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Published: January 13th 2023
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Aloha again from us.
Well it was a lazy day of sorts today……a day at the beach…..well Hanauma Bay to be exact.
We have been to H Bay before but it was 25 years ago when we were in Hawaii on our 25
th wedding anniversary. I first visited in 1993 when Rhys and I were here with the Hawkes Bay Youth Brass Band at the Pacific Basin Music Festival…hard to believe that it is 30 years ago. We tried to visit in 2014 when we were here but couldn’t get in as the car park was full when we arrived at about 9am. They have changed all the visiting rules now and you have to book tickets to enter the ‘park’ and I think I said something about it in my Blog a couple of days ago.
We left the hotel around 9.15am and headed up to the Koko Marina Shopping Centre, that is near to Hanauma Bay, and picked up our hired snorkeling gear plus 2 beach chairs and a beach umbrella, plus an underwater Go-Pro camera (hired) and then got driven by the company to Hanauma Bay and in we went….it was a very easy way
of doing it all….no hassles at all. They even have a ‘tram’ that takes you from the entry gates down to the beach and back again as well….this was something we didn’t know about and we had worried a bit about how Joy would cope with the long walk up to the top afterwards…going down would have been bad enough but back up would probably have been a very, very long and very slow walk. The ‘tram’ was fantastic.
We set ourselves up on a nice little grassy knoll and settled in for about 3 hours….in the sun under the umbrella. We donned the snorkeling gear only once for about a 30 minute stint and we were both quite disappointed with the snorkeling to say the least……we’ve obviously been spoiled by Rarotonga where the snorkeling right out in front of our little hideaway there was 10 times better than what we saw today. The water was a bit murky and there just weren’t the fish that we are used to seeing when underwater on Rarotonga.
However it was a wonderful relaxing 3 hours in the sun….swimming/snorkeling, reading and just generally watching the world go by.
We phoned
for our ride back to the car around 2pm and headed back to the hotel for showers etc.
We then wandered down the main street around the corner from the hotel to a ‘nail shop’. Joy wanted to get her nails done apparently that was overdue. She then spent over an hour with a male nail artiste having her nails ‘rebuilt’ or whatever the hell it is they get done to their nails. I swallowed hard when I paid the bill but that’s another story and Joy was thrilled with the end result and that’s all that matters.
Took in the sunset over Waikiki Beach on the way back to the hotel and I’ll post a photo of that.
We then caught a taxi down through town to the Hard Rock café for dinner. We had a 15 minute wait for a table so more retail therapy in the ‘Rock Shop’….the usual signature T-shirt and a few other little bits and pieces. As we were waiting to be served at the shop a guy walking out from the restaurant up stairs with his wife and son handed me a ‘scratchy’ that he said he didn’t want to
use….’buy a t-shirt and get one free’…..thought it sounded too good to be true but I handed it over and Joy was able to get another T-shirt for free….wonders will never cease.
Dinner at Hard Rock is always good and I’ll post a few photos with this blog of some of the food we had, especially my main of ‘rack of baby ribs…just couldn’t resist it as I LOVE ribs. Was it a feed and a half or what??????? Look and the photos and weep!!!!!
As we have found in the past when we have dined at Hard Rocks in many, many places, the waitresses are usually really good at what they do and tonight was no exception with Linn really making the whole experience top notch and one to remember.
We finished dining and wandered along Kapa’alua Ave for a bit, heading back towards the hotel. There were street performers on every corner doing everything from singing solos, singing in a band and hip-hop dancing (and they were really good.
Came across a taxi and caught that back to the hotel eventually.
So a bit of a lazier day but what’s visiting Hawaii without
a day at the beach!!!!!
Sounds like we are visiting the Ala Moana Centre tomorrow…the most massive shopping mall that we know of…can’t remember how many floors it covers but sounds like fun…doesn’t it (not)!!!!
Mahalo until next time.
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