One hundred days visiting the Hawaiian Islands

We have been very fortunate to have spent nearly one hundred days visiting the Hawaiian Islands.  This mainly is because we have a daughter and son-in-law that have been stationed there for three years and they have been gracious in "putting up with us"  for a month each of the last three years.  We have visited five of the islands.   Oahu is one of my favorite islands because of all the things there is to do there.  And I am a doer.  I also like the big island of Hawaii.  I am all about God's creations and the volcanoes are awesome.  What power they have.  Plus, the flora on the Big Island is the best of all the islands we have been to.

I will go through what I liked about each island and maybe some of what I disliked.

First of all lets look at the Big Island of Hawaii. The volcanoes have to be my first stop.  The lava is flowing into the ocean and it is an awesome sight.  Below is a picture of a road that Dave and I traveled on when we went to Hawaii in the 1980's.

 

As you can see, the road is now covered with lava.  So is the house that that was the Volcano's National Park House.  It is amazing as to how much area the lava has covered up since we were first there.

Below is a picture of Rainbow Falls.  It is gorgeous and if you go back behind it, it is gorgeous back there too.

I said that the flora was gorgeous on the island.  The next two pictures are of that.

The next island I will cover is Molaki.  We went to Kalaupapa.  We took this little plane over and it was windy.  However, we made it just fine.  Kalaupapa is home to the people that have Hanson's Disease.  (Also known as leprosy.)  Flying over Molaki is beautiful.  It has the highest sea cliffs in the world. It truly is stunning.

Here is a picture of the runway.  As you can see, one needs a small aircraft.

While we were at the airport waiting for the plane that morning, my stomach felt a little funny.  I have a tendency to get very sick, when I get sick.  After we landed and got on the bus, I was really not feeling well at all.  I did get very sick.  To make matters worse, the island had not had rain for the longest time.  The people at Kalaupapa were not allowed to have children.  Children cannot even visit there.  But they are allowed to have pets and a lot of them have cats.  Because of that there is also a lot of farrow cats.  Without rain the urine of the cats does not get washed away and the area really smells.  Being sick and then getting a whiff of that was pretty awful.  But I did the bus tour.  We saw the church that was named after Father Damion who helped the people with Hanson's Disease have as normal of a life as they could.  Prior to that conditions were not good.  A picture of the church is posted below.

 

Now there is treatment for Hanson's Disease and the picture below shows the patient before the treatment and then afterward.  Quite a difference.  If I were to go back, I would visit the upper part of Molaki.  Needless to say, being very sick did not make nice memories for me.  I was even sick the next day.  I also think the cost was way high.  Someone is making a lot of money on us tourists.

The next island I will cover will be Maui.  I only got to go there once, and as I said before we got caught in a winter storm while there.  But we did have some time where we were not in bad weather.  The first was right after we landed and went on a whale watching tour.  The whales got up close.  They were so close that their spray landed on us.  They believe the one whale went under our boat.  The males were fighting and the whales were breaching.  It was totally awesome.

We also were able to go up to Haliaka Canyon on one day that it did not rain.  It is gorgeous up there.  That day we found a little snow there also.

We also found the Silver Plant while we were on our way up.  It is very rare and it really does look silver.  My picture really does not do it justice.

All in all I enjoyed the time in Maui.  I wish we had been able to drive the "Road to Hana", but it was not met to be.  We did have a wonderful dinner at the 'Melting Pot" while there.  And one of the best things was that nearly every time we stepped out of our door to the resort we were in we saw whales breaching.  A very fun time.  I would go back.

We went to Kauai two times.  The first time was the day after Christmas in 2009.  We flew in, rented a car, toured the island, and flew out in the evening.  We went to Kilauea Lighthouse on one side of the island and then we wanted to see Waimea Canyon on the other side of the island.  We saw both, but were stuck in a traffic jam the rest of the time.

This past year we went back to Kauai for a few days.  We again went to the lighthouse area because it is a National Wild Life Sanctuary. We got to see several of the native birds.  It was one of the highlights of Hawaii.

There was the Red Footed Booby.

And the Nene.  The Nene are Hawaii's State Bird and really quite difficult to find.

But the best thing on Kauai was "Glass Beach."  Yes it is a beach made up mostly of sea glass For those of us that love picking up sea glass, this was a little much even for us.  As we drove up to park there were spinner dolphins out in the ocean jumping.  Totally amazing.

We also got to see a Monk Seal while there.  They are endangered.

The last day that we were there we walked through a rain forest and then had lunch and after that spent an hour or so in the orchards.  We got to taste any fruit we wanted to that was ripe and we were allowed to take as much home as we could.  I enjoyed tasting the fruit.  I did not find any that I did not like.  While in the rain forest I took a picture of this crab spider. It is a funny looking spider.

And the last picture I will post from Kauai is just a scenery picture that says you are in Hawaii.

Now on to Oahu.  My favorite paid activity there is the Outrigger Barefoot Sunset Cruise.  We went on that each of the last three years.  It is a relaxing and fun time.  You sail out from Waikiki and stay until the sun sets and then you return to shore.  We saw whales breaching two of the three times.

We also visited the USS Arizona Memorial all three times.  This past year we got the go on the Commander's Boat Cruise out to the Memorial.  On that tour they showed us many of the other memorials.

We spent many hours at Hanauma Bay.  Snorkeling was Dave's favorite activity.  I never managed to snorkel, but I enjoyed seeing the colorful fish from above the water.

Another favorite thing to do while on Oahu was to see the huge waves on the North Shore.  Of course that always met stopping at Ted's and picking up a Chocolate Haupia Cream Pie on the way home.  

Sometimes it also met a stop at Macky's Truck for some awesome coconut shrimp.  I think it is the best on the island.

I could go on and on about the Hawaiian Islands, but this blog is already quite long already.

I hope you have enjoyed it.  Please feel free to make comments.