I'm doing 35 things
We finally did our island hopping experience in October 2008 – in my mind I had imagined that we would hop between islands by boat, but at the time, it was only possible to do this between Oahu and Maui on the Hawaii Superferry (the seas round the Hawaiian islands are very rough so only a large ferry would be able to do this). I have since found out that due to environmental protests, the Superferry was shut down in March 2009, so we were actually very lucky to even do 1 leg of the journey by boat! So the other 3 legs we had to do by air.
I’d always seen a trip to Hawaii as being a very expensive thing but, as we found out, it can be done on a shoestring. We got a ridiculously cheap flight from London to Honolulu – £250. The reason for this was the 8 hour layover between each leg of the flight; a small price to pay in our view! On the way out we flew via Seattle, and on the return we went via L.A. We decided to spend the 2 weeks camping on each island. It turns out that it is even more ridiculously cheap to do this; in a State park, it only costs $5 a night to camp in some pretty amazing places (usually on the beach), and if you camp in National Parks it’s free!
We flew into Honolulu on Oahu and drove to Malaekahana Beach Park where we would camp for the next 2 nights – a highly recommended place to stay, just yards from the sea. On the first day on Oahu, we drove up to the North Shore, where the big waves are (although they weren’t so big when we were there) and we queued for a delicious shave ice at Matsumoto’s. We then drove back to the south and spent the evening wandering down Waikiki Beach; an experience although a bit tacky. On the second day we went to Pearl Harbour and the USS Arizona Memorial; the final resting place of 1102 of the 1177 sailors killed on that ship during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour in 1941. Very interesting – you actually board a boat out to the memorial which is a floating platform above the sunken Arizona. You can look down and see the gun turrets just below the surface of the water. After that, we hiked to the top of Diamond Head; a dormant volcano overlooking Waikiki. It was incredibly hot, but worth it for the views from the top.
On our third and last day on Oahu we went snorkelling in Hanauma Bay – an incredible experience. Neither of us had done it before, but once we got the hang of it, we absolutely loved it. Hundreds of fish and we also saw quite a few sea turtles too. You’re not allowed to get too close to them but it’s ok to stay still if they come close to you. At some points we were a few feet away watching a turtle feeding on coral.
The next day we rose around 4am to catch the Superferry to Maui.
