I'm the ocean

Well, Americans can't pronounce Kaj, which is my name. It's Scandinavian and pronounced as Kai in English. I always say Kai and spell it as Kai when I'm booking e.g. restaurants here in US. Works very well here on Hawaii since Kai means Ocean in Hawaiian.

So here I only need to book as Kai, and say "just like the ocean" when they want to know how to spell it.

I'm now about to leave Hawaii for LA. It had been great to be here, and I hope that I will get back in the future. Surfs up!

Edit. I'm now in LA couldn't upload this entry while on Hawaii, and attaching images also fails. Will try to fix it for the next entry, but it's time to sleep now.

Shaved ice

A quickie. Don't know why shaved ice is so popular in Hawaii. Lots of places all over the islands sell shaved ice. Had never tried it before, so I just had to buy one.

Eating one was an instant flashback of childhood. A kiosk near to where I lived used to sell flavored ice. The taste was similar to shaved ice.

Surfing and surfing

Had a really nice day today. Surfed for two hours today.

Was a bit hard. I had brought my gorilla pod and GoPro to the beach, so I was holding the camera while I was paddling, and then tried to record movies while surfing. Didn't get any good shots of me during that acrobat act, but got some good shots of Ida while I was sitting on my board.

I used a short sleeved rash guard, but I wish I had one with long sleeves. A rash guard is a bit like a t-shirt but for water activities. It protects from the sun, and from rash due to friction when paddling and getting up on the surfboard. I usually use a wetsuit when surfing in Europe since the water is colder there, I have now learnt that it also protects from rash on the forearms. The short sleeved rash guard doesn't.
I do now have a rash on my right forearm.

I bought a long sleeved rash guard after today's surf.

Had a late lunch at Cheesecake Factory. Very good food, but got so full so I couldn't eat any cheesecake. Bought one to go instead :)

Sorry for different editing of the photos. Some come from my mobile and some from my GoPro.

Big hopes got crushed

Was so much looking forward to kayaking and snorkeling today. The image in my mind contained sun, calm water, great snorkeling, many turtles and lots of good photos.

The trip got canceled due to bad weather. Too windy and too high waves. The trip was on the east side of the island.

We did however find a snorkeling trip here on the west side. It was also very windy here, and we had the highest waves that they had ever seen on the reef during the last five years. The boat trip to the reef took 5 minutes, to anchor took about 25 minutes in the heavy sea. We were drifting too much. One cool thing while on the boat was that I saw a whale jump really high and make a huge splash.

The visibility in the water was kind of okay, but I had wished for a lot better. The guide said that you shouldn't enter the water today unless you are a strong swimmer. We got light snorkeling vests, that gave some floating support, but a Japanese man needed to be rescued. It was heavy sea. They weren't kidding when they said that you had to be a strong swimmer. I did however feel totally safe all the time.

My GoPro, that I use for filming crashed just before I entered the water. I didn't see it, but it means that I couldn't record any video during the snorkeling. I had to remove the battery in order to reset it. That couldn't be done once in the water. :-(

We've had some short rain showers today as well, and that means another bright amazing rainbow.

Ida covered herself totally in the towel when we walked back. Looked like ET.

Saw an odd man when we walked back. He came out of the water with a metal detector and had a full wetsuit.

Rainbows everywhere

Ok, I have during my weeks here in Hawaii seen more rainbows than I've ever seen before. I have almost seen 5-10 amazing rainbows every day. It's totally crazy.

The drawback of that is that we have had several rain showers almost every day.

There is also a rainbows on the number plates on cars in Hawaii.

Claimed my first wave on Hawaii

I still got a cold, but I'm starting to feel better.

Haven't really done much today, but prepared for the next coming days. Booked a convertible car for tomorrow. Will drive all around the island of Oahu. The top things that we want to do is to visit an outlet mall, the dole pineapple plantation and see the waves on the north shore. Big wave surfing is supposed to be very good there right now. We will also try to find a nice beach for swimming.

We also booked Kayaking and snorkeling for Saturday.

The rest of the day was a bit lazy except for an hour of surfing on Waikiki beach. Lots of people there, but didn't bother me that much. Ida was very close to claiming her first wave ever.

Waikiki beach is a mix of sand and coral, and there are sea urchins out there, so it's good to have reef shoes when surfing. Also had a rash guard against the sun.

Had dinner at a restaurant named ihop, and they had Swedish pancakes with lingonberry. Very odd to see here.

Last day on Maui

Took a whale safari this morning. The forecast said that the rain from yesterday should continue today, but we got lucky. No rain during the safari!

The trip started at 8 am, so we had to get up at 6 am, which wasn't a problem for me. I got a cold right now so I wake up early.

I expected to see one or possibly two whales from a great distance, but oh boy was I wrong. It was almost as if the ocean was boiling. Whales everywhere, a couple of them also came very close, and swam under the boat.

Did not catch any whale photos from the mobile since I mostly shot with my DSLR.

We are now heading back to Honolulu, Oahu. Again.

Testing GoPro Hero Black

Bought a GoPro Hero black a couple of weeks ago. I have tested it in the car a couple of times, and decided to test it underwater today when I snorkeled.

The GoPro, for you who aren't familiar with it, is a very small video camera that also has a waterproof housing. I had mounted it on my chest, the recording was successful, but the camera was angled a bit too much straight down. Have to fix that next time.

Saw a sea turtle when I snorkeled, and got it on camera.  The video is however to big, so the image attached here is only a small screen capture of one frame.

Watching surfers at Jaws

Jaws is one of the most well known big waves in the world. It's a huge wave that can be seen on the north shore of Mauii a couple of times per year. It requires certain conditions to be met in order to appear, and those conditions happened during the weekend and today.

The location of the wave is about 90 min drive from Lahaina. The final road that takes you to the viewing point was very muddy so I parked a mile from the end of the road and walked the rest of it barefoot.

I did unfortunately not bring a good zoom lens, so I used 100 mm from a far distance. I think I got some  good shots.

The mobile did however not catch any good shots since it can't zoom at all. Don't know how big Jaws was this time, but it can become 50 feet high. 

Lots of people were watching, and it was good that I left the car where I did. Saw lots of cars that were stuck in the mud when I walked back.

Did some googling and saw that someone has posted a video of Jaws from earlier today.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKpCgwBGci8&feature=youtube_gdata_player

At Lahaina, Mauii

Arrived a couple of hours ago. Lahaina is located about 40 minutes from the airport. Haven't seen much of it yet since it was dark when we arrived. Did however take a short trip down to the road at the beach and had a dinner at a restaurant there. The atmosphere was similar to Miami south beach. Cool relaxed and hip at the same time.

Tried Ahi poke for the first time. It's a starter made with raw tuna and onion. The tuna was delicious! Had pulled pork and cabbage as main dish. It was ok, but the one I had on Big Island was better.

Will now try and book whale safari for tomorrow.

Spam

Dennis at Plumeria hill B&B told us that Hawaiian people love spam. I had a hard time believing that, but now I do.  Found this bag at the airport.

Leaving Big Island

Time to leave Plumeria Hill B&B, and Big Island. I don't regret that I decided to go to Big Island, and I certainly don't regret that we stayed at Plumeria hill B&B. Dennis, who run the BB, makes delicious breakfasts, and he's also very funny and friendly.

Plumeria is located at the end of the world, but what a beautiful surrounding. I have driven a few scenic routed on Big Island, but the coastal road next to Dennis place beats them all. There are also many different things to see in the area.

I'm a sucker for spicy food, and looks like I share that passion with Dennis who gave us two bags of dried pepper made from his home grown peppers. We got Hawaiian and ghost pepper! :-)

Went directly from the BB to Hilo airport to ask how much it would cost to rent the car for half a day, and they said that I could keep it for free. Sweet!

Drove to Akaka waterfalls north of Hilo, and took a scenic road back. Found a small "diner" on the way, and had lunch there. Bought an avocado wrap that was made with avocados that they grew next to the diner! Talk about local food.

I'm currently waiting for the flight to Mauii.

Driving like crazy

I don't know how far we went today, but we have been driving a lot. Probably close to 6h on narrow roads. A few things were really good, like the black beaches at Punaluu. Saw some sea turtles there, and took a quick bath in the ocean. Did also find some stunning views.

Other things were not so good. The guide book had described the road between the volcano park and Kona as gorgeous, well. The road where the bead and breakfast is is much nicer. Did also see some hot red lava today, but only from a distance. The guided tours were fully booked :-(

We are flying to Mauii tomorrow.

Snacks

I have been eating on a bag of hot & spicy fried pork rinds for two days now. They are delicious, but really really spicy. I start sneezing every time I start eating.

I have also tried two local beers. Longboard and Pipeline. Longboard is a lager with lot of flavour. It's currently my favorite over here. Pipeline is a porter with a touch of coffee. It's ok, but doesn't work well together with food.

I tried Landshark, a lager, when I was on Oahu. It was really bad. Tasted like water.

Volcano national park

Went to the volcano national park on Big Island. Went there to see some flowing lava, but that was the wrong place for that. 

The park contains old lava fields and volcanoes, but it's too far to walk to the active one. It will take hours and hours to walk there. The active one is actually very close to where we live, so we thought about going there after the volcano park, but it started to rain too much. Will try again tomorrow.

The volcano park is still a trip well worth to take, you can take some very nice photos there. It can however not measure up to what you can see on Iceland.

The best thing was to walk around in a lava tube, and walking on a lava field that had destroyed one of the coastal roads.

Pearl Harbor

We decided to go to Pearl Harbor straight after breakfast. Took the local bus without knowing too much about the route, turned out to be a rather lengthy trip. Took about an hour.

Arrived at Pearl Harbor around 10 am, but all tickets for visiting USS Arizona memorial site were already gone. Bought tickets for visiting the Bowfin submarine and USS Missouri battleship.

Both were interesting to walk around on. A guided trip on Missouri was included in the admission, and Bowfin had an audio guide.

The peace agreement between the allies and Japan was signed on USS Missouri, so 2nd World War ended there.