Aloha! It's 11 am in Hawai'i, and I'm writing this from the business center at the Turtle Bay Resort. Anne and I arrived here late on Sunday evening after a long but smooth journey from Toronto via Vancouver. 19 hours of straight travel accomplished, we were pretty exhausted by the time we got to our rooms, and slept a full night's sleep. Jet lag is for the weak.

Yesterday's forcasted sunshine took its time arriving, though the grey morning clouds were frequently pierced with patches of blue. The temperature, 29 degrees centigrade, made sitting by the pool and watching the surf the main activity of the day... A day with very little activity, truth be told. We compressed a lot of recovery into a short time period!

In the late afternoon we went for a pleasant drive west along the north shore from our resort. The resort is on the farthest northern point, and the north and west shores are the strongest for surf at this time of year, so there were many spectacular waves and most of the young in the island seemed to be out with their boards. We stopped at Sunset Beach to watch some surfers, and I used up a few dozen shots on my fancy new digital SLR.

Continuing on, we stopped in Haleiwa for shave ice -- a local specialty, basically a slightly more substantial fruit freezie in a cone -- and further down the road, for some delicious garlic shrimp from a shrimp truck. Then, adventuresome spirits exhausted for the day, we turned back and drove through the golden sunset lights towards the resort, a late dinner, and bed.

Today's starting slowly but well. This afternoon we'll be off to Honolulu to catch Casino Royale in the island's best theatre, and then heading to Duke's for some fine dining, Hawai'i style. Tomorrow, we check out in the morning but have another full day to enjoy the island before getting on an overnight flight to Auckland.

Huzzah!
posted by Tom at 3:57 PM | link |