Hawai'i - Part III

Turtle Bay was next on the agenda where we had hoped to view Hawaii's legendary Green Sea Turtles. Oddly, you have to drive through the expensive Turtle Bay Resort. The North Shore of O'ahu is the new hot spot for tourists - especially being a convenient distance to the popular Polynesian Cultural Center. Locals and settlers alike are protesting to "Keep the North Shore Country" and are constantly expressing their concerns for the environmental and sociological impacts the resorts will undoubtedly have on this area of the island.

Fortunately, we beat the rush of resort residents to the bay. Unfortunately, the water was freezing and we didn't see any turtles.

After the Green Sea Turtle attempt, we grabbed a garlic shrimp lunch plate and a slice of haupia pie (consistency of pudding) covered with strawberries "to go" at Ted's Bakery and headed to Sunset Beach.


Sunset Beach is 2 miles long - the longest sand beach on O'ahu - and the home of the O'Neill World Cup of Surfing. We were greeted at the beach with 15-20 foot waves that forced the lifeguards to install "No Swimming" signs along the beach. We were fine with that and decided to claim a palm tree and enjoy an afternoon of sitting in the sand and watching surfers. It was a good idea to hang in the shade for the afternoon as we both had a pretty bad sunburn from the last few days.


We witnessed a minor rescue...
Apparently a novice surfer was attempting to ride the enormous waves and got caught in a riptide. Eeek! The lifeguard was your typical blonde, buff, and tan fellow in board shorts who hopped on his surfboard and paddled out to help a fellow surfer.
We felt bad for the rescued - you could see his pride completely shot.


We had a furry visitor sit under the shade for 10-minutes or so and return later for another bout of shade.


And we watched as the large tour buses arrived every 20-minutes to release another ban of anxious tourists. This was interesting to witness. The buses had a variety of people - all donning cameras and little stickers identifying them as part of the tour.

Clever entrepreneurs set-up shop across the street near the public beach bathrooms in the same parking lot the tour buses stopped. As the tourists exited the bus, the entrepreneurs would shout "Sunset Beach t-shirts, $5 a piece!" and the tourists were drawn to their tables. Brilliant!

Hawaii survives by tourism... but many locals despise tourists. And it seems O'ahu has mastered the art of containing it's tourists.

Most visitors stay in Waikiki simply because it is the most convenient place. Why go anywhere else when you have a beach, shops loaded with souvenirs, and restaurants at your fingertips?

There are tourist attractions spread throughout the island, but so spread out that most folks hop on a bus to get to them. And the island certainly caters to that!
We saw Roberts Hawaii, Honolulu Tours, Polynesian Adventure Tours, and Aloha Vacations to name a few.

I apologize for being so cynical, but these are simply observations. We obviously prefer traveling and discovering on our own rather than in an organized group.

We enjoy the freedom to stop when we want and to see what we want. While it isn't always glamorous, and more often than not we get lost or delayed, in the end it is more satisfying for us and generally less expensive.


With our fill of people watching, we headed to the Backpacker Plantation Village Hostel in Haleiwa. It was a nice enough place with a note on the refrigerator stating the hostel was under new management and that they had a zero tolerance policy for those using drugs on the premises. There were also notices that patrons would be charged if dishes weren't washed after use and fines for putting feet on the wall. Luckily the location was perfect - a block away from Foodland and 500 yards from Waimea Bay.

So, we spent the afternoon swimming in Waimea Bay. The 10-foot waves were intimidating at first, but we watched and took note as cinnamon-skinned locals dove head first into the oncoming waves. We eventually got the hang of it, but not without a few strawberry patch scars on our legs from the scraping sand. It was such an adrenaline rush - and one of our favorite memories in O'ahu.

The bay was the first time we felt a large military presence... not armored vehicles or aircraft... but of a diverse group that you normally find at military bases, mostly families. As we were leaving the bay, two young men asked us where we rented our mopeds. One of them had a thick Texan drawl and sported a Longhorns straw cowboy hat, and the other had a slight drawl and no hat. They were surprised to learn that we rented the mopeds in Waikiki AND rode them all the way to the North Shore.


Ka'ena Point is the western most point on O'ahu.


A sign near the reserve read:

The Ka'ena area is a "wahi pana" or celebrated legendary place to the Hawaiian people. At one particular spot called "leina a ka 'uhane," spirits of the dead are believed to leap from the earth. Legends talk of the demigod, Maui the Fisherman, who stood at Ka'ena and attempted to hook and drag neighboring Kaua'i Island closer to O'ahu.


I was a bit nervous about heading out here because articles I read said it was incredibly deserted and auto thefts were prevalent. But it ended up being one of the prettiest spots on the island - with more hikers than we expected along the 6-mile round trip trail.


We walked past two Navy guys running the trail and placing red ribbons and small flag markers along the way. We figured they were preparing for a large group activity along the route... maybe training terrain for the Humvee student drivers we saw a few days earlier. Heehee


It was time for a shrimp scampi lunch in Hailewa at one of the landmark Giovanni's Shrimp Trucks followed by a cup of shaved ice.

The shaved ice was refreshing after our 6-mile hike - especially with the scoop of ice cream right in the center! It's a very popular place, so the line was out the door, but it was worth the wait!

With full tummies, we traveled to another famous tourist attraction - the Dole Plantation.

We must admit it is highly overrated with 3 attractions that require a ticket, which obviously requires a large sum of money:
1. Pineapple Maze
2. Pineapple Express (train)
3. Pineapple Garden Tour


But if you are a fan of pineapple or the Dole Company, you will be in Dole pineapple heaven. The entrance is a lobby stacked to the ceiling with Dole logoed items. You can buy t-shirts, pineapple cups with pink straws, I Love Dole Pineapple keychains, pineapple earrings, ink pens with floating pineapples inside, a deck of Dole Pineapple playing cards, pineapple slippers and pajamas, a pineapple bra with grass skirt - - - they had EVERYTHING yellow pineapple.

We really enjoyed the fun facts section of the plantation (which was free!) and we even stopped to take the classic photograph behind the wooden character cut-out doing something silly - in this case, it was a boy pineapple and girl pineapple. Imagine that!

Here are some cool facts we learned (copied from the Dole Plantation FAQs board):

• It takes about 20 months for a pineapple plant to produce the first fruit and another 14-15 months for the second fruit.
• Two crops are produced in 4 years or 3 crops in 3 years. After the last crop is harvested, the field is knocked down and a new cycle begins, starting with land preparation.
• Pineapples are grown in the red soil - which is caused by decomposed volcanic ash resulting in oxidized iron in the soil. It is great soil for pineapple.
• All pineapple plants are planted by hand, and the crown of the the pineapple (also known as the slip) is the "seed."
• There are over 28,000 pineapple plants grown in an acre of land in Wahiawa.
• About 70-80% of Wahiawa pineapples are used fresh while the rest are chilled, cut, or juiced.