Oahu and Maui 2013: Tuesday - Coastal Drive and Sunset Sail

Finally got a good night's sleep! We awoke looking forward to exploring the west side of the island and to our sunset cruise at the end of the day. This morning's walk was north around the 4th lagoon to the Marina - beautiful place without many people around. We met a couple from Sonoma and chatted all to the back to the Disney Resort where they were staying -- then I remembered that I forgot to take my morning pictures. Guess we'll have to go back tomorrow. Another spectacular weather day (even though it's been cloudy and raining on the windward (east) side of the island.

We decided to have lunch at a neighborhood Italian restaurant about 10 minutes drive from KoOlina to Kunio. Auntie Pastos had a certificate on Restaurant.com so we thought it worth a try. Excellent service with a smile from the hostess and our waiter. We both had Lasagne that came with a good Caesar salad. Topped it off with a glass of house red that was quite drinkable. Reasonable prices and good food and we felt like locals in small town Hawaii. After lunch we drove on Farrington Road along the West Coast of Oahu. We had been there before and been surprised to see tent cities of homeless in the parks and along some beach area and had heard that the area had changed a lot (but have no idea where the homeless are now living).

The drive is a beautiful one....lots of natural beauty and a good view of both the wild sea and mountains. A lot more development was evident...including one of each type of fast food restaurant, new grocery store, and what seemed to be a larger population.

Back to our place to relax until time to meet the bus to take us to Waikiki for our sunset cruise. While we waited we chatted with 2 couples from Sacramento and a 3rd couple (newlyweds) who, coincidentally live in Harrisburg, NC and got married on Lake Norman! The bus was late picking us up due to a traffic accident that closed the highway, but they waited for us to start the cruise! After leaving our shoes in a bin on the dock (hope they weren't having a shoe sale while we had our sail :)), we boarded a large Catamaran with a 3 man crew. Off we went from a dock behind the Hilton Hawaiian Village with an intro from the bartender. Generous snacks and very generous and freeflowing drinks made for a very congenial group. The scenery from the boat - overlooking Waikiki, Diamond Head and the skyline of Honolulu was magical.

Took lots of pictures while waiting for the sunset, found the Pina Colada and Mai Tai delicious, shared picture taking with our new friends so that we could have evidence that we were there: