HAWAI’I  DIARY: An Account of Five Weeks in Paradise

(Llew and Rochelle at Kailua Beach on the Island of Oahu in Hawai’i)

For most people, an opportunity to visit Hawai’i for even a week is a chance in a lifetime. When I spent five whole weeks on the paradisiac island of Oahu in the South Pacific, I decided to document by travels meticulously through word and picture. Llew joined me for the last two weeks and as we island-hopped, we picked up deep tans, a bit of Hawai’an and a lasting love for the place. We’ve decided that when we retire, it might well be in this most tropical of American states.

Follow us now on our travels in Hawai’i…

Returning from a trip to Hawaii is to miss the wonderfully colorful landscape of the islands. Right now in Connecticut, with high summer upon us, everything is a lovely green; but there are no vivid shades of pink, purple or crimson to relieve the verdant landscape or paint it with startling tropical colors.

The US state of Hawaii, formerly a monarchical kingdom, comprises eight main islands with several tinier ones that don’t usually count—Hawaii (the Big Island), Oahu, Maui, Kauai, Lanai, Moloka’i, Niihau and Kaholo’awe. Oahu is the most populated (though not the largest—that honor goes to Hawaii, hence its nickname ‘Big Island’) and most popular. Honolulu, the capital city is located on Oahu as is the famed Waikiki Beach. I arrived on June 6 at Honolulu airport, late at night, awfully jetlagged after a fifteen hour flight from New York’s Kennedy airport. My accommodation at the University of Hawaii’s campus was a tiny dorm room. When I awoke to a cloudy morning after a slight drizzle, I found myself staring wondrously outside my window at the verdant Manoa Valley where a rainbow was also staining the sky in varied colors. This was the first of many rainbows that I spotted in Hawaii. Every time it gets a trifle too warm, the slightest drizzle appears like a gentle spray. It stops in just a few minutes and as the sun emerges from the clouds, rainbows arch superbly across the skies. It was a sight of which I never tired.

Please click on the links below to peek into my Hawai’i Diary as we traverse the four major islands that make up this idyllic American state.