Author: ryland22

Sumi and Keith recently moved from their beach front property to Ford Island.  For you history buffs that’s where the airfield was located that was bombed in the attack on Pearl Harbor.

The road leading to their house circles the airfield, to the left dilapidated hangers declared as historic monuments sit in the Hawaiian sun, windows shatters and rusting away.

I woke up early a couple mornings to take pictures of the old air tower.  According to Keith it’s the most haunted building on the island.

Ford Island has these brand new and shiny Levitt Townesque homes within 200 yards of the decaying infrastructure of historical pearl harbor .   Definitely a weird dichotomy and a reminder of the fast pace of life and death, Darwinism on a rapidly changing island state.

This past week I saw in the news that 50 foot waves hit North Shore Oahu (where the world’s biggest surfing competitions are held).  Sumi texted me to let us know she and Keith were heading up there to try and get a first hand look at the insanity.  I’m so jealous!

Our first full day in Oahu, Sumi, Susan, Mason and I drove to the North Shore and got lunch at one of the famous shimp shacks.  On the way we parked on the side of the road for a minute to snap some pics of surfers at sunset beach.

These are shots I took showing seasoned pro’s surfing 17-20 foot waves.  Can you imaging 50 feet!  That’s like surfing from the top of my office 🙂

After checking out the surfing we went farther north to where the world famous Hawaiian “shrimp shacks” are located.  Sumi, 8 months pregnant at the time, declined to partake in the deliciousness.

I had the garlic and butter shrimp and Susan had the spicey garlic.  If you don’t like garlic, I don’t think you had any options.  We were mighty hungry, and it was sooo good.  Totally doused in butter and literally a pound of garlic – it was probably best Sumi didn’t get a plate as her baby would have been born with heart disease from all the cholesterol.

If we get back to Oahu next year, we will be sure to sample the prawns.  For you easterners (hey, I had never heard of them either) a prawn is what I would call a mammoth prehistoric shrimp, ranging in size anywhere from a banana to 15 pounds of shrimpy delight.

Keith rented a boat from the Navy Marina our first weekend in Oahu.  We took it out about 5 miles to a massive sandbar in the middle of the ocean.  There must have been 30 or 40 other boats ‘parked’ around the edge of the sandbar.  You would walk for 1-2 miles in ankle to knee deep water to a remote island in the distance.  We didn’t have time for the walk,  but it was very serene.

We did some snorkeling while we were there.  The drop off was almost straight down – 400 feet to the bottom.  There wasn’t much coral although I did see a few big fish.  None big enough to eat me.

The first day in Kaui Susan took a nappy nap and caught up on some serious jet lag, while I downed enough caffeine to kill a small rodent – perhaps one of the many chickens that invaded this island.  Into the rental car and down the road I went with my trusty tour guide, the 20 page brochure that we picked up at the airport just after we landed.

One of the spots I visited that day was called “Shooting Spout”.  Over thousands of years waves from the ocean rushed into lava tubes.  Eventually water broke through the surface and shot upwards toward the heavens.  This phenomena looks and sounds a lot like a whale blow hole.

Susan and I decided to hike 6 miles to the top of a waterfall.  I thought it was only 3-4 miles, and the trail started off really easy so I took my entire camera bag (weighing in at about 20 lbs for any of you who have picked that beast up).

After the first 20 minutes Susan said she wanted to go back, but after another 20 minutes of complaining she had hit her stride and would march on for another 1.5 hours one way.

We hiked through desert like areas, rain forest, woods, valleys, and finally… to the top of the falls.  It was a 200 foot drop and I was sitting with my butt 20 inches from the edge holding my camcorder and trying to take it all in.  No guard rails here baby – Crazy!

We went to Kealia Beach for day two of surfing in Kaui.  I was on a much smaller board and definitely struggled to get up and balanced.  It would be another day until I started to really master it, and by then it would be time to come home 🙁