Honolulu: Surfing is simple: you lie on the
board aimed at the beach; as the right wave steals up on you from behind, you
stroke a few paddles to gather speed, then grab the board at the sides, slide up
to a kneeling position. A step forward, and up you go on a crouching stance,
being carried by the wave towards the beach at decent speed. That's the theory.
In practice, you push off, execute various levels of pitch, yaw and roll
simultaneously while attempting to get up, and 15 meters on, part ways with the
board, crash into the water, come up gasping, gather your board, leave your
pride behind, and trundle/paddle back the start point where your instructor of
the hour, Big Jack, is waiting with a sad smile. "You're making me look bad,
Ajay" complained Big Jack gently, as I made my way back to him. Jack was one of
the fifty surf instructors who work off the Waikiki beach at any time, each
giving 2-hour Surfing 101 ($35, pay first, in case the sea takes you) classes to
first timers. "Dose two got it down by now" he said. His other wards, a couple
of tween-aged kids, were successfully navigating the 70m run from the sand bar
to the beach, weaving through the mass of 2000 boards and bodies in various
states of crash-and-paddle-back. Jack's instructions must have been good, since
the two kids had 'got it down'. But persistence pays. Eventually the oceans
throw you a kinder wave, one that does not rock your board as you unsteadily
execute the 'get-up' move; lady luck keeps other hapless souls out of your path,
and there you go, riding the huge beginners' board to the beach, simultaneously
experiencing equal doses of exhilaration, relief, and hope that the eventual
dismount will match the grace of the ride. Having thus vindicated Big Jack, I
happily checked surfing off the 'things to do in Hawaii' list. Much of the 'must
do' stuff in Oahu is vastly over-rated, but for me, the surfing made this part
of the trip more bearable. We stayed at the Marriott
Resort at Waikiki, convenient for tourists, but a lousy hotel -- hounded
by broken/slow elevators and slower personnel. Making matters worse, the TV did
not carry ESPN2, so I missed the first week of Wimbledon.
Since TV dinners were ruled out, we tried some restaurants
in the neighborhood: Roy's,
Tanaka of Tokyo, and Ciao Mein; Roy's is
good, the others not.
We only made one day of diving -- a Sunday
3-dive outing with AAAdiving,
run by a big Brit called Alex with a bigger laugh. The first two dives were at
wrecks (YO-257 + San Pedro; and I think
Sea Tiger), the third was at the
Kewalo pipe. AAA operates in self-serve mode: take
your gear to the boat, rig it up; if you're fine, the DM will leave you to run
your own profile and wander around the site in your own time -- as long as you
safely clear deco's on your safety stop; what you can spot is what you will see.
At the end of the day, you pack our stuff, haul it back to the AAA van which
dropped us off at the hotel. The dives were pretty good; water temps around 27C,
no currents, good visibility. There is little coral on the wrecks or elsewhere
-- but plenty of life, including turtles, rays, and the usual reef creatures.
Big Island: We stayed at Sheraton in Keauhou
(Hawaiian names are mostly vowels with an occasional consonant; quite unlike
the Poles) -- a very good place to stay. By now, we were avoiding 'fine dining',
and got lucky with simple local fare, such as
fish tacos and nachos at Lulu's,
Pizza at Rocky's in the Keauhou shopping center;
the Kai restaurant in Sheraton is also ok, and the
nearby Kenichi is acceptable. On day 1, we drove to
the Volcano National Park at Kilauea -- well worth
the three hour drive despite the fact that there were no active lava flows that
day. The next day we drove to Waipi'o valley --
another couple of hours driving, then an hour hike down to a nice black sand
beach.
On the final three days we made eight dives: two
each morning with Pacific Rim Divers, and another
two evening/night dives with Dive Makai. The dive
sites had their usual exotic names (Garden eel,
Wash rock, Rabbi's point,
Turtle heaven, Golden arches
etc.). Roughly speaking, the first morning we dived just outside the marina in Honokohau harbour (we saw a tiger shark swimming around from the boat, but it
did not show up when we dived); all the other dives were off the coast near the
Kona airport. Pacific Rim Divers are well spoken of on the web; and with good
reason. They operate in full-service mode -- day one, we hoisted our dive gear
bags to them; they take care of it all till the final day, when they rinse your
gear while you're sitting in the Boathouse nearby drinking beer. All you do is
pack up and go. Plenty of food/snacks on the boat. But most important, both
Carlos and Patrice are super spotters (as was David of Dive Makai) -- which is
great. We dived in groups of 5-7, but pretty much dived our own profiles (most
dives ran well over an hour).
About the photos: I was shooting as before with my Canon G7 in the Canon WP-DC11 housing and Inon Z220s strobe driven in slave mode. Kitty used her Canon S80, but took only a few pictures on this trip. Click on the thumbs below to see a larger image.