Our first day, we went with Hawaiian Diving Adventures, met them at 07:15, and were lucky enough to be the only divers that day (just after thanksgiving weekend). Our first dive was the sea tiger, a nice boat sunk on purpose:

Our second dive was "the pipe", minimal life, but a bit more fun with the octopus our guide found:

Two days later, I chose Reef Pirates, because they had a 3 tank dive that was more geared towards experienced divers. Sadly we did not luck out that day as they made us go there by 06:30 (getting up at 05:40), and then left 45mn late while they were sorting out whether they would allow a diver with medical conditions, join us, or not.
Once diving the Coraair plane wreck, they forced us to go back up after barely 10mn down there, even though I still had 12mn of bottom time left on my computer. I'm not impressed by such forced babysitting :(

The next dive was Angler's Reef, where our guide found another reef octopus:

Last was Koko crater, with two underwater Buddhas and lots of turtles (more than 7 different ones, one of which sadly had a piece bitten off, probably by a shark):

And that was it for diving in Oahu, not super impressive, but not terrible either. At least the water was still reasonably warm during the winter (25C or better).

we then did 5 dives on 2 different days (on this separate page, and the rest of the time was used to visit the Island a bit:

The first day, we did morning dives and then stayed in the Waikiki area:

yeah, bring your phone and selfie stick to the infinity pool, makes sense...

diamonhead crater

I tried to surf a bit, but there were barely any waves, so I only got the chance to go up once

On the 2nd day, we spent the entire day in Pearl Harbour

Our 3rd day, we did 3 morning dives, then checked out Oahu Sealife Park and spent the rest of the day checking out the East Coast and walked to a few viewpoints:

Our 4th day, we started with the Diamondhead hike, which turned out to already be pretty packed. The parking lot was full, but we were able to find a parking spot just outside the crater tunnel (yes, there is a tunnel through the volcano crater):

cars are in line waiting for parking spots to free up inside

hike up

the top had stairs to where the artillery used to be

once at the top, nice view of course

Waikiki where we spent monday afternoon

Koko crater hike, didn't have time to do it that trip. Maybe next time.

lava tube with access to the ocean

we found a rare solitary monk seal, sunbathing

Once done with the blowhole, lava tube, and arch, I drove around to the other side of Koko crater and its small botanical garden

the viewsonic bird!

Then, we went to check out another coast access with a spitting cave you can hike to:

15mn hike around the coast

and here is the spitting cave

From there, I drove up to Lyon Arboretum, which sadly was more jungle than botanical garden in places and then the quick-ish 45mn hike to the MAnoa Falls:

We then had just enough time to drive to Tantalus Lookout for sunset:

For our last day, we went to check out Waikiki Aquarium, and then spent 1h30 at the US Army Museum of Hawaii:

And last was Iolani Palace, the former Royal Palace:

With a quick drive by the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific and the Japanese Garden in the airport:

a bit of early morning rain

ship that took us to the Arizona Memorial (currently being renovated)

Mighty Missouri

rainbow over the location of struck ships

Back on land, onto the museums:

suicide torpedoes, ugh...

it is still an active military base

The Bowfin is a nice typical submarine visit:

Then onto Ford island, by bus, onto the mighty Missouri where we took the 90mn private engineering tour

they have their own private neighborhoods there

the guns are big

our private tour guide

big guns

Then, we had to hurry on to the Pacific Aviation Msseum to see what we could before it closed:

More pictures of the Pearl Harbour Pacific Aviation Museum

And that was it for our Pearl Harbour visit. I now agree that it's hard to see it all in one day :)

nice background

There were a couple of shows, one with Sea Lions and one with dolpins:

This is the 2nd aquarium we go to that has a nice little birdie collection. Those were very friendly and hungry :)

first one

then more :)