Honolulu, Hawaii
July 30th – August 6th 2002
Tuesday
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This was the first time I have been to Hawaii as an adult and away without the family. I went with a great friend of mine, Alan. We had such a great time. Though the first night I couldn’t even string a complete sentence because I was so dead tired from flying.
Anyhow, the first night we got there we went snorkeling off Waikiki.
Couldn’t see much so called it a night.
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Wednesday
Today we went searching around the island with the jeep we rented, only to get lost. This afternoon we went to the Sea Life Park, and
got to swim with Hawaiian stingrays and then with the dolphins. It was a great experience and I will never forget it. Later that evening
we took the obligatory trip to the Hard Rock Cafe in Honolulu, then called it a night.
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Thursday
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We started the day by going to historic Pearl Harbor. Pearl is one of those places that makes you realize how precious life is and that we shouldn't take anything for granted. Most of all, it made me proud to be an American. It was a site to behold and I will remember it for the rest of my life. Later, we drove on to Shark’s Cove, which is on the north shore of Oahu to snorkel. The currents here were very strong but the underwater scenery was great! After the snorkel at Shark’s Cove we drove to Paradise Cove, where we embarked on a genuine old fashioned Hawaiian luau.At the luau, yours truly got up on stage and learned to Hula!! It was quite funny and yes there is video footage of it too!! It was a great night and the company was great as well!!
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Friday
Friday was the day we both had been waiting for! SCUBA day! We woke up early around 7am, pulled ourselves together and made it downstairs to follow our guide for the day. (I will just say our guide was
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kinda weird.) We followed the guide to the boat where there were about 8 other divers waiting, from beginners to experts. I had already been certified, but this was my first open water dive in the ocean,
so I was a lil nervous; but also very excited. I remember getting on the bench, at our first location, called Turtle Canyon, and strapping on the BC, making sure everything was AOK and starting my decent. I made sure I equalized the pressure in my ears until I reached the bottom.
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Soon after I was in the water Alan joined me. I was doing well, but my fins kept giving me trouble. While I was below, I saw many interesting fish and turtles. One bad thing about my first dive was I used up my 3000-PSI tank in only 18 minutes. (As the divemaster said: “Damn, you sucked that dry fast!”)
When I returned to the boat it was rocking really hard and so, of course, I started to get seasick. Thank god I didn’t eat anything earlier! So anyhow we ended up getting to the 2nd dive site called the “Lava
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Flows” and at this point I didn’t know if I would dive, because I was getting really sick. Weirdly I got a 2nd wind and said I would go do it. I hopped on the bench and got the BC and went down! While I was down, I felt more comfortable and ended up down for 35 min on my 2nd tank, which was actually smaller than my first. I think I actually surprised the divemaster.
Once we got done with the dives, we had our next activity: jet skiing! These were a blast going about 60MPH on a triangular course. My friend Alan took some cool video footage of me out there before he gave it a spin! Everything was going well till Alan fell off his ski. He had to be careful, as around him there was a lot of coral. After an hour of jet skiing we headed back towards Honolulu. We went back and crashed around 7:30pm, and didn’t wake up till 8am the next day!
Continues...
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