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.

Drove around Oahu

Rented a convertible for one day and drove around the Island of Hawaii.

Our first stop was supposed to be the Dole pineapple plantation. We got there an hour before they opened, so we changed our plans and drove to north shore to watch surfers. Found a very nice beach with some surfers, a guy who was snorkeling and a guy who was fishing. Odd combination of people. I wouldn't snorkel where someone is fishing. Watched for about 15 minutes and then drove back to Dole.
It rained a lot when we arrived the second time, so we only bought a pineapple icecream and then left the plantation.

We then drove along the coastline clockwise. Very scenic road. Stopped after an hour to eat lunch at a cool local restaurant that had many delicious things on the menu. The shrimps were grown locally, and they had organic food as well. I ordered garlic shrimp with home made fries and guacamole.

We continued our clockwise trip, and then drove to a shopping mall in Pearl city. The convertible couldn't fit much luggage since the top took up much of the space when it was down.

One thing that is a bit odd is that the highway between Honolulu and Pearl city has 6 lanes in each direction. Didn't expect to see that large roads here. Another surprising thing is that the highway was totally jammed during rush hour.

Kayaking and snorkeling is on the schedule for tomorrow.