Wednesday we had dinner at Helena’s with Mitch’s buddy Richie, who was here for a conference from NY. The restaurant has the best Hawaiian food and is one of the great holes-in-the-wall out in Kalihi, a local neighborhood west of downtown. I worked  in Kalihi in 1989-1991 at Hawaiian Graphics, which is no longer there). The funniest thing was getting out of the car and Richie saying, “Hey, I saw this place on TV!” Turns out it was on a show called “Man vs. Food.” I have no idea what they had but we broke da mout’ on pipikaula, luau chicken, lau lau, steamed butterfish with watercress, lomi salmon, kahlua pork, two scoops rice, and poi (of course).  Ugh, roll us home!

 

Wednesday, the waves were also HUGE on the North Shore and they were close to having the Eddie Aikau surf competition which, like Mavericks in northern CA, only occurs when the waves are monsters.

Turns out, they weren’t big enough—need to be consistently over 25 feet. The good news is that the high surf made waves (so to speak) on the other shores of O’ahu too, so Diamond Head on Thursday was messy but fun and breaking all over the place. I caught a few waves and saw this massive turtle head peek up about 10 feet ahead of me. Woah!

 

 

The weather’s been great and I’m still being a maniac and making sure that we surf or boogie board or snorkel or hike every day. I only just realized that my attitude is—I can sleep in San Francisco. If there’s light out here we should be outside!!! Needless to say, we’re exhausted.

 

Friday night we had Steve, Azeema, Sue, Rob, Liz and Susie over for margaritas, which became mangoritas after Liz showed up with frozen fruit. Yummy! Mitch really knows how to mix those puppies. Yum!

 

Yesterday, we tried to replay last weekend’s fun by driving around the southeastern part of the Island, past Hanauma Bay, Sandies, and Makapuu to Baby Maks. I love it there—it’s so haunting and majestic and captivating with the bright aqua water and 2000 foot Koolaus looming right over the beach. We snorkeled there again but the water was murky and rough so didn’t see a lot of fish. Did follow a turtle around for a while, though. That was really cool. Ate at the inimitable Sweet Home Waimanalo, which has the best plate lunches (get the lemon chicken and corn bread—actually get anything there—it’s all good)!

 

 

The high surf wrap persisted to Waimanalo beach where the shore break was pretty big and fun. We played like kids there, even after the bust –a-gut lunch. Yes, I’ll be returning to CA with a couple of extra lbs. on my butt)!

 

Last night we had a great time back of Palolo with the Osorios and their friends. Good food and nice folks. Re-learned how to play cribbage, which I always liked when I played it twenty years ago. And some lovely singing to guitars, ukes, and a harmonica. Lots of fun but we had to wake up at 6:15 to get ready for a trip up north.

 

My old friend Mary Woollen picked us up and we drove over the Pali and northwest from Kaneohe to Malaekahana. The Koolaus were glowing in the morning sunlight and we could see way up the coast. I hate waking up that early on a weekend, but the view was worth it. The water was murky but the waves were fun and we body surfed for about two hours up there.

 

No, we’re not having any fun at all.