Oahu
Circle Tour Pearl Harbor Waikiki Beach and Downtown City Lights
Tournament Time Second Day Christmas Eve and Day
December 16–26, 2017, total
December 16–17 on this page
The ship returned us to Honolulu on Saturday the 16th. The travel agent had booked me for the next five nights in a one-bedroom condo in a Wyndham-managed time share facility. It was located near tram and city bus stops and had a washer and dryer. Those were the main considerations. The per-night cost was reasonable, considering, and I wound up in a unit on the 25th floor. I arrived about 10am, but the room was ready for me to move in. First I visited the concierge desk to book some tours for the next couple of days. I made sure not to book a three-hour tour. A three-hour tour.
The kitchen area was of course much bigger than it looks in this panorama of the living area. The doorway to the bedroom is beside the TV, with the doorway to the hallway to the laundry room, closet, and bathroom is just inside the bedroom. The bedroom and living room both had large sliding glass doors to their balconies. Not shown in the bedroom is the dresser to the left and anothe TV. I don't recall turning that one on or watching much on the one in the living room.
I shot photos of the view at different times of day and made panoramas of some of them. Downtown was to the west, more or less facing forword in the room. The ocean was to my left, to the south and the west. The canal that defines Waikiki from the rest of town was to the north and then curved to define the west end. I think it might have been as much as four blocks to the beach.
If I had brought my binoculars, I could have watched a baseball game. There were several fields visible from the balcony.
Sunsets in the tropics don't last long, so you don't have much time to photograph them.
I like this effect of the lighted ball field and the lights of the city with the reflections of the living room in the window.
On Sunday morning I went to the Church on the Beach until time for my submarine ride. While I was there a young woman played the ukulele and sang Christmas songs. There were many more people there than the picture would suggest. I shot it from the side with empty chairs. most folks were on the other end.
Since I had missed my submarine ride at Kona, I took one at Honolulu. On the boat to the sub we passed a pirate ship.
This sub was somewhat larger than the ones on the other islands. As you descend wavelengths of light are filtered out, so everything looks blue.
Various things are sunk to make artificial reefs.
The deepest we got was 112 feet. So while in Hawaii, I was the farthest west, farthest south, and the farthest down I have ever been.
This was a plane wreck.
Here you see the next group boarding the submarine.
On the boat ride back from the sub, we could see the main hotel area on Waikiki. The pink building is the Royal Hawaiian.
My hotel for the end of the week is in there somewhere, since beachside it was next to the Royal Hawaiian.
The view of Diamondhead from the boat
This is looking back toward the pier where we boarded the boat to ride out to the submarine.
Circle Tour Pearl Harbor Waikiki Beach and Downtown City Lights
Tournament Time Second Day Christmas Eve and Day