those who came here looking for some off-the-lip wave bash sailing pictures, sorry. That's someone else's business promotion website. My wife seldom takes the camera, and I'm too fast to catch in a viewfinder anyway.

So here goes...

Our trip was in three stages:

Four days at the Sheraton Waikiki while my wife attended a conference at the Honolulu Convention Center.

One day on the Big Island to do a tour of the volcanoes.

Four days on Maui to do some windsurfing and ride a bike down a volcano.

Since neither of us had vacationed in Hawaii before, I took to calling this our "training trip", i.e. this was practice for the next time we made that 8 hour flight.

Unlike many of my other vacation websites where I let the pictures do the talking, I intend to comment quite a bit through this section. Partially because I didn't always take pictures and partially because the pictures usually didn't do the view justice. Feel free to ignore the words and just click the images...

3/9: Today's the big day. Many hours in a 767. Fortunately, we had a direct flight to Honolulu, and the movies were ones we hadn't seen yet. Love the open air aspects of the Honolulu airport. The flight was uneventful and all our luggage made it. So far, so good... Rented a jeep. Got lost in Waikiki. Worst traffic I've ever seen. Partially because of screwed up traffic light timing, partially because of lousy road planning, partially because it seems like there are 10 million pedestrians and partially because I was an idiot for taking 92 instead of H-1. I don't think we caught a single green light the whole way. Definitely not a good first impression.

So anyway... We drove from the airport on 92 (Ala Moana) to Waikiki. There we caught Kalakaua, which seems to be the main drag in Waikiki, for the slow drive through town. We had an address on Kalakaua for the hotel, but it's actually on a different street tucked back off the road. So much for their directions. Ended up driving the entire length of Kalakaua. As I was about to hook a u-turn to head back into town, we spotted a sign for Diamond Head. What the hell. Off we went. Parking along the road was pretty packed, but we managed to find a decent spot about 1/2 way around. There were tons of people down in the water, but it didn't look like anyone was getting rides. For a Tuesday and relatively small surf, I'm surprised at how crowded the parking is at the top of the hill. That's Lynne standing on the wall. It was actually quite warm.

Finally found the Sheraton Waikiki (no thanks to their front desk). Hauled our stuff up to the room and opened the blinds. It's not often that I get to see a nuclear submarine parked outside my door.

Stopped at Planet Hollywood for a beer or two. Would be one of the last times we stopped at any kind of "mainstream" food place. The startled look on my face is from the piece of paper I'm holding... Seems that paying $200+ for a room at the Sheraton does not get you a place to park. We had to shell out another $10/day for parking. Of course, the going rate at some of the local lots was $2 for the first 30 minutes. So maybe $10 wasn't too bad after all. And having a vehicle certainly made things a lot easier for me.

Quick walk on the beach. As my wife puts it, Waikiki is based on the hustle. Every where you go, there are vendors, street merchants or workers looking to separate you from your money. There's actually not much beach in front of our hotel. It's mostly pool and deck. And it's not that soft powdery sand that we have along the Texas coast. This sand is much coarser. If you haven't got calluses on the tops of your feet, your sandals are going to leave a mark.

We wandered around the few blocks near the hotel. We were tired, but also hungry. ABC Stores everywhere (like Whataburger in Corpus). Pizza and beer on the veranda. Pretty nice evening.

3/10: Woke up 4 hours early at 3:30am because I was still on Garland time. So I went for a walk. Was the only time I saw Waikiki as peaceful and un-congested.

This was the day that I headed to Pearl Harbor. Of course, as soon as I got to Pearl it started to rain.

3/11: Lynne had to be at a 6am meeting. Since I was already up, I drove her there.

Later that morning I met with Brian Sinclair (another rec dot windsurfing regular). Brian and I never did get to share a beer, but we had a really good body surfing session at Makapuu Beach Park. Because this was a wide angle shot, it's hard to tell how big the waves are. But if you look closely, you'll see dark specks in the water - those are people. When I had listened to the marine report, they said the waves were running 6 to 8 feet. Considering how tired I was after about 45 minutes, that sounded about right. On the way back to Waikiki, we stopped for a quick session at Sandy Beach Park. The waves there were much smaller, but were also breaking on shore. We took a few drops before Brian had to get me back to the hotel so that he could get ready for work. It was great fun. Thanks again, Brian.

3/12: Dropped Lynne off at the convention center again.

Since I didn't really have anything better to do, I started driving towards Honolulu. I ended up driving up almost to the western most point of Oahu. I finally stopped at Mokuleia Beach Park. It was definitely a good surf location. I saw one guy coming back into the park with a busted board. Looked to have a pretty sizeable reef and the tide was low. But the waves were waist to chest high.

On the way back, I thought about stopping off at the Dole plant. It's supposed to be quite good, with a giant outdoor maze to check out. But as I got closer, I saw about a dozen of the big tour buses and decided to take a pass. I was pretty tired of the big crowds by now.

3/13: This was really the first day of vacation for Lynne... And since we had to fly out to the Big Island tonite, we had to cram some stuff in. Unfortunately, checking out of the hotel meant we had to haul all our luggage with us most of the day. And a soft top jeep is not the most secure vehicle in the world. So we broke the day up into two halves.

One of the things we both wanted to do was check out Diamond Head State Park. It was quite a hike from the crater floor up to the gun emplacements on the crater rim. A sign as we started said that we should expect to take 90-120 minutes to get up the trail. Since we had to be back at the hotel in time to clean-up and check out by 11, we had to hustle. As it turns out, we did the round trip in under 90 minutes, including quite a few stops for pictures along the way. It was really a nice walk, even at an accelerated pace. One thing that surprised me as we reached the bottom of the trail, there was someone hawking t-shirts out of a bag inside the park. Just another part of the hustle in the area. And definitely something that Texas State Parks would not allow.

We recommend that you do it early in the morning, before the crowds and heat. Because as the sun rises, it quickly starts getting warm inside the crater. And if there's been any rain at all, you can expect very muggy conditions.

Checked out.

As we got out stuff loading into the jeep, it started to spit rain. While we enjoyed the driving around with the top down, we didn't think the luggage would appreciate water. It was a good call. By the time we got to 61, it was pouring. We stopped off on the top of the ridge at Nuuanu Pali State Park. The wind was howling - blowing clouds straight up the north face. Pictures did not do it justice, but I tried.

We drove on to Kailua

3/14: This was our one day on the Big Island. Our whole reason for this trip was to tour the volcanoes. There was another sign around the corner that explained why the rangers weren't in the building... Air quality was poor. Makes you reconsider the the intelligence of taking long hikes in the old lava flows.

Our guide for the tour, Kimo, was a first rate host. And we got lucky on the tour. There were supposed to be 5 guests, but only Lynne and I showed up. At the end of the day, Kimo even helped us get to the airport.

3/15: After a light breakfast, we headed into Kahului. Our first stop was Al's to do the official check in on the van. That took about 2 minutes. Then we headed over to Hana Rd. to cruise the shops. I had pretty much decided that we were going to rent from Hi Tech, but had forgotten to bring the address with me. Fortunately, most of the gear rental places are right there along Hana Rd.

We checked out Kanaha. There were beginners taking a lesson, but not much in the way of real wind. And since it had been really windy at Kihei when we left, we decided to head back that way.

One of the few times we ate out. Fish Taco's at Big Wave Cafe. Not bad.

Finally got back to the launch around 12:30. And still got a good parking spot. But it was packed by the end of the day.

3/16: As much as I liked the Naish Supercross , I prefer a double back footstrap. So we drove into Hi Tech to get another strap. It took awhile.

It wasn't nearly as good a sailing day for me since I had a 96 L board. But Lynne had a ball.

I did manage to get some rides, but the wind shadow was huge. I really shouldn't have let the guys at Hi Tech talk me out of the 6.5 I wanted.

We called it a day around 4pm and headed back up to Kahului. I wanted to change out one of the sails and get the uphaul that died replaced.

3/17: Once again, we sailed at Kihei. The wind today was a better than Tuesday, but not as good as Monday. I should have been on a 6.0, but opted for the cambered 6.5. We finished packing up, then headed off to bed.

3/18: Since this was our last day on Maui and we'd already sailed three days, we decided to check out one of the bike rides down Haleakalā. We'd packed the night before, so at 7am we said goodbye to Kikei.

Cruiser Phil's with Rob and Marvin As you can see from this picture, we're just below the clouds. I think we were at about 7000'. The ride so far has been pretty exciting. The full face helmets and windsuits helped keep us comfortable at the top (plus for the tour companies to get insurance, they are required to furnish the full face helmets. The down side is that you can't take pictures every little bit because you aren't allowed to carry your camera.

Bike Ride down the volcano. It was blowing like stink at the top of the volcano (they claimed gusts into the 60mph range at the Visitor Center). Weird considering there wasn't a breath of wind when we left the condo in Kihei.

If we were going to do things differently

Oahu:

Stay longer... Maybe a whole week.
Stay someplace other than the Sheraton Waikiki... It was a really nice place with a great view, but cheap it ain't. The same money we spent for 4 nights would have gotten us a week in a condo someplace else.
Rent some gear and sail over at Kailua Beach Park. There were a couple of businesses who looked to have good mobile operations setup. Get there early.
Either bring my mask, snorkel and fins, or rent some. The reef along Waikiki was pretty cool. I regret not having brought snorkel gear and being too cheap to buy some.
Bring some boogie board fins for body surfing.

Big Island:

Stay a couple of more days (but not necessarily a week) in Hilo.
Go when the lava is flowing.
Tip Kimo a few more bucks. He went way above and beyond.

Maui:

Two week minimum stay. We were there for 4 days, got 3 days of sailing.
Rent a jeep and do a drive to Hana (there just wasn't time).
Find some plate lunch places in Kihei.
Look into direct flights to/from Maui. The 3-plane trip home was brutal.
Be sure my wife knows where the van key is before she locks the doors.

Links and Recognition of the places and people who made this trip so great. Mahalo to all.

On Oahu:

Big Italian Tomato restaurant near the corner of Kuhio and Seaside - a pretty decent pizza.
The breakfast place next door to the Big Italian Tomato. They had breakfast burritos that would do Texas proud.
Lewers Street Fish Co - in the basement of the Ohana Reef Towers - 247 Lewers St. Excellent food and very reasonable prices (for Waikiki).
There was another place just down the street from the Fish Company, at the NW corner of Lewers and Helumoa that had great plate lunches.
Champa Thai in Kailua - great Thai food and a big pile of it. Take your own beer or wine if so inclined.

On the Big Island:

Kimo at Hawaii Lava Tours. Thanks Brah.
Hilo Seaside Hotel. A family owned joint that bent over backwards even though we were there less than 24 hours.
Verna's Drive Up. A great plate lunch.

On Maui:

Hi Tech - http://www.htmaui.com/
Al West - http://www.mauivans.com
Cruiser Phils - http://cruiserphil.com/ (ask for Marvin and Rob). It's a heck of a ride.
AA Condo, management company for the Hale Kai O Kehei http://www.maui.net/~hkok/
Safeway in Kehei, for having some great beer at great prices. Get their frequent shopper card to save some dough.
Ale House - http://www.alehouse.net/ These were some nice people, and a very respectable plate of Nachos.