Fourth Day - Sunday, November 4th
Sunday was to be a big day. We again patronized CJ's Deli for breakfast and both had their macadamia nut, coconut pancakes. Judy had a short stack and I had the full. They were expensive but very good. Everything we had at CJ's was really good. Neither of us could clean our plates. While there, we struck up a conversation with a Hawaiian looking fellow named Chuck Townsend at the next table. He had previously lived just north of Honolulu for several years and had a wealth of information to share with us. We ended up there for over an hour just talking. He works for General Dynamics, lives in Idaho and apparently travels a lot. He even comes to Oklahoma City every couple of years and was in Honolulu for a business meeting.
Initially we didn't really plan to do much today since it had rained all night last night and was forecast to rain all day today. Since it was not raining after breakfast, we decided to at least go back to the beach. Previously, we had always hung around the Hilton beach and east, in the direction of Diamond Head. This time we went west toward the city yacht harbor. We passed the Hilton Lagoon, which is undergoing repairs and is barricaded and fenced off so you can't get in. We walked around the yacht harbor a while inspecting some of the boats. There is a great variety of sizes as well as quality and level of maintenance. It is not a very attractive harbor.
After a bit, it began to look like the weather forecast had been overly pessimistic. We decided that a trip up H-3 and around the east side of the island would be worthwhile. We bought some more camera batteries, loaded up in the car and headed for H-1 again. H-3 branches off from H-1 just beyond Pearl Harbor so we had another road trip in store. This time, I was fully prepared for that mysterious intersection where H-1 appears to be a turnoff from the side road and got through without incident. The actual turn off to H-3, however, was not so simple. Shortly before it and with no prior warning, I was in the wrong lane and had to exit early. Another couple of miles on city streets managed to put us back on H-1 where we could finally access H-3 and we were off to the east shore.
Just as Chuck had said, the scenery along H-3 was spectacular. With few places to stop on the
freeway, I did not get many pictures of the mountains. As soon as we got above the city, we got
into some pretty thick fog so they probably would not have been much good anyway. The sights
would certainly be worthy of another trip later in the week after the weather improved. This trip
was where we got close enough to see how those mountains are formed. They grow almost straight up.
The slopes are so steep that it looks like it would take a rock climber to scale them. This photo
was taken from a scenic lookout stop on the way up into the mountains, the only place to stop
along the way. The view is back toward where we came from. The panorama was taken from the same
lookout, if I remember correctly.
We apparently made a pretty significant climb through the valley but when the highway got to the divide, it was still necessary to cut a half-mile or so tunnel through to the other side. I believe this is the longest tunnel on the island but, if it has a name, I have not been able to find it. I should have a photo or two of the tunnel entrance with our second drive of H-3 on a later day. On exit, we were almost in sight of the shore although the highway made a rather circuitous course down. It did drop off rather quickly over the next couple of miles down to the beach near the Kane‘ohe Marine Base and Mokapu point.
The photo on the right was taken at the end of H-3, where we turned south and traversed along
the beach through Kailua and to Lanikai. Kailua had obviously had a recent flood. There were
numerous pumps in low-lying areas, pumping water into the canals. The city park, between the
road and beach, was partially flooded and kids were sledding across a large impromptu pond on
boogie boards. When we got to Lanikai, Judy informed me that the road ended there. Sure enough,
she was right. I wondered why she didn't tell me ahead of time. Actually, it didn't just dead
end which was good. It would have been too narrow to turn around and most everything beside was
flooded or at least very soft looking. Instead of a dead end, there was a loop. We made that and
made our way back to Kailua where we hoped to find the turn to the Kailua Road, that we had seen
the first time through, to get to the Kalaniana‘ole Highway and continue the journey around
the southeast corner of O‘ahu and back to Honolulu. Of course, we didn't find it. Instead,
we got another scenic detour around the countryside. Fortunately, this was a vacation and there
was no urgent reason to hurry. I'm pretty sure this photo is of the Mokulua Islands off Lanikai.
After getting back on track, we continued on down through Waimanalo, past Manana or Rabbit Island
and Kaohikaipu Island shown here, to the Makapu‘u point. There is a classic looking lighthouse
right on the point but the road goes around the back side of the mountain there. We couldn't get
close but I did get a photo of the top of the lighthouse, just peeking around the side of the
mountain.
The road follows around the eastern most point of the island there and heads southwest
past Sandy Beach, the Halona Blow Hole and Hana‘uma Bay toward Koko crater. These shots of
the beach show what was arguably the best surf conditions we saw on the entire trip. We stopped for a
while at the blow hole to get some photos. It is a challenge trying to get good pictures of a
dynamic and rather unpredictable feature like a blow hole with an inexpensive digital camera that
takes significant time to focus so I took a bunch. Maybe one or two are worthwhile if not worthy.
These pictures do not do justice to the spectacular blow hole but they are the best I could do.
The first is just a second or so after the wave hits the rocks and is pretty solid water in a
fountain probably 15 feet high. It quickly becomes aereated and shoot up to 40 feet or so.
Finally, it turns to mostly a mist that rises ner 60 feet. It would be interesting to see what
it looks like driven by some more serious waves. This last photo is from the blow hole looking
back toward Sandy Beach.
If I understood right, the Hana‘uma Bay area is the most expensive real estate on O‘ahu. The median price of a house is $1.4 million and most of them did not appear to be all that large.
After the blow hole, we continued on along the south shore, past Hawai‘i Kai, the Paiko Lagoon and back around Diamond Head point, we still did not see the lighthouse, and back through Waikiki and to the Hilton. I didn't feel up to any more walking so Judy went to the Round Table Pizza in the village and brought back dinner to the room. The television news explained why Kailua was flooded. The whole island got over an inch of rain Saturday night. We got almost two inches in Honolulu but the Kane‘ohe and Kailua area got over fourteen inches! That's almost a half-year's worth of rain at home all in one night. Again, we went to bed early.