Hawaii | loveliness. | Page 2

Tag: Hawaii
- queen’s bath
  
  Posted at 8:11 am by jasminedesirees, on June 15, 2015
  
  On the way back through Princeville one day, we decided to stop off at the Queen’s Bath. My sister had heard of it from some of her local friends, and wanted to check it out, so we found our way over there.
  
  Queen’s Bath is on the northeast coast of Kauai. There is a little parking lot designated for parking, but don’t park anywhere else or your car will get towed.
  
  It’s about a ten minute scramble down to the ocean from the parking lot, I can’t really call it a hike? But there are stairs and a dirt path that takes you down there.
  
  Once you get down to the lava rocks, turn left, and keep walking. It’s further than you think it’s going to be, and if you don’t see anyone else coming back you will probably think you are lost, but you aren’t.
  
  Queen’s Bath is a big, rounded pool that is surrounded by rocks on all sides, and sits right against the ocean. Depending on whether you are there during high or low tide, or summer or winter, it can be varying levels of dangerous to swim there, but they dissuade people from swimming because there have been so many drownings.
  
  When a wave set starts rolling in, they break directly on the rocks surrounding the pool, and then there is a little break in the rocks that forms a tunnel, the water from the wave gets sucked back out to sea, and if there are any swimmers in there who are inexperienced or unprepared, they often get sucked out as well.
  
  If you are going to go in (my sister did, I didn’t have my bathing suit on? For some reason? On a beach day in Hawaii?) stay close to the higher rock cliffs further away from the ocean where the waves come in, that way you are farther away when the water gets sucked back out, and you have the rocks to grab on to. Also, bring a mask.
  
  It’s pretty crazy to watch people swim in there when the waves are coming in, these pictures don’t really do it justice. The waves are enormous, and come barreling ferociously over the rock wall really fast.
  
  Queen’s Bath was pretty cool to check out, but definitely don’t go in by yourself, or if you are not very familiar with the conditions.
  
  Posted in Hawaii, travel, USA | 0 Comments | Tagged Hawaii, hiking, kauai, queen's bath, travel
- waimea canyon
  
  Posted at 8:00 am by jasminedesirees, on June 8, 2015
  
  We flew to Kauai on a Sunday morning, and we were all checked in and ready to go by 1:00. We decided to jump in the car and go exploring. We were staying in Kapaa, which is on the NE side of the island, so we decided to head south to check it out.
  
  We drove all the way around the bottom, to the end of the road, stopping every once in awhile to look at the view or check out a beach. You can’t drive all the way around Kauai, the road stops at the beginning of the Na Pali coast, but we went as far as we could.
  
  It’s a lot quieter on the West side, and a lot less touristy. The drive along the southern road reminded me of driving to Waianae on the West side of Oahu, which isn’t that surprising, but I have some of my best Hawaiian memories in Waianae, so it made me happy anyway.
  
  We eventually turned around and came back, and drove up to the Waimea Canyon. It’s called the Grand Canyon of the Pacific, which is pretty legitimate, since I was just at the Grand Canyon, and parts of the Waimea Canyon look exactly like it (although obviously nowhere near as big and deep).
  
  The road is really pretty, there are lots of places to stop and viewpoints. Our original plan was just to go to the canyon, then to go back to the east side to find some wine and a place to watch the sunset.
  
  But we kept saying “oh let’s just drive up a little further” until we were at the very end of the road. It’s a pretty long trip, just because it’s a windy road, and if you get behind someone going slow it can take awhile to get there, but it’s really beautiful.
  
  The best part was the Kalalau Lookout where we got our first glimpse of the Na Pali coast. I’ve been waiting years to finally see it in person, and I was not disappointed. It was so breathtaking I kind of wanted to just throw myself over the edge and stay there forever.
  
  I always think that on the road to Sandy’s just past Haunama Bay on Oahu. You round this corner and it’s just stunning blue ocean, and I always just want to drive straight off the cliff so I never have to leave. That’s normal, right?
  
  We stopped on the way up to the canyon to buy mango and coconut from a little stand, and then at one of the viewpoints we bought a bag of lychee, which my parents hadn’t had before. I quite correctly described it as looking like peeled eyeballs, but they are scrumptious.
  
  We were just cruising along this little road in Kauai, eating fruit, and the only radio station we could pick up was the Golden Oldies, so we were listening to “Peggy Sue” and “Mr. Bojangles”.
  
  I even had my window down, which I almost never do because the wind whips my hair in my face, and I’m always cold, but it smelled so good there, like dirt and sunshine and jungle, which might not sound delicious but absolutely was, that I didn’t ever want to roll it up. It was a great day.
  
  Posted in Hawaii, travel, USA | 1 Comment | Tagged Hawaii, kauai, Na Pali Coast, travel, waimea canyon
- diving yo-257: hawaii
  
  Posted at 8:00 am by jasminedesirees, on June 4, 2015
  
  On the morning of my sister’s grad (and the first day I wasn’t working from Oahu) we decided to go diving. Oahu isn’t really know for its diving, but there are a few cool places to go, and one of them is the YO-257, a shipwreck straight out from Waikiki Beach about a mile (? I think? I’m really terrible at judging distances).
  
  I went with my sister and brother, who are both certified, even though he had only gotten fully certified the day before. I was really nervous, because even though I’ve been diving so many times before, this was going to be the first time since the incident in Coron, and it was also a wreck dive.
  
  Also, it was very deep, more than 100FT, so no easing back in with some nice shallow reef dives. Go big or go home. Or, go big or have a panic attack and die. It’s definitely one or the other.
  
  The day didn’t start out so well, my dad was sick so he didn’t come with us, and then we got to the boat, and our captain was sick. Like puking off the side of the boat. He said he had food poisoning, but it looked a little bit more like JD poisoning.
  
  We got out to the dive site, and there were two other boats there already. The current was really strong that day, so in order to dive the wreck we needed to anchor to one of the ropes, and follow a lead down to the boat. Since there were already two boats there, we ended up having to sit for almost an hour before we could go in.
  
  During this time, it started storming. The waves were pretty big, and it was absolutely pouring. We had to sit in the boat with our goggles on to keep the rain out of our eyes. It was pretty funny, but as our captain said “anything that could have possibly gone wrong went wrong today”.
  
  Eventually we got in, and started heading down to the wreck. We saw a turtle right away, so I tried to take that as a good sign, even though I was still pretty nervous. We weren’t going in the wreck, just around it, so I was feeling OK about things, but our guide kept stopping our group (5 in total) to take pictures. I’m fine underwater, but I have to keep moving, if I sit still too long I start to feel claustrophobic and panicky.
  
  And since I was closest to him, he would stop me first, put me where he wanted the group, and then round everyone else for the pictures while I sat there. I have never had that happen on a dive before, usually you take your own camera to take pictures of what you see, and maybe you get someone to take one or two pictures of you, if there is something really cool you want a picture with.
  
  The pictures we got were pretty cool, but still I didn’t like stopping so much. The other thing that wasn’t helping was that there is a commercial submarine that leaves from the Honolulu Harbour that takes big groups of people underwater to look at the wrecks. Our guide told us to watch out for it, and told us the driver would hit us and wouldn’t care, but we didn’t realize how close it would get.
  
  We were swimming along right on the bottom, and all of a sudden our guide started gesturing and making loud noises towards my brother. We turned around to look, and the submarine was less than 10 feet away, headed straight for him, so we had to hang out on the bottom until it passed. It was an electric submarine so it made the most horrifying, ominous whirring noise, which isn’t helpful when you are already feeling unsettled.
  
  Anyways, the wreck itself was pretty cool, there were actually two different ships down there, and we all came out unscathed. I think I would have been scared of any dive just because of what had happened on my last dive, so I’m glad I got it out of the way. Get back on the horse, or something like that.
  
  We ended up skipping our second dive because we had to wait so long to go in for our first one that we would have missed grad if we’d done another, which was kind of the whole reason we were there, so that probably would have been frowned upon by our parents.
  
  Posted in Hawaii, USA | 0 Comments | Tagged Hawaii, scuba, scuba diving, travel, yo-257
- da kine
  
  Posted at 9:21 am by jasminedesirees, on June 1, 2015
  
  A few snaps from our first week in Hawaii, on Oahu. I was working most of the week, but I managed to squeeze in trips to North Shore, and Kailua, a graduation, and a sunset booze cruise with my parents.
  
  Posted in Hawaii, travel, USA | 4 Comments | Tagged family, Hawaii, Oahu, travel
- a hui hou
  
  Posted at 11:38 am by jasminedesirees, on May 25, 2015
  
  Flying home tonight after more than two weeks on the islands. I know we had good reasons for moving away, but sometimes I can’t remember what they were.
  
  Posted in Hawaii, travel, USA | 1 Comment | Tagged 808, beach, Hawaii, islands, travel
- time lapse
  
  Posted at 12:50 pm by jasminedesirees, on May 8, 2014
  
  It is cold and grey in the bay today, but this video made my heart happy. You never get sick of looking at those sunsets, and the Friday fireworks are amazing.
  
  Posted in exploring, Hawaii, travel | 0 Comments | Tagged Hawaii, photography, sunset, travel, video
- pipe
  
  Posted at 12:39 am by jasminedesirees, on January 14, 2014
  
  This video of the Bonzai Pipeline on Oahu makes my heart hurt. Hopefully I get to go home soon.
  
  from Eric Sterman on Vimeo.
  
  Posted in beach, Hawaii, travel | 0 Comments | Tagged beach, Bonzai, Hawaii, North Shore, Oahu, ocean, Pipeline, surfing, waves
- makai
  
  Posted at 10:19 pm by jasminedesirees, on November 6, 2013
  
  A few more picture from my trip. Ok a lot more pictures. I literally can not resist taking a billion pictures, it’s so beautiful there. Even when I lived there, my phone was just full of pictures of the places I saw every single day.
  
  You would think it would get old, but it really doesn’t. Just when you think you’re immune, it sneaks up on you and takes your breath away again.
  
  cromwells
  
  I have this dress in black and white, and it’s a bit of a struggle to wear anything else, ever
  
  Brandy Melville
  
  these trees make me happy
  
  Ocean House in Waikiki. Almost too beautiful to eat, best served with a POG mimosa
  
  hello lover
  
  brunch with my second family
  
  Posted in family, Hawaii, life, travel, USA | 0 Comments | Tagged birthday, family, Hawaii, Oahu, travel
- surprise
  
  Posted at 8:03 pm by jasminedesirees, on November 5, 2013
  
  My little rat sister turned 21 last Tuesday, and I really wanted to be there to celebrate with her. One night in August after a lot of red wine I decided to buy a ticket to Hawaii without telling her about it. As it got closer, I started to get really nervous. What if she had plans or was not that excited to see me? I felt like she would be really excited but I’ve seen too many romantic comedies not to appreciate the true awfulness of a grand gesture gone wrong.
  
  I flew in last Wednesday night and walked up to what I hoped was the right door (I’d never been to her place before). She opened the door, and absolutely did not recognize me at first. An instant later when she realized it was me she got a look of sheer terror on her face, like she thought I might be there to tell her some really bad news.
  
  A second after that she must have remembered that it was her birthday and put the pieces together, because she was really excited and happy to see me, and I didn’t have to go sleep on the beach for the night.
  
  I had such a fun weekend, I love hanging out with my sister, and her friends on the island are really fun. Hawaii is my favourite place in the world and always will be, I feel happiest and most like myself when I’m there.
  
  Posted in family, Hawaii, life, travel | 0 Comments | Tagged birthday, family, Hawaii, life, surprises, travel
- twenty one
  
  Posted at 10:00 am by jasminedesirees, on October 29, 2013
  
  Happy 21st birthday to my little rat sister today. We got off to a bit of a rocky start, sometimes I would eat your popsicles, sometimes you would try to stab me with a steak knife. You know, the usual.
  
  But over the years I accidentally discovered that not only did I love you, I liked you a lot too. I have more fun with you than almost anyone else, and even though I miss you, I’m so glad you’ve adopted the islands and love them as much as I do.
  
  I’m so proud of the tough, funny, smart chick you’ve grown into, and I can’t wait to see what the future has in store for you, because I know it’s going to be amazing.
  
  Also, I’m excited to finally go to the bar with you in ‘Merica and not have us both be named Jasmine.
  
  We will come at you like a spider monkey
  
  We both look amazing in bandanas, fact
  
  favourites
  
  pillboxes
  
  too hideous not to include
  
  sisters
  
  Skydiving
  
  Maid of Honour
  
  I’ve been trying to get rid of her for years but she’s very resilient
  
  triathletes
  
  Posted in family, life | 0 Comments | Tagged birthday, family, Hawaii, life, love, sister
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