Our week on Oahu had a bunch of unexpected delights for us.   

Hawaii 5-0:        Do me a favour and start bopping to the tune in your head .    Or better yet, out loud.       OK, now doesn't that put you in the mood?      We cruised the north shore where the Banzai Pipeline surfing reefs are – those waves that you’ve seen in H5-0 and Magnum PI – huge water tubes to surf through.    The town Hale’iwa is a cross between California and Easter Island.   The surrounds create the vibe with surfboards used as signs, a ukulele shop, surfer dudes with the mahogany skin that only comes from years in the salt water and sun, bare feet, an organic sandwich truck (the sandwich, not the truck), jeeps with surfboards jutting out the back and locals doing that pinky/forefinger wave of the islands.     

This place makes me wanna be a hippie, do burpees till my core is a rock and toughen up the soles of my feet so I can carry my board barefoot with ease.     

It’s the reefs that get the swells to break into the best riding waves – and there are a series of three reefs here each further out in the ocean than its predecessor – the strength needed to just paddle out there rules out wannabes .     Waves were modest when we’re there (maybe 8 feet), still lots of bobbing heads out on the horizon waiting for a good one.       

Shrimp Trucks:        Shrimp trucks pepper the north shore every half mile or so.      Cooked to order any way you can imagine.    Whatever you order seems to be $13.    Amazing how that works.     Delish.

Food:        Our home is by an ocean and we have some of the best seafood in the world.        The catch here is different and restaurants really know how to cook it – amazingly tender and scrumptious.    The other food find is fantastic Thai food here.     Our eating rhythm is usually breakie and dinner with vino at our home base, with lunch at a local haunt.      Love shopping the local markets, which have everything here…at a price.  

Away from the bigger cities, farm stands with bananas, pineapple, and macadamias dot the countryside.      These guys offer great perspectives of their life and times .      Plus great products.     


Water Play:    The crazy stunning almost-empty beach outside our door hits us each time as the most miraculous thing – every day, sometimes a couple times a day.       The waves were big for non-surfers types, like us.    Body surfing was a blast.      The boogie board our host had thrown in his quite-a-disaster garage allowed me to boogie on a board for the first time ever - had me laughing out loud like a kid every time I caught the wave right.       Yee-haw!

Might I add that exfoliation is likely a notion that started with nature’s sandblasting.       Sand, and lots of it, in every n’er-to-be-mentioned region of my bod.

Neither of us has snorkeled much, tho we brought the gear we picked up in Bonaire.      One of the most delightful finds on Oahu was national park with Hanauma Bay that is equally sand and reef – and it’s like God (or Glooscap) dropped a wall of water-level lava rock across the mouth of the bay, making it as gentle as a pond for exploring .     Gaggles of tourists (now this busy beach is more of what we expected everywhere) were able to rent gear and get comfy with breathing, seeing and not finning the next guy in the face.     We had a great time exploring the reefs and actually saw many more fish than we had expected.    Pretty ones too.     

I had the underwater camera – with which I underperformed pitifully.     A few pics of fish exiting the frame or not being there at all – the water is cloudy due to all the sand being swirled up by the likes of us.         

One sight above water that will remain with me – a group of a dozen or so Japanese tourists with a guide teaching them to snorkel.    They all had black t-shirts on with a message about Jesus, hell and other theological messages.    I don’t think they spoke English.