Start off by learning to surf. I picked up the "standing up and riding" bit fairly quickly thanks to snowboarding but man are my arms out of shape. Paddling along the side of a 10 foot foam board to get going on a wave isn't so bad, but when you take a nice long ride, crash and then have to paddle out against to the tide your arms turn to jelly pretty quickly. After the lesson I came back to shore to find my right leg covered in coral cuts so headed for one of the many beach side fresh water showers. I thought rinsing the sand and grit out of the cuts was bad but stepping backwards into the cold water stream was so shockingly cold it actually turned my stomach. Of course the 50 year old woman with huge sagging cleavage that decided to pull open her bathing suit and fish around inside while standing at the same shower didn't help things.
After surfing we went to diamond head. Now I'd like to say it was a challenging hike and that I'm sticking to my training regime but at a total vertical gain of 500 feet over the tremendous distance of 0.7 miles, i'd be lying. The view from the top was worth it though and we managed to spy a lighthouse and rocky beach front where the real windsurfers go to play. After making our way back to the crater floor we went and watched the surfers - getting most of our enjoyment from when they crashed - and generally relaxed before heading to germaine's luau.
Germaine's is an interesting sort of place. Not counting the fact that it's conveniently located on a twisty dead end in an industrial park it is hosted by what can only be described as the polynesian descendants of Bob Barker. Just something about the voice from the loudspeaker as he described each of the different island outfits and what each item meant made me keep expecting to hear "and how much would you pay for this FABULOUS showcase?". But not counting that or the polyester clad sea of humanity that exploded out of the busses when they arrived - Jennie likened them to a hoard of hawaiian printed army ants - the show was fantastic. The Pork from a Pit (I don't remember the actual name) was good but the beef was fantastic. Following dinner was a show with some fun audience participation and quite a few talented dancers. I think I shot an entire roll of film on the one big summoan fire dancer.
A few other notes I have written down from the show:
- I describe Poi as liquid bread. the 70 year old retired school teacher corrects me and says it actually tastes like library paste. She refuses to answer how she knows this.
- Jennie mentions that this is more white people (in terms of amount of tan not race) than we've seen over the course of the entire trip. And all of the couples are in matching outfits.
- People in seattle are upset when you dial their number at 10 at night asking for Germaine. Jennie's phone automatically uses 206 if you don't specify an area code.
Congratulations. Your closing there was worthy of me
So bad. So very, very bad.
Yeah. I like the fire dancer. When I went to the Luau (19 years ago) their fire dancer was Samoan too, but he was fit. Maybe he's your fire dancer's father. I forgot to tell you that the cheesiest part of the experience would be the tourists. Or I just left that part out. One of those. Hey, let me tell you a great trick to do to someone at Hanauma Bay. Bring bread, and when someone is snorkeling, toss little bits near their head. The tropical fish zero in on the bread, but to the snorkeller [who doesn't see or know about the bread], it appears that the fish have just gotten in touch with their inner pirranha and decided to eat the poor schmuck, swarming for his head. There are few sounds funnier than hearing someone scream through their snorkel.
And this is why Tony is incredibly cool :).
Hanauma bay is pretty well protected now, there's no feeding of anything anymore since it was screwing with the ecosystem. but we had fun, see following post.