Happy New Year!
A view of the “Puff the Magic Dragon” mountain formation and the beach in Kauai, Hawaii.
It’s the end of another year and I must say, this has been a pretty great year for photography. After a couple of years of not being able to travel due to the pandemic, we were able to make up for some lost time. Besides some local trips and my normal seasonal opportunities (feel free to scroll through my other blog posts for the highlights from this year), I had the new experiences of traveling to and photographing in the British Isles and I also recently returned from a trip to Hawaii.
My wife Denise and I doing a little selfie on the GoPro while snorkeling in the Big Island, Hawaii.
Hawaii was pretty awesome. Much like the British Isles, my trip to Hawaii was a long overdue family vacation that had been delayed for almost 3 years because of the pandemic. Since it was a family trip, I treated it much like the British Isles trip and just tried to work some photography in as I could. My kit consisted of pretty much the same items I brought to the British Isles. I found it to be a pretty workable solution again, with of course some of the compromises I mentioned in my previous blog post. On this trip however, I did find more use for my GoPro Hero 8, especially when we did some snorkeling.
Diamond Head in the background from Waikiki Beach in front of the Hale Koa Resort.
We started our Hawaiian vacation by flying into Honolulu. Since we had veterans in the family traveling with us, we were able to stay a few nights at the Hale Koa Resort. The resort is next door to the Hilton Hawaiian Resort, so there are a lot of things in the immediate area and of course Waikiki Beach. We had a good view of Diamond Head from the beach as well. While we were on O’ahu we went to see Pearl Harbor and did the boat tour out to the Arizona Memorial. We did not have enough time to do the tour of the Missouri battleship or the Bowfin Submarine, but we were able to see them from a distance. We also were able to attend a luau at Paradise Cove. Of course the luau was a bit touristy, but it was still a lot of fun and the food was great. This was my first luau, so I do not have any basis for comparison, but others that we were traveling with us said that this one was one of the best they had been to.
A view from the shuttle boat of the Arizona Memorial at Pearl Harbor.
After a few days in Honolulu we boarded a cruise ship to visit some of the other islands. While I know traveling by cruise ship can be a bit controversial, due to the environmental concerns and etc, we did find it to be a pretty convenient way to visit the islands. It was nice to not have to arrange travel between the islands or accommodations once we were there. Now that we have visited Hawaii, if we are ever able to go back, we will know what to visit again and what we could probably skip. So it was a good way to get a pretty good overview of the major Hawaiian destinations. The cruise itinerary that we did in Hawaii is a little different than other cruises since the ship there is the only one registered in the United States, so that is something to be aware of. If you have any questions about the cruise experience itself, feel free to contact me.
A green sea turtle resting on a Maui beach.
We were very lucky in the timing of our trip, as we were there when Mauna Loa finally decided to erupt again after over 30 years of being dormant. We were actually able to see the eruptions from out at sea as we were cruising into Hilo. It was pretty spectacular. We were also able to get a distant view from Volcanoes National Park. Unfortunately because of the eruption, parts of the park were closed. But given the chance to see the eruption, I didn’t feel too bad that we were not able to see all of the park.
Mauna Loa volcano erupting as seen from out at sea near Hilo.
Besides Oahu and the Big Island, we were also able to visit Kauai and Maui and while not visiting the actual islands, we were to view some of the other islands, such as Moloka’i from a distance. I will try to write more detailed blog entries from all of our stops when I get time, but I just wanted to post a brief overview, since it has been a while since I have had a new blog entry.
Looking out at the ocean from inside of a lave tube sea cave on the black beaches of Waianapanapa State Park in Maui.
Happy New Year everyone! I can’t wait to share more of my adventures with you this coming year. I already have a few new exciting things planned for later this year. I am also hoping to go back and revisit some of my trips from this year and create posts about some of the locations. So keep checking back for those!