Thursday, already?

I have lost track of time this week. Between Ryan's visit and entering thousands of pictures into the lab database, I forgot to post on the rest of last weekend's festivities.

We drove up to the Western Coast of Oahu, or Wai'anae, as it is called. I was a little freaked out about going up there as, Andrew Doughty and Harriett Friedman's Oahu Revealed write, "Wai'anae is one of the poorer sections of the island, and it has a reputation of being a rough place." We had no problems, and it was absolutely gorgeous. I'd go back in a heartbeat.

The first stop was the limestone beach at 'Ohikilolo, across the street from the Kaneana (see below). The limestone here is constantly tormented by the waves which makes for some awesome tide pools. And the water was the bluest I have seen so far. Here are K and G hanging out on the reef:

Next, we went across the road to see the results of the erosion from ancient waves, when the world was warmer and the sea was high enough to reach the high cliffs formed from the original Oahu lava flows. Here, a cave was formed, and when the Hawaiians discovered it, they called it Kaneana which is named after "Kane", the god of creation, and "ana", which means cave. The cave is a symbol for the earth goddess's womb, and this is where Hawaiians believe all mankind came from. In ancient times, the cave was kapu (forbidden), and was home to the shark man, Nanaue. The Hawaiians are big on their animal gods in case you haven't picked up on that yet. Here are Kyle, Gaffney, and I entering into the womb:


We explored a bit (the cave wasn't more than 50-100 yards deep, unless you wanted to crawl into the abyss). Then we decided to go to the beach and try our hand in some boogy boarding and relaxing. The sand storms finally made us retreat, but not before Ryan and Kyle caught some waves (they are the little white dots in the middle of the water on the left side).

Ryan leaves tonight, and I am a little sad since I don't know when I'll get to see ol' Sac again. Plus, I don't know when we'll get the next chance to go driving around the island to see all of the beauty outside of Honolulu. I guess we'll go again when the next guests arrive, which I just found out will likely be either G-rant and Brad-lay Dean over Memorial Day Weekend or Dacks and Penny in June before our Big Island trip. And KK, my sistah comes in July! Yeah!

Until next time....aloha.