Marc's Blog: trips - 5.5 days in Oahu: Visiting the Island and Some Diving

π 2018-11-26 01:01 in Hawaii, Ntrips, Trips

Since we were going to Truk Lagoon for Diving for diving, and we had to fly through Oahu, we figured it would make sense to spend a few days in Oahu, the only main Hawaii Island we hadn't seen so far.
Not to badmouth Oahu, it's still Hawaii and it isn't terrible :) but compared to the other 3 islands, it wasn't as nice and more industrial, especially in Waikiki. On the plus side, this also means it had some kick ass restaurants, which we sure went to visit :)

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

%(caption)s

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: