This is one of those things you just go to experience once… well, for me at least. Essentially the tradition started at the Moana Surfrider hotel to drink tea and escape the sun in mid afternoons. So now you can reserve a spot at a table to eat finger sandwiches, drink tea (or cocktails), and enjoy time with friends. I thought the experience was good to do once, but “not my cup of tea”. We were there from 1pm-4pm and the food was just meh, especially for the price ($80 including one cocktail). I drank a little bit of tea, but I’m not a huge fan. Lots of sweets. Again, glad I did it, but probably won’t go again… there are plenty things I’d rather do/spend that money on. I was glad to have carpooled with someone from the group who I got to know better. We also stopped and shopped quickly after and I was reminded why I think Waikiki is so crazy… it’s so busy! I got another sun shirt this time with manta rays on it… I was excited about that because I didn’t buy any souvenirs from our manta ray scuba at big island.
I came down with a small cold so I’ve had low energy the last few days. I wanted to get this post in, but might update it later. Jess and I actually did this hike Sunday last week. It was very green sands beach esque. It’s a long hike along the coast with the final destination being a “park” and a bird sanctuary. There were roads for off-roading vehicles. (just like green sands)
We saw a lot of wildlife… birds, whales, and a Hawaiian seal. Can you spot the seal?
A lot of reviews for this hike complain of “much of the same the whole way”, the whole way being three miles out and back. But how can you complain when the landscape is like this?
I was thoroughly entertained by Jess’ company, the wildlife, tide pools, etc. It was definitely very hot and dry, so wearing a sun guard shirt, sunscreen, hat, sunglasses, and bringing tons of water was the right call. It was still very enjoyable despite being in the sun. We weren’t uncomfortable, but you can tell the sun was strong. It’s kinda hard to explain.
When you get to the point, there’s a sandy “park” where all the birds are and you can see down the west side of the island. This part of the ocean is where we took our whale watching tour, so maybe these mountains look familiar? As I mentioned, we did see some whale tails with the binoculars! Parts of the ocean cliffs reminded Jess and I of the East Coast.
It was really enjoyable because there wasn’t anything too tricky. We timed it so we’d get back around sunset. Unfortunately I’m bad at geography and didn’t really realize we wouldn’t see the sunset, but here’s what we did see
After, we went to Hale’iwa Joe’s, a highly recommended restaurant on the North Shore. We found out why! The service was excellent and the food we had was delicious. 10/10 recommend. Although, I do understand having just hiked 6 miles may play a role in the taste… we were lucky and able to sit right away outside at a table for two. Not sure if it was our timing or luck! But we were happy.
If you recall, I had attempted this hike once before. It was after a heavy rain and with three kids and their mom, we did not make it all the way before sunset. It has been abnormally dry here, so the path that was once a slip and slide is a mere crackly/dry hard path and it went much better.
It took us all of 35 minutes to get to the top.
Looking toward Kailua
Looking out toward MCBH
Looking North toward China man’s hat. Really loved this trail when it was dry!! It was medium difficulty but rewarding, I could go pretty fast without slipping. Rewarded with great views. It was covered so it wasn’t super hot. Definitely got bit by a couple mosquitos, but then I put on bug spray. It wasn’t crowded at the top and we saw only one couple on their way down. We saw a bunch on their way up when we were going down, maybe after work warriors.
Brian and I decided to take an easy beach day on Sunday, so I messaged Pat and Jeanie to see if they were around to hang out (I like to be social and Brian will just fall asleep on me). They were, so we set up camp with them and Pat took us out sailing. Compared to when Jess and I went, the seas were a bit rougher because there was higher winds. This should mean faster travel… except… ended up hitting reef quite a bit because we were heavier and the tide was low. We tacked a bunch of times trying to get out there.
We also brought along Kike, a neurosurgeon. He was playing backseat driver quite a bit which made for an entertaining ride. Regardless we made it to the Mokes! And made our way back to Queen’s baths. We borrowed water booties for our feet to get back there and it was definitely rough walking. Highly recommend stiffer soles, but we made it work. Brian’s essentially fell completely apart by the end.
This following picture is the only picture I have of us from being actually at the Queen’s baths…
Because the wave swells were so high they knocked us from the littler bath into the big bath (you can see a better picture of what I’m talking about with Jess and I actually in the baths in my other post. The smaller bath is to the right in the picture of me and Jess in the bigger one) . The waves came right over the rock wall and hit us really hard! I knocked into the rock wall behind me after the first and then got out because I wasn’t going to tempt fate twice. Well, Brian and Pat stayed in for a second wave and they both got pushed back into the big pool. Brian lost his glasses temporarily, thankfully Kike dove and found them… and Brian is pretty banged up on his legs and one shoulder (pictured). I have some road rash on the back of my leg.
Anyway, lesson learned that you’re only one bad decision away from being one of those “stupid tourists” and that you can’t mess with mother nature! I’d like to go back, ideally, when things are calmer and sit and enjoy the spot for a bit… interestingly, after those two huge waves we didn’t see many big ones while we were looking for the glasses. I wasn’t interested in finding out if it was a “one off”.
Our adventure wasn’t over yet. We walked around the other side down a short path just to check it out.
Nothing too exciting. We decide it’s time to head back to shore. Before we do, Pat’s firefighter instinct decides to pick up two girls (no older than 13 yo) who decided to swim out to the mokes and looked like there was no way they were getting back. They were sprawled out on the beach. The whole way home, they talked about how strong of swimmers they are… Brian and I talked about how even at our fittest we wouldn’t attempt that swim. Anyway, here are the four adults on our way back (the two girls are in front)
We had quite the adventure, more than we bargained for, but that’s life sometimes.
I’ve been wanting to knock out this hike but haven’t been procrastinating because on AllTrails it’s only a half mile loop… in fact when I proposed it to Jess I said maybe we can do a couple loops of it.
Well, turns out this is another sleeper hike and there’s a whole extension to it with a pretty great climb! There also isn’t a lot of parking, but we found a couple spots. This is the entrance, and some of the plants have identification plaque along the way.
After about 200 ft of climbing (you drive up a pretty big hill to get there) there’s a really great view and a bench to sit (this is looking out toward MCBH).
This is looking out toward Kailua and my beloved Mokes, plus Waimanalo to the right.
Then, the path continues up and up… like scrambling up… (this next section pictured had ropes to help) and you get pretty much the same views but also a view back toward the H3. It actually wasn’t that bad of a section, it was pretty grippy, but I wouldn’t do it after much rain and sat on my butt a couple spots to get down.
You can barely see the H3 coming around the bend. I’d like to revisit in the morning when the sun is on those mountains, but this shot with the rays is pretty neat. Needless to say, it took about an hour with stoppage to enjoy, and we didn’t even go all the way (we stopped at the top, but it looks like it goes down the other side and dead ends). I think it was 500ft elevation all things considered. Not bad for a Friday afternoon jaunt.
God truly sent me an angel when I connected with Jess at her first book club with our officer spouse group. And by connected, I basically messaged her and said please be my friend. At the time, she had recently moved and her husband was here, but Brian was gone. I met her husband once, then he left, and we were both flying solo together. In fact, so much together, that someone reading my blog recently thought we were married. Ha. Anyway, Brian came home, but with his schedule we still hang out a lot, and now finally her husband came home!
Their ships are huge and they have so much more personnel. This was my first real homecoming experience, ours wasn’t “official” because it wasn’t an official deployment. But, there was a lot of similarities… going to Missing Man to watch them pull in. Shedding some tears (I think I did more than she did!). Heading to the docks to wait for unloading. I took the day off so I could photograph.
They had a live band playing, a lot of press, the first kisses… Her husband is up on that deck.
I was happy to be there to grab pictures of them reuniting! Ahh here I am crying again.
When you go through such a long time with someone while their husband is gone it just makes you so emotional when you get to see them so happy to have their husband back… it’s such an incredible experience and so unique to military life. I took the day off to go spend capturing the moments for them as best I could. I almost tripped over a sailor’s bag trying to photograph… it’s a crazy day and stuff and people are strewn all over! Thankfully I didn’t faceplant.
Jess was so kind as to help another officer find an apartment while he was gone. I don’t know how single sailors manage their lives, honestly.
Fun fact, it was really hard for her to figure out who her husband was on the boat. They all look so similar!! And to top it off they’re in masks! But we eventually figured it out.
I want to start off by saying normally I’m scrambling to blog on Sundays but I am super proud of myself for blogging on Saturday!
This bay probably looks familiar, it’s Haunama Bay (The one Erin and I snorkeled a while back). There’s actually a hike that goes up and around the rim of it and down toward the right of this picture. It’s unlisted on the AllTrails app, which I find very curious, but most of it is technically on an access road that’s supposed to be off limits. We encountered a lot of other people enjoying the route and no one there to stop us so… on we went! In the next picture, you can see us walking on the access road and behind us is a great view of Koko crater and the neighborhood of Hawaii Kai. I will tell you we vastly underestimated this hike, this was the first of two steep ascents. Luckily it was cooler and we had some wind, but I did have to stop for more reasons than to take a picture or three.
Eventually we reached the “top”. You could keep going, but I think it ends up going to an out and back point, and we didn’t have a lot of time so we turned back to do a loop. Well, the next thing we know we’re walking down this near vertical pitch. Thankfully the rock was dry and super grippy aside from some loose gravel here and there. My knees were definitely feeling it by the time we finished descending! (this is looking back up from whence we came).
Then you walk along the coast and get to the right side of Haunama bay (looking outward)
What goes down must come up…It isn’t a very long time before you find yourself ascending another practically vertical pitch to get back up to the high ridge again. Here’s a girl descending what we just finished ascending. That brown patch is where we came from and where I took that above picture.
This was a sleeper hike… meaning I way underestimated the intensity. It ended up being 3.75 miles and 900ft elevation total! Idk what I was thinking, my friend sent me her route and stats and I must’ve glossed over them… I think because I thought we were just doing the rim and the loop was on the same elevation, but definitely not the case!
We did see a couple whale spouts while standing out there! I think if I did it again I’d take binoculars and dinner and sit and enjoy for a bit.
I told Brian he might need to find someone else to go with to do this hike, that’s how much I disliked it. But, I can be convinced of a lot… so who knows.
This is a really great shot of Koko Head. You can see a brown path going to the top… those are the Koko head stairs. I’m really nervous to do them because they are intense and really, really hot. My friend said that she’d go with me and we could take our time and just go as far as I’m comfortable. I will definitely try it sometime.
