North Shore

After so much hiking yesterday, we were ready for a somewhat less taxing day today. We decided to take our drive to the north shore of O'ahu. It turned out to be a good choice.

We started in the midst of morning rush hour in Honolulu. Clearly, people are not working from home. Traffic was a mess, and we spent a good bit of time in the linear parking lot. But once we got onto the H-1 (Hawaii's "interstate" highway, although it's not even inter-island, and certainly not connected to any other states) most of the traffic was coming into the city, and we were going out. Things were moving much better on our side.

The route took us past Pearl Harbor and through Pearl City, up to the village of Haleiwa. We realized on the way that we had accidentally left our lunch behind in the condo, so we stopped at a supermarket in Halleiwa and picked up a couple of ready-made salads from their deli. This supermarket had a much, much larger produce section than the other supermarket we had visited. But the prices were still very high on everything -- even the pineapple. Our salads were pretty reasonable, though.

We continued up Highway 83 along the northwest shore of the island, stopping at several beaches along the way. Laniakea Beach is known for sea turtles that come ashore to lay their eggs in the sand. It's the tail end of the season, but we found one, lone turtle who had just that morning made the trek up the sand. She had a number carved into her shell, and a beacon transmitter glued to her back, so we knew that the researchers were keeping tabs on her. There were very few people around, so we got to get our photos. 

Funny thing that shows how well these turtles are adapted to the environment: This is a rocky beach, and Mary was almost on top of the turtle before she realized that it wasn't just another rock!

Next stop was Waimea Bay Beach. This was a huge expanse of sand, but the waves were crashing in here so fiercely that the lifeguards were posting "No Swimming" warning signs. A number of families who had come for a day at the beach were packing up to leave. We walked along the beach for awhile, but had to scramble to avoid getting drenched by big waves.

We continued up Hwy. 83 to a place called Shark's Cove, which sounds a whole lot scarier than it is. This is a naturally enclosed area, lined with volcanic rock, that is very shallow. The big breakers are blocked by the rocks. It's the wading pool of the north shore. Thus, it is very popular with families with small children and for beginner snorkelers. 

We waded out a ways, but the water never got more than knee deep. A bit farther out, people were up to their waists, but that was about as deep as it got. We set up our chairs on the beach, read our books for awhile, and ate our lunch salads here before moving on.

Next up the road was Sunset Beach. The waves were really coming in here! We watched a few surfers who were obviously not beginners, and listened to a small group of teenage boys bragging to one another that they could surf those waves -- but none of them actually left the beach. We guessed that many of the waves were in the realm of 10 to 12 feet in height, and they were moving fast.

Finally, we made it to Ted's Bakery. This is a well-known area lunch spot, but we were there only for dessert. The line to get in was fairly short. Mary got a pineapple-macadamia cheesecake, and I got a double chocolate cake. Both were worth the wait.

On the way back, we revisited Laniakea Beach, which was much, much more crowded this much later in the day. Parking was on one side of the highway, the beach on the opposite side, and the constant traffic made crossing difficult. When we got to the beach, we saw the same turtle we had encountered this morning, but she had moved down toward the water. She was probably plotting her escape, as she had a much larger audience around her.

On the way back to Honolulu, we took the old Highway 99, rather than the way we came. We stopped at the a Dole pineapple plantation that was very crowded, but they wanted $12 per person for a 20 minute tour, and there was a wait time of up to 2 hours for that. We looked at the prices, looked at the line, and decided we could learn about pineapple growing on Wikipedia. We passed.

Just down the road, Green World Coffee was a much less slick tourist operation. Friendly people offered us coffee samples and let us wander around their (overpriced) selection of t-shirts, hats, and premium, (supposedly) locally-grown coffee. Then we continued back to our Waikiki condo for a respite.

In the evening, we caught happy hour at a sports bar with nearly 100 tap beers and half-price pizza. Lots of people had the same idea, because we had to wait nearly half an hour for a table. But the pizza was good and the beer was better, plus there was a 24-hour surfing channel on the TV. Who knew that there was a 24-hour channel, all surfing, all the time?

Finally, we walked down to Waikiki Beach once more for Friday evening fireworks launched each weekend from the big Hilton resort. Either we got it wrong, or Covid intervened, but the fireworks never happened. It was a pleasant evening, however, to sit by the beach. There was a lot great people-watching, and the walk home showed us what a happening night spot downtown Honolulu is.

We're proud of ourselves for being able to stay up past dark, as the jet lag and heavy exercise had us in bed by 8 p.m. the previous night. Today we walked only a little over 3 miles, mostly along flat beaches, rather than yesterdays 6+ miles of steep climbing.