20 September Honolulu - turnaround day

Tuesday 20 September

Today is the end of the first part of this back to back cruise. Honolulu.

We hired a car with Anita and Jim and headed for the North Shore. Tracy had arrived in town a couple of days before and we picked her up to come with us. First up we headed for Turtle Beach. No turtles but we were reliably informed that they usually come in to shore around midday. So we headed for Waimea Bay which was just as we remembered from our previous visit then we made out way to the beach famous where the Banzai Pipeline breaks during the big wave season at the end of the year.

Turtle Beach

Waimea Bay with some 'beach babes'

This rock is a popular jump

Looking up the beach to where Banzai would break in a few months

After a short stop for some lunch and a shave ice we returned to turtle beach.

Ian spotted a turtle further along from the beach area, closer to the rocky shoreline, and hailed us. However, by the time we reached the spot where we could look down to the shoreline, there were some idiot people clamouring for a ‘closer’ look/encounter. When one crouched down to within inches of the turtle it literally ‘turned turtle’ and headed back into the water. That was the end of our turtle encounter. No photo to share of his head just his tail end as he sought refuge in the water.

Making the finest shave ice

so many flavours

We would have had a very good turtle viewing but idiot humans wanted to touch it!

So he 'turned turtle' and headed out to sea again

Time to return to the ship. However, we did have one more stop, Ala Moana shopping centre. Unfortunately this had changed a great deal since our last visit and we did not have as good a shopping experience, as most of the reasonably priced shops have now been replaced with high end designer stores which are of no interest to us.

As we were not due to leave Honolulu until late at night, there was no sail away gathering on this departure. We had been reliably informed that 1600+ Australians had boarded in Honolulu, so this sector would be a very different affair to the previous leg.