skoobing

monday was scuba diving day!  i like to call it skoobing.  this was an all-day event.  being miss patty punctual, i had us in front of our hotel at 8:05 a.m. to await our scubavan (supposed to arrive at 8:15).

.....

at 8:50 a.m. the instructor rolled up to our hotel.  it's ok, i think he was late because he got held up at a russell brand lookalike contest.  he obviously won.  so we hopped in the van with mr. bedhead and he started driving us over to the local military base where we would get our first instructions on how to skoob safely.  the military base here in honolulu is just like the one in huntsville - super secure and you must have your ID to enter.  guess who didn't have his ID.  nope, not logan.  the instructor!  the guy was the biggest stoner.  so we get to the base, and a hop, skip, and a hide-a-guy-in-the-backseat-under-some-towels later, we were in the pool with our equipment learning to not hold our breath.

has anyone been skoobing before?  ok it's kinda intense because the instructor is like holdthisbreatheheredontholdyourbreathoryoulldieblowoutyourearsokgo.  um.  what.  can you repeat that?  how about 9 more times?  why is this tank so heavy?  is everything supposed to hurt?  ok good, just checking.

i was having a ton of trouble with "equalizing" which is where you hold your nose and gently blow out in order to "pop" your ears.  our instructor, no surprise here, said "well let's just get to the ocean, i'm sure you'll figure it out there."  his reassurance skills are lacking.  not great for a skoob teacher, but at least he's not a surgeon.

so we make our way over to another part of the island where we hop on a boat and head out on the radiant teal water!

we suited up and dove right in!  there was a guide rope that descended from the surface down about 40 feet to the ocean floor.  logan was a natural, of course, and i took my time.  my ears did fine!  the sea life down there was just marvelous.  we saw some giant turtles - one of them was almost as big as me!  it's incredible how graceful they are for being so large with a heavy shell.  we saw tons of colorful fish and they would swim up all around us.  it was kinda exactly like a scene from the little mermaid.  we also saw some eel (eels?) but they ran away from me :(  yes, ran.

we did two different dives and each one lasted about 45 minutes.  this experience was well worth the money (thanks, NASA!) for all the skoob time we got.  our instructor, whose name is "geo," took us back to the hotel and we showered and fancied up for dinner.  we made our way over to duke's because we've been hearing about this excellent waikiki-front restaurant all week.  once again, we dined by torchlight mere feet from the sand and surf.  my sweet husband didn't even complain when i asked him to stop talking about weird/gross stuff like cannibalism since we were in such a romantic place.  dinner ended up being rather quiet, though...  then it was early to bed so we could get up at 4 a.m. to embark on our thuper thecret hawaii adventure!

paddle, paddle, sip

on a side note, there is a lady just outside our hotel who sells beautifully crafted hair flowers!  i'm obsessed.  i plan to get one every night!  single ladies sport a bloom on the right, married gals on the left.

for sunday, logan and i decided to go ocean kayaking!  part workout, part sea-bonding, all made better with beer.  we got a pretty late start in the morning compared to our usual up and at 'em at 7 a.m.  we mosey'ed on over to gobananas around 10 a.m. and rented a tandem kayak.  the stoner kayak rental specialist highly recommended that we purchase and tote along some beer to "help weigh down the craft and prevent capsizing."  always one to follow instructions, logan stopped us at a convenient little store along the way and we snagged some tall boy BLLs.  life vest - check.  hair flower - check.  beer - double check.

as suggested by our thuper thecret hawaii guidebook, we decided to paddle out to a little-known site called sunken island.  this little gem is the result of ice caps melting thousands of years ago causing a rise in sea level.  what was once a thousand acre beach is, well, still a thousand acre beach - it just has about a foot and a half of crystal clear water on top!  we kayaked about a mile off shore to reach sunken island then got out and walked around for a bit.  this has got to be one of the most photogenic spots in all of oahu.

so this was super enjoyable for the view and also because logan kennedy cracks me up every damn day of my life.  if only his jokes were family friendly, i would repeat them here.

being the ambitious vacationers, we reached land again and immediately went in search of other great kayak locations.  we visited a few more beaches but eventually decided that i was we were just too tuckered out to venture out again.  we thought about doing surf lessons, but again, the tiredness won out.  ultimately we spent the afternoon driving up one of the mountains along the famous tantalus drive, which is an amazingly twisty road that snakes through the jungle/rain forest (not sure what it's called here.  for that matter, what's the dif between rain forest and jungle?  i remain confused.)  at the top we got a mesmerizing view of honolulu.

for dinner we decided to go fancy and hit up one of the resort restaurants.  sigh.  there are few things on earth that make logan kennedy angry and a foodfail is one of them.  i thought the place was pretty neat - it's directly on waikiki beach with an open, patio-style atmosphere.  the weird thing was that they had a below average salad bar, and for the entree you picked a meat from the menu and the server brought it to you raw.  once the server finished explaining, logan looked at me and said "i do not go to restaurants to cook my own food.  this place is dead to me."  so we took logan's raw, terriyaki-drenched chicken up to the grill and commenced to cooking our own dinner.  my hat is off to the owner of this resort who very skillfully saves undoubtedly hundreds of thousands of dollars on chefs each year by making guests cook their own food and calling it an "experience."  but you don't fool logan kennedy, sir.

make caroline mad, get a slushi on your head

saturday morning we left earlyish to go spy on our secret hawaii project called the haiku stairs.  we wanted to scope out parking and access and coincidentally ran into some hikers who had just finished the trek!  we're pretty pumped about this one for later in the week.  i know you're on the edge of your seat.

next we went to "see" the chinaman's hat island.  really does look like a hat!



now, i thought we were just going to gaze at this lovely island from the beach.  take some pics, walk along the beach, and move on to our next activity.  however.  i'm on my honeymoon with logan so many of you can probably guess where our morning actually went.  yep, we swam/waded the 600 yards out to the island and climbed to the top.



please look closely and note how steep that stupid hat is.  worst ever.  i was SO afraid.



there was a really nice view at the top, i will admit this.  however, one cannot miss what one doesn't know, so i would have been just as fine not going.  also, when my husband makes me do things i really don't want to do, punishment is exacted.


(view from the top of chinaman's hat.)

we drove along the island to la'ie point which is a giant rock that has a hole in middle of it thanks to a powerful tsunami.  water - 1, rock - 0.

we lunched at romy's shrimp shack on the side of the road.  the north shore is famous for it's little shrimp operations not unlike huntsville's famous taco trucks.  tasty!  we had spicy shrimp and brown rice with some pineapple.  i highly recommend it.  logan does not.

we spent the rest of the afternoon driving to famous north shore beaches like sunset and pipeline.  these beaches are famous for the amazing surfing and the vans triple crown surfing competition is actually going on this week!  we tried to catch a round of that, but the competitors wait for the best conditions to get scored so there is no set time for competing.  we still saw some cool surfers, though!  at the end of the activity portion of our day we stopped for shave ice's.



i got a "hawaiian" and logan got a "north shore."  i got about halfway through mine then dumped it on logan's head when he wasn't looking.  that's what you get for making me climb tall things that i hate.  sleep with one eye open, kennedy.

not a how-does-my-hair-look vacation

friday was ... wow.  spoiler alert:  logan said the words "this is the best thing i've ever done in my life."

so friday we solved the rental car problem by, yep, you guessed it, paying ridiculously tooooo much for one because i don't turn 25 for two more weeks.  gods of irony, please stop making a mockery of my life and move on to someone else.  on the brightside, we get to drive a 2010 prius all week!  push button start and it turns off the engine in traffic.  between me and logan, i'm sure you can guess which one almost peed his pants with excitement at the chance to wield this new technology and you can guess which one of us was asked the read the owner's manual out loud.  from cover to cover.

and we're off!  hanauma bay snorkeling is the activity on deck for the morning.  the bay is breathtaking from above.  we geared up and dove in (p.s. the water is freezing).  the fish are like pets here!  they get so close to you - i know i touched a bunch of them without trying!  i kept bumping into them. 

we saw a massive sea turtle just nomming his way through the reef.  the waves were shuffling him around all over the place but he just contentedly nommed wherever the water landed him peacefully for a few seconds.  what an inspiration you are, mr. overlarge sea turtle.  i must learn this magic where one simply floats along in life, eating whatever's closest, and has no worries. TEACH ME, I SAY!  RIGHT NOW!  see, i can be laid back, too.

     

(pic of hanauma bay from the internet - way better than any i can do!)

after snorkeling, we drove around the edge of the island and found the halona blowhole.  for anyone who even remotely knows logan and me, you know what horribly dense and crude jokes i had to endure.  scott, i know your heart is melting right now, just thinking of all the fun you missed with the word "blowhole."  it was very neat - the violent ocean crashes into the rocky shore and the white surf shoots up through this little hole in the rock.

next we drove on along the island edge in pursuit of the oahu's dragon's nostrils.  this is a famous yet little known double-blowhole (scott, keep it together) at the very bottom of a very tall hike called makapu'u. 

thanks to our sneaky  insider's travel book, we hiked up the well-known makapu'u trail and at the educational sign about blue whales, we veered off course and began climbing about 450 down the steep rocky mountain.  though we found subtle hints of a trail, most of the cliff face was rocks that we climbed down.

(if you look in the center of the picture, then move your eyes up and left just a little, those are people. just to give you a little scale.  also, those tide pools at the bottom are probably 30-40 feet across.)

 

at the bottom of the cliff, the raging sea crashed against the rocks and created these cool little wading pools behind some bigger rocks.  logan and i got in the water there and climbing onto some of the rocks near the water so we could see the waves crash.  the spray went about 30 feet into the air when waves crashed!  so cool to see this up close.  we were mesmerized by how awesome the waves were until one crashed almost on top of us and i became terrified.  we climbed back down the rocks, waded through the churning pool, and started climbing back up the cliff face.  so fun!

then we came back to the hotel, showered and rested, and went to our hotel happy hour.  going down the list, we had hawaiian punch and "clear" margaritas. 


(we stopped and got some little chocolate treats - i got this cappucino truffle shaped like a coffee cup!)

we got some sushi at a little place then moved on to the sheraton resort where we at dinner at rumfire and sat outside next to torches right over the pacific ocean.  glorious!  the food was fabulous and the live music was just as wonderful.  logan and i danced to a hawaiian rendition of an eric clapton song in a little corner of the restaurant, in a little corner of the earth.

happy thanksmoon honeygiving!

long travel days often yield two things: an immense feeling of wonder and excitement at discovering a new world and total panic at not knowing where you are or where to go!

we left huntsville bright and early this morning at 8:23 am CST (thanks Caroline!) and the airport was completely deserted.  we zipped through security complete with detector and explosive materials scan and stood at our gate mere minutes after arriving.    we connected to denver, colorado where the temperature was a disgusting 28 degrees.  my mom prodded me into exploiting my and logan's love-celebration-trip by telling anyone and everyone that we're on our thanksmoon honeygiving, so please give us free stuff/upgrades, thanks a bunch.

hollywood would have you think that everyone in the world of travel is just combing the masses of tourists that flood to paradise like cattle for a sweet young couple to give free things to.  before you go embarassing yourselves, let me inform you that when you tell the airport check-in lady "hey is the plane full?  we were wondering if you had any space for a honeymoon upgrade ..." she will look at you with total loathing and say "we DO have an upgrade for $69 per guest but we don't do complimentary upgrades - even if you are on your honeymoon."  noted.

eight hour flight morphed into a 6.5 hour flight (yay!) and a sorceror's apprentice and a dispicable me later, we were landing in honolulu!  gorgeous!

and now let's examine the scene of the crime.  by crime i mean the anxiety attack.  i thought it would be longer before i had a massive worry overdose, but, alas, a mere 20 minutes after de-planing i had a one way ticket to dispairville.

as many of you know, i suffer from obsessive behavior.  so, duh, for months i have been researching everything about our vacay including rental cars.  just TWO days ago i turned down an online offer to rent a car for a week for $175 because i thought we might find something better in person.  WRONG.  oh so dreadfully incorrect.  every rental car counter we went to quoted us well over $300.  omg.  at this time, the car rental issue remains unresolved.  stay tuned.

fast forward two hours and we made it via arbitrarily numbered bus lines to our hotel.  magnificent!  now here is a place that understands undeserved attention and greed - we were upgraded for free to an oceanview room in the beachfront tower!  please don't hold back your pent-up jealous rage, it's bad for your health.




so logan and i spent a fabulous evening drinking free (thank you, embassy suites!) mai tais and blue hawaiians and walking along wakiki beach. 



bedtime is weighing heavily on my eyelids, so, until tomorrow fair loved ones!

what DONT they make in "waterproof"?

doubters doubted us. skeptics were skeptical. my mom said i couldn't do it.

logan and i packed for a week-long honeymoon in hawaii ... in one carry-on suitcase. for both of us.

HA-HA!

packing can be rather tricky, especially for those of us who are over-obsessive worry-warriors. what if i get there and i need my silver flip flops instead of the brown ones i brought? what if my fun-size box of triscuits runs out in the first hour on the plane and i starve to death for the next seven hours? should i have brought the family-size box instead??!?!?!?!!

no thanks. packing lightly has been an exercise in facing my fears. truly, the essentials for a hawaiian adventure include a bathing suit, running shorts and shirts, water shoes, and waterproof mascara. however, lest we not live up to our favorite mantra "go big or go home," we have also invested in a waterproof video camera! this will be super handy during snorkeling, scuba diving, and the overwhelming probability that i will tip over our ocean kayak.

upon arriving in hawaii we also plan to purchase one or two waterproof disposable cameras and a waterproof watch. there is an entire cash cow world of waterproof merchandise necessities. i'm pleased to know that, should i wish to write a manuscript by flashlight while listening to my ipod underwater, i have all the resources to do so at my fingertips.

our hawaiian adventure begins tomorrow (thanksgiving day!) at bright and sunny 8 a.m. follow us to paradise!