Hawaii #3: Diamond Head & Hannama Bay

~Diamond Head~

Josh, Me, and Carter on some of the stairs that lead up to the point. (you can see the switch-back trail down below us.)

One morning we got up and hiked to the top of Diamond Head to watch the sunrise. Diamond Head is a huge volcanic crater that you can walk into and hike up to the top of. At the top is an old Army or Military structure that you can look out from.

The hike itself wasn't too bad at all... the Japanese tourists, (Whom of which are freaking everyone on the Hawaiian Islands, you'll see them all over in the backgrounds of my pictures. Call me crazy... but I think after Pearl Harbor we should have banned their asses!) anyways... they were a pain in the butt!

Once you get to the top of all the switch-backs and stairs you snake your way through this tunnel and climb a bunch of spiral stairs to get to the very top of the crater.

The view from the top is gorgeous! It was such a clear day when we went you could see all the way to one of the other islands. (I'm not sure which one?)

It would have been such a quiet, peaceful morning... but remember the Japanese tourists? Yeah... who invented that language anyways?

I really liked the old light house down on the shore and the boat in the picture is some oceanliner that goes from island to island.

We took this picture after we climbed back down. It was your typical "touristy" spot where everyone was waiting in line to get a picture by it. A bunch of Japanese must have thought it would be funny to take home a picture of a crazy American from their vacation, because about 12 of them snapped this picture of me when Amy was taking it. Oh well... at least I made somebody else's vacation album. (Even if it was as the crazy American!)

~Hannama Bay~

Hanamma Bay is this place where you can go down and snorkle with all the fishies in the reef. They make you watch a movie about protecting it, and to watch out for eels, and not to pet the fish, etc... before you go down to the beach (which sucks), and frankly doesn't do them much good because 90% of people there are Japanese and they do exactly what the movie tells them not to anyways. (Can you tell I got a little annoyed with them during this trip? Just wait until the Pearl Harbor blog.)

Anyways... snorkling was so much fun!... That is until I about got eaten by an eel. Seriously. The water is not too deep along the reef... Maybe 7 feet in some of the deeper places, so you are supposed to stay on top of the water while you snorkly. (obviously right?) Well, I was snorkling with Amy and minding my own business when this huge... I mean huge!... like 4 feet long, eel slithers thorugh the water RIGHT UNDERNEITH ME!! I started to try and turn to swim the other way without any of my 6-foot frame dropping an inch down into the water (and consequently closer to the eel!), and right as I was doing so the legless creature of death swivled around and started to swim towards my face with its teeth bared. Now... I don't know if any of you have ever seen eel's teeth, but they are nasty! They look like they could free my bones of flesh in less than a minuet. Anyways... I made it back to safe waters in olympic record time and ended my snorkling experience on that lovely, eel-infested note.