Whale Cruise and Diamond Head State Monument

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A beautiful sunny island day today. Breakfast at the hotel club. Pedro really likes the purple doughnuts. Had the miso soup today with tofu and seaweed. Not a typical breakfast for those of us from the midwest. Big waves today and the number of surfers is crazy. Has to be 50 surfers off shore on the west end of Waikiki Beach. After breakfast we took a walk through Ala Moana Regional Park to Magic Island. Busy place with walkers and runners. Scuba lessons in the little lagoon by Magic island. There was a better view of the surfers. They were all congregating and waiting for the perfect waves. Saw some successful and some that need to perfect the skill. We had a tour scheduled with Pink Sails Whale Watching. It sets sail from yacht club right next to our hotel. Heidi Uber and the Hardy Boys were along for the whale watching. It was a 2 hour cruise just off the shore of Oahu. We saw false killer whales. It was pretty neat to see and the crew on the boat had never seen them before when out on the whale watching cruise. We also saw the other "regular whales". We saw a mom with her young one. They were on the surface, but no real breaching out of the water. Just floating along the top. After the whale cruise we had lunch and then headed over to Diamond Head State Monument. We took the real Uber to get there because Heidi Uber's car can only carry 4 people and we were a group of 5. We were dropped at the first lookout. We hiked through a tunnel to get to the entry gate. The parking lot was pretty empty. We had not bought passes on line ahead of time. There was a big sign that stated that residents did not need a pass. We thought Heidi's military I.D. would work. It did not. The guy at the gate said that we would need to go online to get our passes and that there should be plenty available. Pedro scanned the QR code and tried to purchase tickets. The problem was that we were in the crater and the signal was bad. There were several others also trying to get passes as well having the same issue. The guy at the gate finally set up his phone as a hot spot so we could get our tickets. Not sure why they just don't have a kiosk there, but we finally got our passes and headed into the park. The expected time for the climb was supposed to be about 1.5 to 2 hours. We headed up the trail. The first part was smooth pavement, then it turned into uneven pavement. There was another tunnel and then several sets of steps. The view from the top was amazing. Total distance round trip was 2.25 miles. After the hike we headed back to Waikiki and got some ice cream. We went to the beach and walked a bit on the beach and then headed back to the hotel. Heidi and the Hardy boys headed back to the base. We headed back to the pool for a quick swim. After the swim we went out for dinner a few blocks from the hotel to Goofy's. Food was good and service was quick. It was another busy day and the weather was perfect. Sunny and 80's!

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