Oahu, Hawaii (2018)

Date: November 26, 2018 – November 30, 2018 and December 3, 2018 – December 7, 2018
Location: Honolulu, Hawaii on the island of Oahu

To recap: in April 2017, Brian and Sue taught for a week at the Maryknoll School. They were asked to come back again to teach the STEM and Aerospace program. This year, we expanded the lesson to be two weeks long, and to mimic a real-world engineering design project. Besides just Brian and Sue, Chris (Sue’s husband) and I also taught some of the subject matter.

We were extremely fortunate that the school reimbursed us for flights and housing to cover the entire time while teaching on Oahu.

Since Brian and I were already on Oahu in April 2017,  we did a few things while there again in 2018, but mostly relaxed during our time on Oahu.

Pearl Harbor

One thing we didn’t get to do in 2017 was Pearl Harbor, so we went this year. Unfortunately, the Arizona Memorial was closed for repairs to the dock. It is expected to open again in March 2019. We were able to watch a documentary about Pearl harbor and take a boat ride in the harbor and along Battleship Row.

This is the USS Bowfin.

Vans World Cup of Surfing

We also drove out to Sunset Beach where the Vans World Cup of Surfing was taking place.

The waves were huge – around 30 feet per the Hawaiian scale (that is measured from the back of the wave, vs. California which measures from the front and where 30 feet would be more like 60 feet!) – so the competition was actually postponed. It’s a little ironic that the surfing competition was canceled because the waves were TOO big.

We knew before driving there that the surfing wasn’t happening that day, but we wanted to see the big waves regardless.

This is the sunset view from our Airbnb.

Grilling dinner with Sue and Chris.

Sue and Chris were gracious and took us on a sunset catamaran cruise. Thanks, Sue and Chris!!

Chris even got to steer the boat. The waves got pretty big, so he definitely got some of the people who were sitting on the bow a little wet (ok – more like, very wet).

The sunset was nice. I was surprised by how big the waves were further away from shore.

After the cruise we went for dinner on the beach.

From our Airbnb we could see the Waikiki Starlight Luau at Hilton Hawaiian Village, which we went to in 2017.