Diamond Head and July 4 !!!

Happy July 4th

We had a great time handing out with some American friends - they invited us over for a BBQ and to watch the fireworks from their boat. They had a fantastic view! Just look at how close we were to the celebration! The Americans sure go all out for July 4! In the Ala Moana mall, there was lots of singers on the center stage throughout the day - one group of guys - all dressed in shimmering gold coats and black pants did a fantastic performance! great fun

Best seats in the house, great people and good good food!!

Earlier on in the day the kids just lived in the pool - having a great time. The pool has been a god send! Its gets so hot here and its nice to just wander over and have a dip. The kids live in it. Hours on end they are in the pool! Nice treat for us to have fresh water to swim in. Like the saltwater, but its refreshing to swim in fresh .

splash splash!! Kyle and Jocelyn

Ta Da! Lookie what they can do!! Kyle , Maya, Emma, Jocelyn and Jenny

doesn't Orca III look good all decorated. We did this for Canada Day and kept it up til the
July 4th - We also put the hug Canada flag up the mast for Canada Day!this is what we see from our boat. Those are the hotels in the background - Lots, eh?!

Here is Maya , Jocelyn and Kyle in the first tunnel

Kyle , Maya, Jocelyn, Jenny and Steve Growes all hiked Diamond Head on July 3 . the kids loved it , especially Kyle as it was used for military purposes once. There were bunkers and stuff everywhere. The view was phenomenal !!! It's about an hour and half round trip up Diamond Head and down. The kids did great! They took my camera and took some really great pictures! I was provisioning in Costco - that too was a trip!! It was so busy.............
That would be Honolulu! Look at all those tall buildings - that is one of the bunkers in the background
look closely and you will see a light house. The water is pretty clear - that's all reef underneath
Here is what you see looking out of the bunker, that water is just so blue!! what a sight
The proud hikers - They had a really good time! Glad they had a chance to see it.

Today we leave Honolulu around noon - ( Honolulu time, 3 pm Vancouver time) and head for the island of Kauai to a place called Hanalei Bay. It is an overnighter - 120 miles from here.
This is where we will leave from to head back to BC- Our time has just flown bye!! Hanalei Bay is supposed to be just gorgeous - Hanalei means " crescent" . the bay is lined by a beautiful beach - the movie " South Pacific" was filmed at the Lumahai Beach in Hanalei Bay....... hoping to have internet once we are there but if not it will be back to sending via the ham radio.

Bye for now - lots to stow a way before we leave the dock, and we must get one more swim in!!!

beach fun, Canada Day, and a visit to the USS Arizona Memorial

Battleship Missouri

We all really enjoyed the USS Arizona Memorial tour - learned lots! We did the audio tour, that is a must as it tells so much more , a very sad day for Pearl Harbour!
for more information go to
http://www.nps.gov/valr/index.htm

Marg and her girls joined us that day! It was a hot one! Steve and Kyle stayed on and toured the aviation museum while all of us girls came home early, had lunch out then came back to the yacht club for a swim!!! We love that pool - it gets used a lot by us, everyday morning to night -

Here are Kyle and Maya taking it all in!

Here is part of the USS Arizona - its hard to believe that is was over 60 years ago that happened!

the girls out on the memorial-

Watch out the kids have the big guns! Lots of cool stuff to see here!
I had a good look around, its really neat to look through a parascope!

Miss Emma having a looksy around!

These guys are in side a sub! cool,eh ?!
We had a great Canada Day celebration on board the Orca III - had the crew from Malachi, Heather and Rachel, and even some americans - new friends Ray and Ramona and kids, and the crew from Galatia. A good time was had by all. We ran all of our signal flags up both forestay and backstay and even put the giant Canada flag at the top of the mast - We were noticed!!
The kids had fun sitting up there singing the anthem!!
Ramona, Jocelyn, Rachel, Dionne and Marg all saying hi to our friend " Elizabeth from Shambala" - turns out Ramona and Ray know Shambala - what a small word!
"Dionne and friends" - me and my good buddies - loving Canada Day together! and yes we sang the national anthem!

Rachel, Kyle, Maya, Jocelyn and Jenny

Beach fun for us on Waikik Beach - the Malachi girls , me and my kids all met up with Rachel and Heather at their hotel and had fun at the beach. These guys had a blast playing in the surf - it was really quite high that day big waves. We even rented boogie boards for them to use. They all had a blast , while Heather and I enjoyed our visit on the beach, I tried the boards but got total filled with sand. I am still getting sand out of my bathing suit 2 days later!

Oh the sunning beauties -

day at the Polynesian Cultural Center

We had a fantastic time out in the Polynesian Cultural Center. Heather and Rachel came with us on the long ( 2hr - each way) bus ride!!! It was really neat for us to see the Polynesian countries we've been too and see the some we haven't been to. I tell ya one place I wish I had gone was Samoa! boy do they have great energy!! my kind of people.....
We enjoyed a great Hawaiian Luau dinner and had the big Horizons show in the evening. Where all the different villages did their specialty dances and song!! There were 6 villages in all - Samoa, Fiji, Tahiti ( representing all of French Polynesia) , Aotearoa ( aka NZ) , Hawaii, and Tonga!

When we were at the Tahitian village, the lady doing the teaching was from the Tuamotu's - so after the show we had a great talk with her. Although we had been to 4 different atolls we didn't see hers.- She was excited to talk to someone who had been to the atolls. very neat to reminisce with someone who has been there! the kids just talked her ear off!

I know you think this must be Kyle up the coconut tree, but it isn't ( at least not this time! - haha) this fellow is from the Samoan village and he is demonstrating how to climb one! It really is amazing to watch and he is really high up there - this is zoomed in!! He free climb this with just feet and hands - quite the show!

And we made it to Fiji - by way of the land - hahaha , I told Steve he took me the hard way to see the islands of Polynesia, I could' ve just flown here - tee hee, better the way we saw it, this is still cool
Yep - his turn for our next kid!! Think he will kill me for this one - hahahhaha

Kids, Kids - with " Dum, Dum - he wants Gum Gum" oh where did I get that from from?! hahaha
really - that's the Easter Island exhibit - just in case you didn't know.....

Here is our dinner! really - roasted pig under ground - This would be the Luau we went to - absolutely fabulous dinner! and Entertainment the whole time!! We all even got lai ' d -
Me and my beautiful daughters and our beautiful lai s - we love them!!!
Aren't they beautiful ! Rachel and Heather - mom and daughter - having a great time!

Father and son - don't they look cute with their lai's too!!

Here we have Steve doing the male Tahitian dance - he does it so well and he turned around to quick for my camera. We learned this in the Tahiti exhibit

We watched the Rainbows of Paradise canoe Pageant - they had each country doing a demonstration of there dance while floating down the calm waters on a canoe, very nice!! It was really neat to see how different each country does its dance and "Hakka"- very distinct for each place. The Samoans , well they are my favorite - they got so into their dancing they managed to rock the canoe and the fellow pushing the canoe with the big stick fell in!! way funny!

TAHITI

FIJI

SAMOAthis is examples of what you would find in a Hawaiian men's work house.

and both Rachel and Heather got Tattoos!! taking after Graeme!! What is it about us from Orca III that makes people get a tattoo? hahah

Yep that would be Heather's !

its fun to be cousins!!

the girls with our Samoan friend , he was fun! and funny - quite the sense of humor that guy has!! should have seen him do the "Fire dance " in the Horizons show!! very good

We got home quite late ( around 11 pm 2 hrs past cruisers midnight!) tired , but worth every penny and time!! this is a must do when in Hawaii!!

They're here!!!!!

We surprised Heather and Rach at the airport! managed to get ourselves a ride there and waited until they came walking down. It is so good to have them near us! We went with them to their hotel and hung out for a while. Then we walked back to the yacht club. ( took us about 45 miuntes - we went the long way!!) Spent yesterday just hanging out and today we are off to the Polynesian Cultural Center - Orca III, Heather and Rachel - its a full day, while be fun! So glad to have my dear sweet friend here! sure have missed her. and you bet, we have been yacking , yacking and yacking! lots to catch up on! The kids have missed their cousing too! They spent most of the day in the pool and then hanging around the boat.

this is one of the trollys that takes you to the different malls , ect. cool , eh?!

More Baynan trees - this is in the park just behind our yacht club

yep, Kyle again - look at him climb! He realy is half monkey - thats Jenny watching in disbelief!

Hanauma Bay

We and the group from Malachi went by bus to Hanauma Bay to snorkel . This is a marine sanctuary nature preserve, and has over 420 types of reef fish. We had to watch a educational video before we could go down to the beach to snorkel.

Saw lots of fish and I even had a moray eel swim by me TWICE! scared me half to death , I was so busy making sure I was out of his way, he wasn't even interested. Everyone else was bummed they didn't see one swimming - we also had a sea turtle less than a foot away , just eating - he didn't even care that we were there! so very neat.

We are spoiled though, cause there is no comparison to the snorkeling in the Tuamotus - Fakarava!!

the kids at the entrance to Hanauma Bay - very pretty, and it is in a volcano crater

just look at those big - " shaved ice" we know them as snow cones!! the kids were in heaven!

Molokai to Oahu

We had the best sail from Maui to Molokai! we adveraged 7.5 knots with us doing 8.6 for over 30 minutes! needless to say it was a very fast passage! nice seas, couldn't ask for a better sail. It didn't even feel like we were going that fast!
We saw this big big ship sailing past us! Steve figures its about 200 ft

Entering the small small entrance of Lono Harbor

We arrived in Lono Harbor on Molokai - wow what a very small entrance and what a surge comes in. glad we had a calm day!! very windy in there though but no fetch.
We anchored and off to shore the kids and I went. Steve wanted to stay with the boat , just to be sure. Its not very big in the harbor. Lolo harbor ( hawaiin name Hale-o-lono) was built for barges carrying sand and aggregarte from Molokai - that was a long long time ago . They have stopped this over 20 yrs ago, a local told us that all the sand in Waikiki beach came from here!

Lolo Harbor Molokai - we had a couple of sea turtles swimming by the boat, Kyle and Maya went for a hike with Steve from Malachi ( guest) and then Steve T and I joined them. There were so many trees with spikes on the branches - I stepped on one and it went right through my shoe to my foot, I thought I stepped on a nail! no harm done. but we sure had to pull a lot of spikies out of our sandles. Kyle did the job for us as we made dinner. took him 1/2 hr to get them out of our shoes!! amazing, never seen thorns on a tree lilke that before!
the beauties on the beach - Maya, Alana, Jocelyn, Jenny, and Lindsy - ( the two girls are guests aboard Malachi)
nice beach, gorgeous scenery and no other boats other than a couple of local ones in the far corner. Kyle is trying to teach Steve Growes ( Malachi) how to open a coconut, Emma and Shayna are enjoying cooling off , and the beach girls are posing for pictures!

We have arrived safely to Honolulu! the passage from Molokai sucked!! waves going every way, not much wind at first - the boat flopping from one side to the other and big flopps! not a fun passage. Certainly nothing like the day before! once the wind picked up it was a little better , still not the best ride - anyway we are tied up nice and snug in the Waikiki Yacht Club - it has a swimming pool and everything, right in the heart of Honolulu!! couldn't ask for a better spot. Across the street is the big mall, ! everything so close by.

There is quited the surge in here! Malachi is one dock over , we did a pot luck dinner with them on Thursday after we arrived. Lots of nice people here, so quick to lend a helping hand. Met " Ronny" who let us borrow his car to get groceries, and took me in the am to do laundry - took Steve in to get parts for the alternator for the generator so he can fix it!
The kids have been living in the pool -they even went for a night swim with the Malachi bunch - had fireworks last night - wow this is the way to relax before the next big passage!!
We are going to Hamanumu Bay ( spelt wrong , fix later when I find the right spellin) to snorkel today - taking the bus . this should be fun . we are planning on doing Pearl Harbor tomorrow.