NORTH SHORE

We are so predictable.  Every time we come here, we have to go to the north shore, and we always go to Shark's Cove, Sunset Beach, town of Haleiwa, and Dole Pineapple.  We had a slight deviation this time. 

First of all, we had rented a car from Thrifty.  It was a pretty good deal, $35 for the day, coming to $44 with the various taxes.  But then, for the absolute lowest level of insurance (the one that protects them if the car gets dinged) It was another $32.  Highway robbery.  So then they tell you you have to bring it back with the same amount of gas you took it out with, in this case 1/4 tank. 

John can't stand to drive around on a little bit of gas in the tank, so we compromised and bought 6 gallons.  Keep in mind, this trip to the north shore is about 60 miles round trip, and large portions of the trip are at 35 mph speed limit.  By the time we were taking it back, I wanted to sit and let it idle to burn up the extra gas which is $4.03 per gallon here) just so I wouldn't have to give them an extra $12 worth of gas. 

When we picked up the car, it started to rain.  And by the time we got out on the freeway, it was pouring rain.  We eventually stopped in Wahiawa to buy gas.  Turns out that Wahiawa is a shortcut on the way out to the north shore, and you avoid going through Schoffield Barracks that way. 

Moving on, it's a really high surf day at the north shore, has been for about a week, and is always high surf at this time of year anyway. 

It was spectacular.  There's a place we love to watch the waves crash, called Shark's Cove.  Not only is it great wave watching, but there's a little food truck type restaurant that has great ahi sandwiches right across the street, and you can sit and watch the waves.  This little cove is a natural cove created by lava.  Even when the tide is coming in, you can usually swim in the cove because it's quite protected, but not today.  My pictures of this aren't that good, but the wave action was really fantastic. 

The new thing we did today was to go to Laniakea Beach which is a place where turtles go to bask in the sunshine.  We got there about 10:30 and hung around for an hour or so.  The turtles were there, but they were in the water. 

These are giant green sea turtles, called honu in Hawaiian.  We could see them in the water, but they didn't want to come out of the water.  There were at least seven we could count in the water.  I'm putting one picture in.  I can see the turtle, because I saw it in person, but probably nobody else can. 

We were kind of disappointed, and went on up to Sunset beach where we watched some hot shot body boarders and two surfers ride some pretty humongous waves.  As time went by, though, the waves got closer and closer together, lots of white water, and I think they were pretty hard to ride.  But very exciting to watch. 

We finally tore ourselves away from this beach, and decided to stop by the turtle beach and see if any of them had come out of the water.  THEY HAD!!!  It was so cool.  There were three of them loafing on the beach. 

There are volunteers who man this beach 365 days a year from about 9 a.m. to sundown.  This is really good because once the turtles come ashore, they have to keep people away from them.  So the volunteers put red ropes in the sand and then, because they can recognize the various turtles, they put up signs with their names and histories.  We were really thrilled and happy we stopped back there. 

After we watched the turtles sleep for awhile, we went into Haleiwa, where we stopped at Matsuda's General Store and had a shaved ice and bought some groceries.

Not much rain on the way home -- it kind of sprinkled off and on all day but as we were coming into Honolulu, it started pouring down so hard I could hardly see the road.  Then when we got back to the car rental place, I made a turn into the front, which was blocked off.  This meant that I had to back out onto Kalakaua Avenue, which is a VERY busy street.  It is all one way, except for one lane which is for buses.  So I had to back across the bus lane into a busy traffic lane, and every time it appeared there might be a break in the traffic, there was a pedestrian walking behind the car.  Jeez.  I tried to get the guy from the rental agency to move it, but he was having nothing of that.  Finally John got out and kept the pedestrians out of the way and I managed to get out.  It was very scary, though.  Fortunately, no damage to the car, and it wasn't raining while we were walking back to the hotel.