Final Days on the Islands

On our last day on the north shore we decided to do one of the activities through the hotel. We went on a kayaking tour of the bay that we had walked to the day before. The other people in our group were two older couples (grandparents) who were indeed able to kayak and everything but weren’t spry. The kayaks we used were actually rather neat in that they had a clear viewing window in their base. This is quite a good invention and worked pretty well to see what you were going over. I definitely prefer kayaking to snorkeling so it was fun. We saw quite a few sea turtles but the water was a bit murky so the fish sightings weren’t great. Halfway through our kayaking time, we came back to shore, were given a snack, and then were supposed to go on a walking tour of everything we had just hiked and seen the day before. Fortunately we mentioned this to one of the guides and he offered to take us back out in the water instead to do some kayak surfing. With kayak surfing, you pretty much just situate your boat perpendicular to the waves and then as a swell comes, paddle at a speed to match the waves so that you can get pushed or “surf” all the way in. Chance and I were both pretty successful actually and got to ride a few waves in. Near the end I got caught by a second row of waves and rolled out of the kayak. Then on my last one I wasn’t quite perpendicular and so I totally wiped out and ended up underneath the kayak but I didn’t get hurt and it was quite fun. Once everyone else got back from their hike they also showed us how to stand up and paddle which just requires some balance but isn’t too hard. It was quite a fun excursion and I got to do some things with kayaks that I hadn’t done before.

Then we showered and headed back south to Honolulu. We went along the east coast of the island and saw some incredibly dramatic mountains. When we got to our hotel in Waikiki we hit the first snag in our trip. When Chance booked the hotel originally, he redeemed rewards points to cover the hotel. Unfortunately, somewhere in that process, the hotel got booked for July 16th, not August 13th and so we arrived to them having no record of our reservation. After many phone calls we were generally able to get things straightened out, but unfortunately did not get a refund of the points. That night we had dinner with one of the teachers that I worked with at Anacapa in Ventura. She moved out to Honolulu last summer and invited us out for dinner with some of her friends. Twas fun and then we walked back along the main road which has lots of tourist shops and such.

Because we didn’t go in the water in the evening, we decided to go for a swim first thing in the morning. The beach is set up so that the waves crash just beyond the breakwater and then a rather nice swimming pool is created along the shore. This water gets to be incredibly warm and nice to swim in. Unfortunately, it has not really warmed up by the early morning and so we walked/stood in the water for a full 5 minutes before deciding to abandon ship and go pack. On the way out we drove around Diamond Head and then got on the plane to fly home.

Link to pictures from the final days.


And yes, there is a part of this trip that I neglected to mention in the blog before. So upon arriving in Honolulu on Thursday, Chance and I drove to the government center in order to get married. While it was very neat to see the capitol, that really wasn’t not our intention to go visit upon arriving (I may be nerdy, but not that nerdy). We put enough coins in the meter for an hour and a half and then went to the Department of Health Services to get the license. There were several other couples there and many nice ladies who helped everyone fill out the forms and then typed all the information to make it official. To be married though, we had to find a judge so they had a list of judge’s names that you could call to arrange to be married. Chance chose one randomly from the list and she told us to come right over. So we walked over to the municipal courthouse and were married by a very nice female judge in her chambers. Hawaii doesn’t require witnesses so we didn’t have to worry about that. I am now Bonnie Catherine Knecht. And so with that we completed the entire process (and had time to walk through the capitol) in under an hour and a half. I am so glad we did this in the Hawaiian government system as opposed to the Los Angeles system because I’ve heard horror stories about all day wait and delays and such. Was this our plan all along? Somewhat but not completely. While on this trip, we weighed the pros and cons of just getting this done and it seemed like it was best to just get on with it. And so to have an actual honeymoon (which had been planned before as just a vacation), we decided not to announce it or to tell anyone until Sunday, when we were coming back anyway. So that is the story. We still would like to do something on the date we had planned before, 10/11/12, but we shall figure out what later.