We were only staying in the Waikiki Grand for one night, so the plan was to move all our stuff over to Mikki's house once check-out time rolled around. This didn't end up being until noon, so we had half a day to do whatever we wanted to do in the Waikiki area. Top of the list on the Nina-generated itinerary was to climb to the top of Diamondhead, an interesting volcanic crater sitting on the shore adjacent to Waikiki. The highest point of the crater rim rises some 700' directly out of the ocean.

The western wall of the crater could been seen clearly from the hotel and appeared to tower over the city, but there was no frame of reference and it wasn't nearly as tall as it appeared. We weren't sure where the trail to the top started to we had the hotel call us a cab to take us there. When the cab came... it was actually a full-sized limo. Urmm.... Well whatever, we got in the limo and he drove us the ~2 miles to the entrance to the park. We felt like pretty big dorks driving past people who were hiking up the entrance road to the Diamondhead State Monument in a limo... But as we arrived at the entrance gate, we saw that indeed every taxi there was a limo. In fact, during the entire time we spent in the Waikiki area, we saw exactly one regular-sized taxi and dozens of limo-taxies. I guess that's normal here. But it sure felt weird.

Anyway, Diamondhead is really coool. Geologically it's interesting because it's a mile-diameter crater that was apparently formed in one giant volcanic explosion. It's also interesting because the military installed a bunch of pill boxes, bunkers, and tunnels throughout the crater walls prior to World War I, and turned the center of the crater into a military fort of sorts. Half of the crater interior is still a military storage area. The other half is now a nature preserve and the trail to the top ends at an old bunker complex. You hike through old tunnles and up a spiral staircase into a pillbox looking out over Waikiki. From there, you crawl out through the viewport and around onto the top, which was a fire base observation post. It's sorta fun and appeals to the urban explorer in me. The view was great:

Waikiki seen from the summit of Diamondhead

The trail was rather crowded, despite the fact that we got there before 8am on a Saturday. I took some pictures of birds (none of which I could identify) down in the crater bottom and we made our merry way. The entrance road actually goes through a tunnel right through the crater wall. As we walked our way out we passed by at least a dozen limo cabs and felt less weird about having arrived in one.

Arriving back at the hotel, we packed up our stuff and called Mikki, who was again picked us up and drove us to our next destination, her house.

Next on the agenda was Haunama Bay and my first snorkeling ever. Haunama Bay is another crater feature, but this one is breached on one side by the ocean and the entire thing is now just a shallow lagoon filled with reef. I rented some snorkel stuff and off we went.

Initially I found it very hard to breath with my head underwater without hyperventillating. It took some mental control to convince myself that I could do it without causing harm to myself. I quickly got the hang of it and was happily off snorkeling in the very warm and clear water. The fish were incredible, it was like being in Bob's saltwater aquarium, only the fish were an order of magnitude larger. In places the reef was very close to the water's surface (it was low tide) and it was hard to get from one deep art to another without running a high risk of getting either reef rash or putting your hand/feet down on a sea urching (or both). But we all managed to do it without injury.

After awhile Nina and Mikki retreated to the shore to lie in the sun and warm up; I elected to return to the water for more snorkeling which, by this point, I was thoroughly enjoying. I went to a different part of the bay and saw even better fish and a large green sea turtle! It was extremely cute and I hung out with it for some time. You're not allowed (by law) to touch them, and this guy apparently had it in for me as he kept swimming up underneath me and tried to push me around. I (mostly) avoided touching his shell and just watched him being curious about me. Anyway it was really cool and a bummer that Nina and Mikki missed it.

We had some local ice cream and mochi then went out for dinner at the Kona Brewery which was tasty, though they forgot to place the order for our pizza and only served us our appetizers. Oops.

New Years is celebrated in Hawai'i with.... copious fireworks. The firecracker density in Hawai'i tonight is about 100,000 per occupant or 1 per square centimeter. It is ridiculous. The weather forecast for tomorrow actually calls for "smoke" as a result. Not my favorite. Even at Mikki's place in the suburbs of Honolulu there are people on every corner firing stuff off and have been for the last hour. At least her house has wireless. :)

Happy New Year, welcome to 2006! This message for those of you in New Mexico for whom it is already 2006. Here it is only 9:00pm and I'm sleepy. Goodnight!