sauruman
Guest
Hello everyone and once again, thanks for your advice pre and during the trip. We put it to very good use.
While my time in Honolulu was pretty much consumed by work, my wife and I did sneak in a bit of fun. We dove the wreck of the Mahi and a site called Turtles with Aaron's. We picked Aarons specifically because they ran small groups (6 packs) and serviced the western side which I was quite interested in. The Mahi was in a word awesome. It sits in about 100' of water and is showing its age (it really isn't safe to penetrate). Notable on this was a pod (?) of 15 eagle rays that were cruising the area. They circled the ship and we schooled with them. It was almost spritual. Being that it was my first dive with a camera I'm afraid I didn't get any pictures that do this justice. Vis was just good (~70 feet) and there was some surface surge/current. Down below things were pretty calm. Oh, there was the usual assortment of pretty fish here too as well as a school of puffer fish (or maybe they were porcupine fish). Very cool dive in any event.
Turtles was a long, shallow leisurely dive. Some hard coral formations, more pretty fish, some nudibranchs and at the end a green sea turtle.
On the other leisure day we drove around the island, stopping to snorkel at Hanauma Bay. The vis was pretty mediocre due to the surf breaking in the shallows, but it got better about 150-200 meters from shore. Saw more turtles here as well as trumpet fish and more of the usual pretties. I think it would make an alright dive but as a snorkel site its merely okay. The scenery is pure Hawaii however, meaning beautiful.
We hiked up Diamond Head - that's worth doing for sure. Nice view of the city from way up there. Lots of stairs. Its more fun going down than up.
In terms of restaurants we tried several, and I'd recommend a couple:
1) Cheeseburgers in Paradise. Okay paint me as a tourist, but I liked it here. The food was good and reasonably priced. Also, it was close to our hotel (Radisson Prince Kuhio)
2) Keneke's in Waimanalo - local plate lunch place with lots of character (it's also a church and a power lifting gym). Cheap, simple food. We loved the Kalua pork and steak fries. They serve glasses of lemonaid the size of your head! Two thumbs up!
3) Duke's (in the Outrigger, Waikiki) - mid-priced but great steak and excellent Pina Coladas. You will need reservations if you don't want to wait 1.5 hours for a table. They had a live band the night we went. All you can eat salad bar with any meal. Oh yeah, we saw Ron Jeremy here. <grin>
Other than that, we tried surfing and drove up around the north shore. Overall very much fun. I ended up liking Oahu more than I though I would.
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While my time in Honolulu was pretty much consumed by work, my wife and I did sneak in a bit of fun. We dove the wreck of the Mahi and a site called Turtles with Aaron's. We picked Aarons specifically because they ran small groups (6 packs) and serviced the western side which I was quite interested in. The Mahi was in a word awesome. It sits in about 100' of water and is showing its age (it really isn't safe to penetrate). Notable on this was a pod (?) of 15 eagle rays that were cruising the area. They circled the ship and we schooled with them. It was almost spritual. Being that it was my first dive with a camera I'm afraid I didn't get any pictures that do this justice. Vis was just good (~70 feet) and there was some surface surge/current. Down below things were pretty calm. Oh, there was the usual assortment of pretty fish here too as well as a school of puffer fish (or maybe they were porcupine fish). Very cool dive in any event.
Turtles was a long, shallow leisurely dive. Some hard coral formations, more pretty fish, some nudibranchs and at the end a green sea turtle.
On the other leisure day we drove around the island, stopping to snorkel at Hanauma Bay. The vis was pretty mediocre due to the surf breaking in the shallows, but it got better about 150-200 meters from shore. Saw more turtles here as well as trumpet fish and more of the usual pretties. I think it would make an alright dive but as a snorkel site its merely okay. The scenery is pure Hawaii however, meaning beautiful.
We hiked up Diamond Head - that's worth doing for sure. Nice view of the city from way up there. Lots of stairs. Its more fun going down than up.
In terms of restaurants we tried several, and I'd recommend a couple:
1) Cheeseburgers in Paradise. Okay paint me as a tourist, but I liked it here. The food was good and reasonably priced. Also, it was close to our hotel (Radisson Prince Kuhio)
2) Keneke's in Waimanalo - local plate lunch place with lots of character (it's also a church and a power lifting gym). Cheap, simple food. We loved the Kalua pork and steak fries. They serve glasses of lemonaid the size of your head! Two thumbs up!
3) Duke's (in the Outrigger, Waikiki) - mid-priced but great steak and excellent Pina Coladas. You will need reservations if you don't want to wait 1.5 hours for a table. They had a live band the night we went. All you can eat salad bar with any meal. Oh yeah, we saw Ron Jeremy here. <grin>
Other than that, we tried surfing and drove up around the north shore. Overall very much fun. I ended up liking Oahu more than I though I would.
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