Been a while since the last entry from Hawaii. Just haven’t had the time (and at times access to the net from laptop - could have used phone but I prefer to use a normal keyboard for long entries :)) to write much and been waiting on some pictures that were taken on some scuba dives I did here on the south of Oahu. Still don’t have the pics (should have em later on today hopefully) so will have to post em next time.

First up…Woooohooo I completed my Advanced PADI scuba certification a few days ago! Got to check out two different shipwreck sites namely the Sea Tiger and the YO-257 sites that . Also did some reef dives (horseshoe reef). Wow what a difference it is diving in Hawaii versus California. Water temperature in California is typically around 53 degrees Fahrenheit (11 degrees Celcius) whereas here the water was around 74 degrees Fahrenheit (23 degrees celcius)!  Then on top of that visibility is much nicer (around 30-40m visibility in hawaii versus 1-2m visibility off the shore of monterey bay in california). Lots of cool tropical fish to see around here along with some sea turtles, some large octopuses, a huge string ray (around 2 metres in width). There was a diver in our group that was complaining because he was comparing the diving here to Thailand and visibility there is much better, but compared to cold water diving in Northern California, the diving here was incredible and I’m glad I took up the chance to complete my advanced certification at such an awesome location.

Also went on a submarine tour that visits the YO-257 shipwreck site. Was excited about seeing the same site twice but this time without being wet, but for some reason didn’t enjoy it even half as much as when I dove down to the site. The submarine just seemed to go by too quickly to get a good look at all the marine life and at the same time there was no feeling of wonder and excitement and a bit of nervousness that I felt jumping off a boat and diving down a 100 feet into the water. It (the submarine tour) felt no different then watching a shipwreck site on tv

Did some hiking and caught some sweet views of the island. Aside from that explored the cuisine of the island, checked out touristy spots like Waikiki beach and also snorkeled off other sites besides Hanauma bay (that I mentioned in my last post).

Cool volcanic formations on the east side of Oahu

View from a hiking trail on the east of Oahu. That island on the right of the pic is Rabbit island (looks more like a turtle then a rabbit to me)

View from the USS Missouri battleship. This is the ship on which Japan surrendered to the US and its allies and ended the WWII.

Thats Diamond Head volanic cone on the right. The city of Honolulu is towards the left of this pic (but not visible).

Now onto the power outage I mentioned in the title of this post - entire island of Oahu lost electricity around 6pm-ish yesterday including the President-elect Obama’s rental property on the east side of the island where he has been vacationing since last week. Wasn’t too bad because I was still connected to the net on the iphone and the 6-7 of us gathered around some candles and made the most of it. Woke up this morning to find that the electricity was still out in this neighborhood (power was restored to the west coast of the island around 6am) so a bunch of us drove to the nearest Safeway store to stock up on food and as soon as we paid for our purchases the power came back on So now I have a bunch of food stocked up that I need to finish in the next few days before we fly back to California.

Enough for today. Will write more once I get the scuba diving pics