The Wandering Tattler

Yesterday (Tuesday) we hiked up Diamondhead and enjoyed terrific views of Waikiki and the rest of southern Oahu. After lunch we enjoyed the very tasteful and well presented exhibits in the Waikiki Aquarium, an institution that is vastly superior to the one we visited in 1990. It still has an outdoor pool with two Hawaiian Monk seals, an endangered species numbering fewer than 1,500 individuals. In the afternoon we took a guided walk through the rainforest above Honolulu. Naturally, it was raining. We saw a lot of feral pig damage. Feral pigs, of course, are among the most profoundly destructive agents in Hawaiian ecosystems. In the evening we had dinner with the Sheehans at a Japanese restuarant.

Today (Wednesday) we drove over to Hunauma Bay, Oahu's premier snorkeling site. We put on our wetsuits and began to explore the tremendous reef system in this very protected bay. After less than 30 minutes, the park was evacuated due to a large-scale incursion of box jellyfish (Cubozoids). There had apparently been quite a few nasty encounters. We drove to the northeast shore of Oahu and rented kayaks and snorkeled for a couple of hours at Kailua. Fish diversity here was noticably lower than at Hunauma. In both places the water temperature was in the low 70s - considerably cooler than in the Caribbean. Afterwards we drove south over the Pali Highway to Honolulu.