Hawaiian Vacation

Oahu ,  HI

July 13 - 21, 2003

In July I took a well needed vacation to visit my friend Dave in Hawaii.  We spent almost an entire week under water.  Dave is a Dive Master at the Oahu Dive Center in Kailua.  That is the shop in the top picture and Dave is there in the white shirt.  One dive took us to a crashed corsair off the south east corner of the island.  Popping his head out of a hole in a wing of the airplane is a green moray eel.  Next is a picture of me swimming under the sea.  Then lo and behold the cactus is posing in his hawaiian best, in front of the corsair.  He is right in front of the engine and you can just make out the canopy and the tail at the back.  This wreck is in about 110 feet down that means we could only explore for about 10 minutes.







On our second dive today I found a bunch of squirrel fish, or mimpachi in hawaiian.  A spiny black urchin is clinging to rock above.



This is the cactus continuing his tour of  state capitol buildings.  I think the capitol in Hawaii is special, it was opened in 1969 and has a very modern look.  Below is Iolani Palace the official residence of King Kalakaua and Queen Lili‘uokalani, 1882-1893, the last monarchs of Hawai‘i.





On my last visit to Hawaii I posted some pictures of my visit to a pineapple plantation .  On that page I forgot to take a picture of the fields where they grow the fruit.  So I had to return to Hawaii just to take this picture .  This field goes back miles, all the way to the mountains with the year round crop.  On the right is a boom harvesting machine.  About a dozen workers are working behind the boom extending to the left.  They cut the fruit by hand and place it on the machine.  Below is a common rainbow found all over Hawaii.  You will notice that, in honor of my visit, the "pot o' gold at the end of the rainbow" is .... Home Depot.
  Pearl Harbor is in the background.


   


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