March was to be a busy month for us. Casting COVID concerns aside last October with COVID waning, we made a number of reservations and dove back the travel pool with gusto. COVID did not care and continued to throw curves at us as our travel dates drew nearer. First victim to fall was our spring break, one week cruise planned with our entire family departing New Orleans out into the Caribbean. The Omicron wave was peaking and if any of us tested positive, it would require us to self-isolate in New Orleans for up to 14 days before being allowed back into Canada. So joining 4,000 strangers on a cruise ship for 7 days did not seem like the wise thing to do as it did back in October. When we booked the cruise COVID was over and Omicron was just a single paragraph in the local newspaper.
It would seem that our dark cloud had a silver lining; the ship we were to be on, ran aground on March 15th as it was exiting its stop in the Dominican Republic.
Instead, to see our grandchildren we flew back to a cold and wet Ontario. We first celebrated a belated white Christmas with Nonie’s sister and family. Omicron had burst their family bubble and kept them all apart at Christmas. It snowed 10 centimetres the day before which made our celebration more festive that is except for the shovelling. We were joined by our son and grandson.
The next week was spent in Peterborough with the whole family completing small projects around the new house, crushing an escape room in less than 60 minutes, throwing axes with no one losing any fingers, laser tag where I shot myself in the foot, an outdoor fire with hot dogs and s’mores, finishing the week with a family dinner where both sets of grandparents swapped bawdy tales with the grandchildren about their parents.
Back in October, we had also planned to reacquaint ourselves with Hawaii to celebrate our 47th wedding anniversary having visited the Big Island 17 years previously to celebrate our 30th anniversary. We invited our grandchild-less son and his significant other to join us. They are both avid surfers and this would be a bucket list adventure for them to surf Waikiki and the North Shore. If we had to isolate some where for up to 14 days, Waikiki certainly trumps New Orleans.
Getting to Hawaii requires a clean rapid antigen test taken with 24 hours of your departure. Our son is a teacher, his significant other a veterinarian and with all our own activities during our trip out East, we were all a bit nervous about the tests. It was with great relief that we all passed and Air Canada approved our flights. Now all we had to do was pass the same test in 10 days so we could get back into Canada without having to isolate in Honolulu.
It has been some time since we have walked off a plane with a warm, humid breeze caressing our faces hinting of good things to come, making wind chill a distant memory. It did rain while we were there but tropical rain is different than West Coast rain. It comes with a warm wind, nicer ambient temperatures and Mai Tai’s. I found they make everything better. Nonie claims I may have a Mai Tai problem. But I ask, how is ordering a breakfast Mai Tai a bad thing?
So to make a short story long, our 9 days in Oahu were warm, humid with the odd chance of rain and filled with little adventures. Oahu is not a big island and if you avoid rush hour it can be easily driven around it in a day. Nonie and I rented a SmartCar for a day only to discover it was not a smart car as we became lost several times in our journey.
The kids surfed their brains out not missing one day of our stay. Most days they were out twice, once at sunrise and then back in the late afternoon.
While they surfed Nonie and I explored Waikiki. Honolulu is a tourist Mecca. Except for delicious Kona coffee, Dole pineapples and grass skirts there is very little that it exports. Tourism accounts for over 25% of the Hawaiian economy, 216,000 jobs and brings in over 18 billions dollars a year.
Oahu is the third oldest island of the Hawaiian chain at 2.3 million years. The islands were formed by an ocean hotspot. As the Pacific Plate moved slowly over the hotspot the islands were formed by the escaping lava. Currently a new Hawaiian island called Loihi is being formed over the hotspot about 15 kilometres south of the Big Island. The top is 3,000 feet below the ocean surface.
Thanks to its old age, Oahu is an island of beaches. The beaches have been formed by erosion of the volcanic magma, driven by time, wind and the ebb and flow of the ocean’s tide.
Waikiki is all about the beach. It is ringed be dozens of hotels, spitting thousands of vacationers out on to the sand every day and it comes with a great view of Diamond Head
We are not beach people, preferring to be more active but you cannot visit Waikiki with out spending a day on the beach. For $85 USD we rented two comfortable lounge chairs and an umbrella for the day.
Arriving early we nearly had a bit of the beach to our selves but by noon we were packed 5 deep from the beach. And there lurks the dark underbelly of vacationing in Oahu. It is a popular vacation destination that attracts over 10,000,000 tourists each year so most attractions while beautiful will come with a lot of people and reservations a must.
A morning hike up to Diamond Head was so congested; it looked the conga line at your cousins wedding. Then there were the dumb ass tourists who thought hiking up a mountain trail in flip flops was a good idea. Arrive early if you can. They are considering implementing a reservation system that is in place for a number of the more active attractions.
It is my belief that swimming in a cool tropical pool fed by a misting water fall is on or should be on every ones bucket list. Waimea Valley in the north end of Oahu had exactly that.
Photo: Waimea Valley Ecological Park Brochure
To get there involved a 60 kilometre drive, a two kilometre hike through a gorgeous biosphere of Hawaiian horticultural history with the pool and waterfall waiting for us at the end.
Alas, the skinny dip that I planned had to be shelved.
After a morning in Honolulu’s China Town, we headed to the nearby Iolani Palace, home to the last Hawaiian king and queen. It was fully booked for the next 4 days but we were allowed to visit the gift shop and a video presentation on the history of the palace.
We had planned to fit in a luau at the Hawaiian Cultural Centre only to find that they were completely booked out for the next 7 days. A visit out to the USS Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbour was all fully booked, though we were able to wander the grounds without a reservation.
I was up a 6:30 am in an attempt to book a visit to Hanauma Bay Nature Preserve for some reef snorkeling and managed to book an early afternoon time slot by refreshing my internet page a dozen times as available time slots quickly disappeared. They had to close the bay that day due to infestation of Box jellyfish whose stings can cause paralysis and possible death. I don’t remember seeing that in the tourist brochures.
As you read this, I am sure you may be getting the distinct feeling that we did not have a good experience. If we compared this trip to our first taste of Hawaii 17 years previously, there was no question this trip did not meet our expectations set by our previous experience. Then, there were so many times when it seemed we had the whole Island to ourselves with numerous opportunities for skinny dipping. No so much on Oahu, small island and 10,000,000 visitors.
But it was still pretty decent. The weather was perfect and Waikiki is a walking and shopping paradise. Name any high end brand and you will find it if you can get past the security guards. There was never a shortage of places to get a Mai Tai. The cheapest drink came as we enjoyed dinner at our first ever meal at a Cheese Cake Factory. For some reason, the Bare Naked Ladies song “Origins of the Universe” kept running through my head. Not sure why but perhaps it was the Mai Tai talking.
I have one last comment before I close. Penticton is a tourist town, and I must admit to getting cranky after several months of tourists invading my beach and filling my favourite pubs and restaurants. With ten million visitors I fully expected to run into cranky Hawaiians. Not to be, I found them to be friendly, helpful, open and welcoming every where we went from the grocery stores to the beach bars. Perhaps it was the Mai Tai’s.
It had been my plan while writing this that I would intersperse some tidbits of our first trip to Hawaii but after revisiting it, I believe that trip deserves its own blog. I kept a daily diary of the trip so the writing is already done. Stay tuned.
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