El Ultimo Dia

The last full day in Hawaii and we're taking it easy. It's relatively cool and cloudy today, but still quite pleasant to be outside in shorts and a t-shirt. We sat by the beach and read our books, walked among some of the high-end Waikiki shops, just for kicks. A couple of small crabs came out of the cracks in the rocks to greet us (not a very good photo, I'm afraid). I'm not sure if they are begging like the birds do, or if they are just curious.

One little crab visible in the lower left, the others scurried away from the camera.

We had considered going back to the restaurant where we ate last night, because it was so good. But we decided to go back to the Japanese noodle place, instead. When we passed the restaurant from last night, however, we were surprised to see it closed. The note on the door indicated that they had decided to close permanently due to the pandemic! Good thing we went last night, and good thing we didn't have our hearts set on going back.

The pandemic has been more of a factor on this trip than we anticipated. We had more down time, partly because so many of the things we wanted to do were either shut down or limited. For example, we had wanted to snorkel in Hanauma Bay, but the number allowed into the bay was limited and the online registrations were booked days in advance. We could have signed up for a commercial tour elsewhere, but we were leery of those due to tales we'd read about hidden costs, etc.

Even our trip to Pearl Harbor was rearranged to a different day than we had originally planned, because they had reduced the number of people being taken on each boat to the U.S.S. Arizona, and had put other limitations in place due to Covid.

Other places were taking advantage of the pandemic down time to do maintenance, such as the hiking path we had tried to take but found closed. And the WW II Submarine Warfare Museum at Pearl Harbor was also closed for renovation. There were others, as well. Perhaps we weren't as persistent or creative as we should have been in finding alternatives, but after enough dead ends, one sort of gives up.

All in all, however, the trip accomplished what we sought, which was to get out of town and feel as if we were travelers once again. Despite the complications, limitations, and frustrations, that was accomplished.