As fate would have it...

I've had my share of great assignments and quite a few have been in Hawaii.  With that said, I figured my luck had long run out and I'd never see the islands on the company ticket ever again.  So, as fate would have it (thanks Mr. Jones) I find myself on Oahu once again.

It's not that working in San Angelo, Texas and Eunice, Louisiana wasn't some of the highlights of my life but Hawaii...?...it's what dreams are made of.

I've been here about 3 weeks and taken quite a few pictures but somehow my laptop started having issues downloading Windows 10 and I've pretty much been without a function to upload pictures with.  So without deep narratives, I present a quick photo journal of the past 3½ weeks.

After a red-eye flight to Honolulu, I found myself dealing with traffic like no other place I've been unless it was New York or the 605 in Los Angeles.  At least I got a rainbow in the deal.

 

There's not many places to stay within your budget other than downtown Waikiki, complete with zillions of tourists, street people and more traffic.

The annual Aloha Festival

 

  Raining on the parade

 

 I suppose if you're going to be homeless, this is the place. Rare is the night below 60°

 

  Life in downtown is living in a cube.  A view from my 220 square foot hotel room.

 

 My first week here, the place was swarming with tourists but over the recent week, they have thinned out a bit.

 

 Getting away from Waikiki, you can find less people

 

 Or strolling around later at night.  Here's the marina where the Ala Wai meets the harbor

 

 Looking toward Diamond Head at dusk.

  I always love a slow drive around the island.  This time it was counter clockwise.  Who knows, next week I might go for clockwise.

 

 It has been said that the best food on Hawaii is the after taste of the peanuts from the flight over.

 

 The place is synonymous with surfing so I spent last Saturday afternoon on the northeast side watching the surfers

 

 Waves crashing on the lava rocks

 

  More waves, more rocks

 

 More surfers.  He looks happy enough.

 

Later on, I'll upload my trip up to Manoa Falls.

More Whales

Out today on the Mahana Naia for a snorkel trip.  The fish were ... eh...so-so but the whales coming back were crazy good.

Ahhhhh...

Kamaole Beach I, Kihei, Maui, HI

More Whale Tails

More whale tails and a couple of highly manipulated (no shame) 
shots at Kamaole Beach 1 in Kihei, Maui, HI.

Whale Tail

Skeptical at first, Ms Darlene and i took one of those 2 for $30
whale boat tours from Boss Frogg's.
















It was packed with people but it turned out well for a 2 hour tour.
We saw lots of whales.

Magnum P.I. I'm not

Feeling like Magnum P.I......not really...but hey, it's a theme. We've been here on Maui for a couple of weeks already, in the home of friends who are off gallivanting somewhere in Indonesia. When they left, they tossed us the keys to the truck, house and gave us the run of everything. So in a sense, I feel like Tom Selleck's Magnum P.I. from the television series 25 years ago, only this time instead of a really handsome hunk, you get me. Actually, I have more in common with the likes of Higgins than Magnum but we're digressing here.

Instead of an exotic sports car, Rachel handed over the keys to her Yamaha V Star. So after several days of diving, I took her motorcycle for a partial tour of Maui. I'm sure all the motorcycle gurus would absolutely freak out that I wore no helmet, gloves, leather jacket or steel toed boots but instead, sneakers, baseball cap and T shirt. A couple of the pictures were taken while on the move. Honest, officer. I wasn't texting.

It's been several years since I've owned a smaller motorcycle but the 650 cc engine did just fine with me. It took a little while to get used to not having that low end torque my Harley has and the Yamaha's ever so quite mufflers felt a little strange but it truly was a fun ride.

I'm a bit lazy, so all these pictures were taken with my Instinct cell phone camera and were uploaded to Photobucket as I rode around. Here are a few pictures on the south side of the island so they are not the quality I might have from my digital SLR.

Panoramic Upcountry view looking west toward Lanai.

The rest are on the road to Makena Landing and La Perouse Bay.

Okay, I realize I haven't added any pictures of Darlene, fish, bikinis or various serpents, but the soul intent of this post was for my third passion....motorcycles. SCUBA and photography being the other two.

After my ride, I came home and waited for Darlene to return from her favorite beach. When she arrived, she jumped on the back and we rode double down the beach road and around town for a spell. Ah, to be 21 again.
Out near Ahihi Preserve.

OK, that's about it for the motorcycle stuff. I'll post some diving and fish stuff in a later post.
------------------
C R Albritton

YEAR OF THE RAT

Ah so, Grasshopper.

February 7 begins the Chinese New Year, Year of the Rat. but Honolulu kicked it off early Friday, February 1 with Lion Dances in Chinatown.

After changing clothes at the office in Aiea, I headed back toward Honolulu & Chinatown. Already, the street department had placed "No Parking" signs along the streets, so I drove around several blocks looking for a place to park. Finding a Jaycee parking lot just off River Street, I wandered Chinatown for an hour or so checking out the stores, restaurants and the curiosities.

Vendors were beginning to set up food booths along the streets and shop owners worked toward bringing in boxes of merchandise still on the sidewalks. I bought some food in a little restaurant while waiting for something to happen.
Troupes of mostly young people gathered on the sidewalks trying to stay dry while showers of rain intermittently blew across the city.

Six O'clock came and the police began blocking off streets while more people began to thicken the sidewalks. The adage, "It's better for people to think you're stupid than to open your mouth and remove all doubt" came to mind, so I didn't ask what or how all this "Lion Dance" thing worked. I had assumed there was going to be some kind of Grand Marshall with a formal parade but as it turned out, groups gathered all over the area on Beretania, Hotel and River streets. Somebody said, "there's the mayor" so I figured I must be in or near something official. I turned and saw an entourage with a very tall man in the middle of it. He stood at least a head taller than the nearest Chinaman around.
Within a few minutes a lot of noise began. Trust me it was A LOT OF NOISE. Firecrackers like you have never heard being nearly drowned out by drums, cymbals and gongs sounding much like pots and pan from Mama's kitchen.
Two young men donned each of the many Lion costumes and danced in the area, amidst the smoke of the firecrackers and deafening sounds of the drums, gongs and cymbals.
The dancers went to various businesses where they frightened the evil spirits away by dancing vigorously around the firecrackers and eventually entering the business itself. I watched as they went to all the banks and several other businesses. I wondered if there was a bank around that wouldn't let them in.
Between business blessings/dances/enchantments or whatever they truly were, lions would accept gifts from individuals in the streets. They stepped up and offered gifts of money to the dancer by handing it to him through the mouth of the lion. Feeding the kitty, so to speak.

It was a very friendly and non-intimidating evening.

Saturday morning was much of the same except more food, more people and much better light.

After a couple of hours of this, it was apparent that I'd be filling up my hard drive with more and more photos.
Here's a link to a YouTube video. It is not by me.

With that in mind, I made it back to my car and had lunch. What you ask? Panda Express of course.
Ironically, it was going on the same time people in New Orleans were kicking off Mardi Gras and much safer, streetwise.
These photos are posted at http://www.flickr.com/search/?w=51473102%40N00&q=yearoftherat&m=tags or the slideshow at http://www.flickr.com/search/show/?q=YearOfTheRat&m=tags&w=51473102%40N00

Banzai Pipeline..2008 Backdoor Shootout

Saturday night, I put Ms Darlene on a plane in Honolulu headed for New Orleans. She's been with me from the get-go since flying in here on Christmas day so I'll miss having her around. She's been a jewel at finding deals on hotel rooms and reasonably priced joints to eat in. Were it not for some chain restaurants, the best food here would be the after-taste you had in your mouth from the last meal on the mainland.

She usually spent the day out on the beach and parks watching people and shopping (not much buying) while I fought traffic sometimes for an hour and a half each day to and from work. To us, the attitude, culture and ambiance of Honolulu and Oahu are entirely different from Maui.

Yesterday, we went out on the North Shore to the Banzai Pipeline and watched the 2008 Backdoor Shootout . The sand was very loose so I dug my tripod in and squeezed off a hundred or more shots. Here I was with a pretty decent camera but felt oh so small when the pros came out with those big nasty Canon lens that made mine look like a dime store cheapy.







The waves were thundering, the sun was bright and there was a modest crowd there on the beach to watch as jet skis / wave runners waited to tow the surfers if necessary.

( You can click on the pictures for a larger view )

Although the waves were not the legendary 30 footers, many were at least 20 feet.

Just when we decided to leave, Darlene looked over at the BodyGlove tent and lo and behold, David Hasselhoff was there getting his beauty struck with the local girls and they were all over him like flies a dead fish on the beach. He's the guy who was on Knight Rider and Bay Watch .

( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hasselhoff - you remember the red bathing suits).







After some of the commotion eased a bit and the girls stopped accosting the man, and the Hoff sauntered down the beach to where the news and camera people were hanging out.

We left shortly after and was headed out when we ran face to face with him and Darlene thought it would be a wonderful idea to get a picture taken with him, so she hit him up as he came out the gate. He mumbled "yes" and so fired off a couple of shots of him and Ms Darlene.

The whole encounter probably lasted no more than 10 seconds and realizing Mr. Hasselhoff had more pressing things on his mind, we thanked him and dismissed ourselves as he went his way and we went ours.

That's it from this rock in the Pacific.