Hawaii Trip, Day 2: Diamond Head and Hunama Bay

On day 2 I started to appreciate the beauty around me and relax into the spirit of this place.

I was surprised to find it far different from either the west or east coast of the continent. There's something for everyone in Hawaii. Of course there's the party crowd one finds on any scrappy little beach. But I was so pleased to find the natural world on display so beautifully too! Unlike my previous coastal experiences, there was so much to delight my mountain lover's senses. It was great. It's a good thing we left our kids behind, or I might never have come back!

Here's the view of Waikiki Beach from our hotel floor commons. It was spectacular.
It looked like this all the time, rain or shine.

Here's the view from the other side of our hotel floor commons: Immediately below our deck is the Honolulu Zoo. Beyond that, the spectacular green cliffs are that of Diamond Head or, as the Hawaiians called it--Leahi--which means something about the yellow fin of a
tuna fish or some such.

We climbed up to the highest point that morning. The view was breathtaking! The below pic doesn't do it justice; it's amazing to look all around at the whole caldera. Beyond that, we could see the entire south side of Oahu and the surrounding ocean. It was just extraordinary! I couldn't look around me fast enough to take it all in.

The picture below is of Waikiki Beach. If you click on the pic to make it bigger, our hotel is circled in red on the lower, right side.Here we are at the top. Can you believe how beautiful it is?!
Look at all the colors of the water below--every kind of blue and green. I wish our camera could have captured those colors as true as they were that day!

Ben and Zeke found some decaying hunk of metal to get all geeky about.

and we snapped a few photos

The military installation at the top of the hill was amazing in and of itself. How men and mules managed to drag all of that metal and concrete up such steep slopes, I'll never understand!

At the tipy-top of the climb the trail bottlenecks in the gun turret room where, one at a time, each hiker must duck under and climb over various remnants of the past to escape into the sunshine outside. But, on our way back down, after we stood in line for 20 minutes or so, Ben got a little impatient and jumped through the a gun hole to tell those coming up to hold the line for a second. He's my own personal super-hero, ever vigilant to see that justice is done!

After some good afternoon tucker, we were off to Hunama Bay for some snorkeling
(another first for me).

I LOVED all the wild chickens! They were so funny. The big fella on the left is probably my favorite out of all the millions of chickens we saw. I just think he's gorgeous!

Here's some shots looking down at the beach and caldera.
Snorkeling was incredible! I can't wait to go again!

A highlight was when this beautiful creature jumped out from underneath us. I think he was as startled as we were!

As you can see below, the colors of the fish and scenery grew far more vivid when the sun was not filtered by clouds.

Nice shootin' Hottie!

A few days later, on another snorkeling expedition, I got to watch an eel glide across the sand beneath me. I wish I'd have had a camera then too. It was so cool.