The East Coast North of Kailua

I recently drove up the east coast north of Kailua. It was mountainous in spots and dotted with beautiful beaches and parks. Here are a few pictures. Remember you can enlarge any of the pictures on this blog by double left-clicking your mouse. Also, I posted a blog on the Kahuku Village project earlier today but it was dated February 17th so you will have to scroll down to view it.

A view northward up the eastern coast of Oahu and into the mountains near Waihole

Another beautiful beach just off the east coast highway at Kaa'awa

A road sign just opposite the beautiful beach above at Kaa'awa

The Kualoa State Park

Rough Conditions on a Beautiful Day at the North Shore

The ominous "No Swimming" sign posted at Sunset Beach and not even ONE surfer tried the water here

I drove up to the North Shore on Tuesday. I took my body board and was ready to test the surf at Waimea Bay but despite the warm weather and lack of wind, the ocean was closed except to experienced surfers and experienced body boarders and body surfers with fins. I talked to a couple of guys who were body surfing with fins and took these pictures. Hope you enjoy them!

One of the 2 bodysurfers I chatted with at Waimea Bay

A view to the west down the North Shore coastline at the churning surf and a $10 million home on the point

A brave and very talented surfer at Waimea Bay

Saturday in the Park (Ala Moana Park II)

I introduced Ala Moana Park to you just after I arrived here as it is just across the street and the first Hawaiian beach I had seen. Since then I have explored the far reaches of the park and discovered just how popular it is with locals and tourists alike. Here are some snapshots taken with a digital camera on a recent Saturday afternoon to give you a better taste of what this park is all about.

A fisherman tries his luck next to the Marina

A sailboat regatta on a Saturday afternoon

The park is home to many card players; mostly women.

These kids are trying to learn how to ride a Wave Runner which is much like a skateboard but has two swivels that make it a little more difficult to master but much easier to generate speed on flat pavement.

One of 12 birthday parties held at the park on a recent Saturday afternoon

The small beach at the southern end of the park and a view of Waikiki and Diamondhead

The West Coast of Oahu

Yesterday was President's Day and though I started emailing early, thinking it was a work day, I looked out my window around 8:45 and saw hordes of sunbathers and snorkelers on the beach at Ala Moana and figured out it was a bona fide holiday over here. So, I decided it would be a good time to check out the beaches and surf on the west shore. I hit surfline.com and it looked like a very calm day for that area with most wave face readings at very low levels; generally, 3 feet or lower and almost no wind.

The drive to the west coast is not a long one and is mostly interstate (H-1). Within an easy half hour I was on the west coast highway at Ko Olina and heading north. The west coast highway tracks the beach the entire way until it ends at the Yokohama Beach park on the northwest corner of Oahu. The scenery is beautiful though not as stunning as on the east coast because it lacks the views from 500 foot cliff overhangs.

My first pullover was at a small public beach park where there were many families enjoying the holiday together (see below). The water was a beautiful blue-green and the surf was good with many surfers congregating 70 to 80 feet off shore, but I noticed that the ocean floor was mostly reef and decided it was not a swimming or body-surfing opportunity and so headed northward.

My first stop at a public beach park on the southwestern coast of Oahu

My next stop was at the Kani Kui beach park. I walked down to the water and the shoreline was very rocky (see below). No one was swimming but several were fishing. I caught a photo of a rather large girl pulling in a rather small fish (see below).

The rocky shoreline at Kani Kui beach park

The big girl with the little fish

After 10 minutes or so I was back in my pick 'em up truck and driving northward. I stopped once or twice to photograph the mountain points that stop at the sea (see below). You can see the rain in the mountains but it was sunny and clear on the beaches all day. One of the towns I drove through was Maili and there were several sandy beaches that looked very inviting. I did not stop, however, as I decided to try and make it as for northward as I could on this trip to see what my options were for the next one.

A view of the mountains that meet the sea on the west coast highway, Oahu

I ditched that plan when I hit Makaha Beach and saw a lot of tents set up, heard live music and saw a number of videographers on the beach documenting the activity in the sea. As it turned out it was the 16th annual Makaha Beach surfing championships which take place over 6 weekends during the winter. On this day, the competition was limited to individual paddle surfers and 4-person outrigger canoe teams. The surf patterns were perfect for the competition and exactly the type I had been looking for; you can literally ride one wave from its initial swell all the way onto the beach which for the paddle surfers was for a distance of almost half a mile; truly awesome stuff. Unfortunately, because of the competition all onlookers were limited to a portion of the beach that had no wave breaks whatsoever but I did some swimming around for the fun of it (see photos below).

The band stand and tournament staging set at Makaha Beach, Oahu.

A view from my roost on the beach looking seaward at the surfing competition at Makaha.

Another view from the beach at the competition - Though hard to see, this was a picture of a family of 4 (Dad, son and 2 teen-aged daughters winning the outrigger canoe surfing competition)

After an hour or so at Makaha Beach, it was back in the pick-up and all the way north to the end of the west coast highway that ended at a public beach park on Yokohama Beach. This turned out to be the most beautiful beach and water that I had seen yet on Oahu and the wave action was fierce but a lot of fun. Despite wave faces of 6 to 8 feet that land with a force previously not experienced by me there were many children aged 7 to 14 in the surf without any close supervision; by that I mean their parents were under a tent 100 feet or so from the surf and without any means of helping the kids if the had trouble with the surf. You can see from the photos below that the shoreline is fairly steep at its edge.

This is your vantage point if you are at the water's edge looking back toward dry land

This is your vantage point from water's edge looking along the shoreline at the wave break

I am including a picture of one of the youngsters fleeing the surf (see below); she was well aware that if you are 10 feet or more out from the shoreline before one of the large waves comes in (even though you are only in 12 to 18 inches of water) that the pull is so strong that you will be sucked into the wave and at its mercy. At the end of a wave break from the large waves, the white sea foam is so plentiful that it covers up everyone that was caught by the wave and covers them up for a few seconds despite their bests efforts.

This is that smart and speedy girl who appeared to be no older than 9 or 10 and was by herself in the surf

I tried several times to move toward the beach or just hold my ground before a big wave and was instead pulled backwards or knocked off my feet and pummeled by the wave. The good news is that these large wave sets do not come in regularly and can easily be anticipated so you can avoid them but I could easily imagine how incredible the force must have been before the big tsunami that killed some many several years ago near Thailand. The further good news here is that this undertow does not take you out to deep water; it only pulls you for a short distance into the wave and then the wave immediately propels you swiftly up onto the beach as your bathing suit and hair become filled with sand (see photos below).

Another view of the shoreline break and the small children playing in the surf at Yokohama Beach

Another view of the wave break

I tried to capture a wave face; I had to shoot and run to avoid ruining my I-Phone

Kahuku Village

An experienced body surfer at Waimea Bay near Kahuku putting on his fins as he eyes the surf

I came to Hawaii to assist in gaining governmental approval for Continental Pacific's proposed development plan for Kahuku Village. Kahuku is a region of Oahu on the northeast coast and part of the famed North Shore. Kakuku Village was originally a plantation town serving as home to the families of the sugar cane plantation workers.

Continental Pacific acquired the entire village in 2006. It consists of 72 occupied village homes and the Kahuku golf links plus a beautiful slice of Pacific Ocean shoreline.

The primary development proposal centers around an affordable housing plan as a quid pro quo for the development of 18 oceanfront lots and 12 adjoining country lots by which Continental Pacific proposes to sell the 72 homes to those occupying them for an average sales price of just $75,000 which is some $300,000 below market pricing even though many of the structures are substandard with cesspools, poor roadways and inadequate flood drainage.

Here are a few pictures taken at Kahuku:

The edge of the village and the first of many "Save Kahuku Beach" signage

Ah, the "Keep Kahuku Country" signage; this is a village of activists

The entrance to Kahuku High School which has turned out many NFL football players

Kahuku Beach which was closed to all swimmers and surfers on this day to due extreme currents and waves

Sandy Beach

Sandy Beach from the south near the sea turtle cove

This is Sandy Beach - You will have to wash your swimsuit out with heavy detergent after hitting the beach here

Well, I checked out www.surfline.com for surf conditions at Sandy Beach today and got up the nerve to try a little bodysurfing there - It was forecast to be sunny with relatively little wind (7 to 10 mph from the SSE), water temperature of 75 degrees, air temperature of 80 degrees, surf at 1 to 2 feet with an occasional 3 foot face - I also checked out several other websites that report on Sandy Beach and decided (1) not to go near "the point" nor "the cove" due to rip tides even in calm conditions and (2) to check out the surf patterns and conditions before I went in - Here is what I found: Sandy Beach is public and on this Saturday afternoon it was packed; the drive from Ala Moana to Sandy Beach is about 30 minutes (probably 20 on a weekday) and the last 10 minutes are a lot like the Highway 1 scenery from LA to Santa Barbara (I drove that route to get to Reynolds an Stacy's wedding); parking spaces near the best part of the beach were non-existent and so I had to walk a little ways; the beach was crowded and the people on the beach were locals most of them between 16 and 25 and many actually quite attractive and fit; there were plenty local police on the grounds and they were actively looking for parking violators; the beach itself is 100% sand with no rocks though the sand is courser and a little darker than Destin sand; the water has a few stones in it but nothing too big; I threw down a blanket and walked down to the surf and started looking at the wave breaks and testing the currents; the waves ranged from 1 foot or so to maybe 4 feet or a little higher for the biggest; the water is a beautiful blue green and the wave breaks come quite fast with only 10 to 12 seconds between major breaks; there was a strong pull back toward the sea after a wave break but no cross currents; two things struck me - first, the force of the wave break on the shoreline was significant despite the relatively small size of the wave face and, second, the direction of the wave break is almost straight down rather than more forward as in most locations that I had surfed in. This is apparently due to the beach floor which slants downward away from a 1 foot lip at shoreline at a 20 degree or so angle for 15 to 20 feet where it levels off again; the good news is that there are many opportunities to catch a good wave; the bad news is that the "riding time" is very short (no more than 5 to 7 seconds) and the landing hard (no one ends up nicely on the beach but is thrown down and into the lip); I read that this has been the site of numerous world body surfing championships but for my money I want more of a ride like you get in Destin; I am going to check out beaches on the westside next week that do not have such sharp floor angles.

This is the cove I swam in with the sea turtles; the man at the left is pointing to the turtles

I did not spend much time at Sandy Beach but instead drove a little ways back toward Honolulu and scaled down some rocky cliffs to a small cove full of swimmers and snorkelers who were swimming with a pair of huge sea turtles. I wish I had brought my camera but left it in the car. The picture above does allow a glimpse of the spot but the sea turtles are hard to see - awesome baby!

A Winter Weather Advisory?

I was watching the news the other night around 10:00 and the top story was a Winter Weather Advisory issued for the big island and Maui. I was with a friend from Canada and we both laughed thinking it was probably a joke but, of course, we were mistaken. That night it snowed on the big island more than 2 feet and snowed on Maui for the first time in 4 years. The temperature here in Honolulu went down to 68 degrees that night and then was back up to 80 degrees by the next afternoon. After doing a little digging, I found out that Maui has a peak (Haleakala) that is over 10,000 feet above sea level and the big island has the highest mountain peak in the world (Mauna Kea) measured base to peak (over 30,000 feet) and one of the highest in the world from sea level to peak at almost 14,000 feet above sea level. I never would have guessed and would like to see them in person soon. Mauna Kea has a visitor center at 9,000 feet and offers snowboarding after big snows.

Pro Bowl Week

Was I really that happy? (the crazy interview)

Angie and Julia ( 2 married women from Alaska)

Acrobatics on the beach in front of the Barefoot Bar

Fireworks on Friday night before the weekend

I am glad that Pro Bowl week comes once a year in Honolulu; and for me, hopefully once in a lifetime. I totally misbehaved and paid dearly by Sunday morning. I ended up awakening at halftime, watching the second half on the couch and then going back to bed. It was quite a party that started around mid-week and reached, for me, a totally unmemorable conclusion with the interviewing of a random Shorebird bar patron after commandeering the roaming mic from the Fox Sports roaming reporter - I think the interview went something like this: "well hello there, and what team are you rooting for here?....I mean what players are you rooting for here?...I mean...um...what are you doing here?"... Yeah, not a good thing... but in the context of all the was going on.. well, still not a good thing.. but they were all good sports...

Actually, the people here really look forward to the Pro Bowl. They think it is a really big deal that the NFL comes all the way to Honolulu and so it is very well supported.

Sunday Afternoon at "Duke's"

Top to Bottom:

Waikiki Beach from across the water
Nancy from Toronto - a "good sport"
The crowd at the Barefoot Bar
Approaching the Barefoot Bar from the beach
Henry and band rocking out at the Barefoot Bar
Sunset from the Barefoot Bar / Two Boats "Kiss" the sun

Duke's barefoot bar, named for the Hawaiian legendary surfer and Olympic gold medal swimmer, Duke Kahanamoku, is located beachside in the Outrigger Waikiki Hotel. Every Friday, Saturday and Sunday afternoon the bar hosts concerts on the beach. Yesterday, local favorite and Grammy winner Henry Kapono cranked up some light rock including plenty of Eagles, and of course, Sweet Home Alabama, to a wild and adoring crowd of dancing and singing surfers, outrigger canoers, sunbathers and bystanders for one really fun party. It reminded me of Panama City Beach when the bands played on the edge of the beach and everyone could walk up and enjoy in their swimming suits. The crowd was enthusiastic but well-behaved and everyone had a great time until the last note was played. I definitely want to check it out again next Sunday afternoon. This was the first time I had set foot on Waikiki Beach and the sand is darker than the Destin area and rather course. The sand was shipped from Molakai and New Zealand and deposited onto the beach. The water is beautiful but much of it is strewn with rocks so you have to be careful. The beach in front of Duke's is probably the best in the area because it has been carefully groomed all the way out into the surf but it cannot compare with the natural beauty of 30A/Destin. Nevertheless, the portion of the beach is filled with surfers and canoers.

The Ilikai

Last night I went to the Ilikai Hotel with my buddys, John Ho and Eric Morrison - John does a lot of work for Continental Pacific, owns 3 restaurants in Santa Barbara, CA, was at one time a Navy SEAL and is the reigning Chinese golf champion of Oahu; an interesting and hard-working fellow who owns a very nice home not far from Jere's mansion - The Ilikai is the hotel where they shot the intro to Hawaii Five 0 and it still has the '60's retro look to it - By the way, Hawaii Five-0 replays come on every night here and it is still a claim-to-fame for native Hawaiians - We went to the Italian restaurant at the top, Sarento's, which was great in all respects - I am attaching my I-Phone photos (still don't have my digital here) that show the view to the west 20 minutes or so before sunset - They had a great piano player and it was a good view for the Friday night fireworks show from Waikiki beach which is quite an anticipated event for most everyone in Honolulu,

The People of Honolulu

Hawaii is in the middle of the Pacific not too far from LA and about twice that distance from Japan and China. Some refer to Honolulu as LA West and based on the ethnicity of its population it seems an appropriate moniker. The majority of the citizenry in the city is of Asian descent. The next most populous group would be native Hawiians. Caucasians from the mainland make up the third group with no real trends beyond that besides what breed of mongrel the intermarriage of Asians, Hawaiians and Causcasions creates (and I use the term "mongrel" strictly in the denotative sense and without the negative connotation that is usually attached).

I have not been around Asians much but they seem a very proud and private people. Many of the asians here also have either lived in California or have a business there or relatives there or were at least schooled there and travel back and forth between Honolulu and California fairly regularly. Of the causcasians, many have ties to California, but regardless of where they come from we are all referred to as "mainlanders" by the asians and outside the city as "haoles" by the native Hawaiians (which is often a racial slur but not always). Interestingly, the continental U.S. is referred to as "the mainland" not as "the states" but since Hawaii is a state I guess it makes sense.

Saturday at the Park

Double left click to enlarge pictures

I decided to go to the park this afternoon for a little sun and surf. On the way, I joined in with some native Hawaiians for a little touch football (top left) and took these pictures. The park, Ala Moana Park, is a city-owned facility that is very well maintained and serves many divergent functions. It is "home" to a significant homeless population (bottom left) though a bill has been proposed in this legislative session to appropriate $150 million or a new homeless center, it is a place to camp out for families looking for a weekend in the open-air, it is a great place for locals to picnic and it provides consistently good swimming, sunning and snorkeling. These pictures are typical of how the park looks and is used on any given day. It is just across the street from the Nauru Tower (top right).

Friday Night in Waikiki

Jere invited Eric and me to dinner with he and Patty; we ate in Waikiki Beach at Nobu; the crowd was great and the food excellent except for this very strange dessert- believe it or not, it is composed of Shave Ice, Sweet Syrups to put into the shave ice, green tea ice cream (which tastes just as bland as green tea - no sugar at all) and mexican brown beans (the kind you eat with tacos and rice) - yuck! I took a big bite before I realized what the beans were - The most notable event of the night was getting from my condo to Nobu - It is approximately 8 blocks from one to another - I left the condo at 6:00 and due to the bumper-to-bumper traffic, arrived 40 minutes laters - Honolulu traffic seems to rival that of Atlanta and LA -