A Journey To The Hawaiian North

Surf's up on the north shore of Oahu

Today's agenda was to head up to the North Shore to try to see the super-gigantic surfin' waves of the Banzai Pipeline and the turtles at the nearby Turtle Bay.

The beaches were very nice and peaceful.  Well, peaceful until the tsunami warning alarm starting blaring really really loudly.

That is not the tsunami coming in.  This being the first business day of the month, and the time being twelve noon, this was, as they used to say on TV, "a test of the emergency broadcast system."  There was no tsunami today.  You did not miss the news.  It was a test.  The warning system passed.  It was loud,

Nor are these the waves of the Banzai Pipeline.  We did get to closer to there, but the beaches were packed and the Banzai Pipeline was a bit muted.  The waves were beautiful coming in, breaking up against the reefs, but they were not contending for the title of "world's largest surf-able waves."  At least not today.

Here is a self-portrait.

Self-portrait of my footsteps in the sand.  The sand was soft and clean and deep.  As to that third and final adjective, you would sink ankle-deep with each step.  You could not ride a bicycle or drive a car on this sand.

With the waves being under "world's largest" in stature, we headed to Turtle Bay.  Where, theoretically, there were supposed to be turtles.  There was a large coral reef:

I thought it was lava.  But that actually is coral.  It was hard and sharp.  Except for maybe the first 10 or 15 feet closest to the beach, where the sharp edges had been worn down from years of being trod-upon by the tourist horde, this was difficult to walk on.  And if you would fall on this, given how hard and sharp the rocks are, you would be seriously injured.

Here's a view of the Turtle Bay Ritz-Carlton resort:

So, yes, there was coral and there were swanky upscale resort hotels.

And a crowded beach.  But there were no turtles today.

Tourists, yes.

Turtles no.

So no "world's largest surfable waves" at the Banzi Pipeline.  No turtles at Turtle Bay.  Let's try one more tourist attraction on the North Shore:  Waimea Falls.

There was an indigenous display on the premises:  the Hale O Lono.

And there were interesting plant species, such as the Cordyline Fruticosa.

A member of the asparagus family.  This was called the "Hula Hands," although it too was a Cordyline Fruticosa.

And this is the Crista-Galli, the national tree of Argentina.  It was introduced to Hawaii from South America.  It is not thriving here in the 50th State because a type of wasp also was introduced into Hawaii, which lays its eggs in this tree, eventually killing the tree.

 

That's a downer.  Know what else was a downer?  The waterfalls were a long hike from the parking area.  The fee to hike the hike is expensive.  Like everything else in Hawaii.  Although I don't understand why a hike in the forest would be expensive here.  It's not like they had to import it from the mainland.  But, most importantly, the falls were non-functional.  The trifecta of passing up the chance to see a particular tourist attraction.

But I'm on vacation.  In the sun.  In Hawaii.  Surrounded by endless beautiful beaches.  Even it they did not have, out today, the world's largest surfable waves or turtles in the Turtle Bay.

They did serve up an awesome sunset however.