Famous Beach

Oahu, September 2007

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After going to the spitting cave of Portlock, we started to head back towards Honolulu only to get stuck in world class traffic on highway 72. Specifically, the highway is 3 lanes in each direction with a substantial median dividing the cars. However, so many people are trying to get into Honolulu in the morning that they reversed the direction of one of the lanes on the opposite side of the median so that 4 lanes of cars could fight their way in the morning commute. After a few minutes of going nowhere we turned around and decided to take the long way back, through Kailua and then through the mountains. During this impromptu drive we pulled over at a beach that looked nice and went for swim. It turned out to be Halona Beach, the site of famous rolling in the sand kissing scene in the movie "From Here to Eternity".

Halona Beach meets all of my criteria for a great beach: good sand, decent waves, and steep terrain (I don't like flat beaches). The only negative thing I can say about it is that it suffers from a bit of trash. It's also close to the road and a giant parking lot but most people just stay up there and look at the ocean and blowholes.

Speaking of the giant parking lot, here it is along with our first (of four) rental cars, a PT Cruiser. This guy got a flat so we traded it for another PT Cruiser which was white. That was fine except for the airbag light which wouldn't go off so we traded it for a Dodge Charger, I think. It didn't have any problems but some jerk broke our front window when we were hiking to Maunawili Falls. They didn't get anything since nothing was inside. Our final car was a little Toyota Yaris.

When the tourists get off of the buses they take pictures of each other and the ocean at the overlook. Most have no idea that the parking lot and overlook are there so you can see the blowholes.

A better picture of the blowhole by someone else.

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