(I haven't ridden on a moped since I got into an accident on one in the second grade! I messed my foot up and had no desire to get back on!) but it was fun and a nice way to see Maui once again.
Our flight to Honolulu wasn't until 10:30pm that night so we decided to head to black rock beach with our friend Rob (again: he owns "Let Me Show You Maui"-check this guy out). Black rock beach is where Doug and I had previously scuba dived and it is a beautiful beach, but a little touristy. However, we weren't going to the beach just to swim----we were going to go jump off some cliffs!!
Rob had Doug convinced that he could do the jump off of the backside of black rock, but me- not so much! The jump is roughly 50 foot (not for me, I'm a wimp and I would definitely break something). Doug and Rob were both psyched up to do it so I watched, prepared with go-pro in hand. As we walked up to the cliff side I couldn't help but notice all the "no diving" and "no jumping" signs! I guess Doug and Rob didn't see them :)....
Rob did the jump first and then Doug was up! As I watched Doug climb up to the peak I definitely freaked inside a little bit hoping that he wouldn't fall. Nonetheless, he did the jump perfectly (big surprise)! He leaped off the side and I held my breath until I saw him swim up through the white ocean splash all in one piece (thank goodness because I was not about to jump in after him).
The guys climbed back up the cliff and we went to the front side of black rock where we then swam to the cliff from the shoreline. We had to climb up the cliff before we could actually jump off of it. This was way harder than I had expected it to be because the waves were much more rough than I had bargained for. I would get my footing then get smashed by a wave and fall right back into the ocean. It took me a few tries but I eventually made it to the top. Doug jumped first and then I went!
It was only 15 foot but I was still scared. I have to say it was an awesome adrenaline rush. You get this one second of thought mid-air where you're like .." Oh no, this is a bad idea!"
But it was totally worth it- sometimes you need to scare your self a bit to feel more awake with your life, more alive. Testing yourself can truly have amazing outcomes.
Doug and I both found the jumps refreshing and we both definitely felt more alive afterwards (could have been all that adrenaline pumping through our bodies, just maybe). Rob jumped last and we all swam back to shore.
After the jump we went back to Rob's place and had a nice dinner with him, his gram, and Katrina. Next we showered and headed to the airport in the worst weather we had encountered thus far in Maui. Thankfully we just left our car at the airport for Rudi (our car guy) to pick it up. Man I would hate to see his face when he heard how bad Haleakala had messed up our brakes. (Fyi-the explorer was from a used car dealership we found on Craig's List- and by that we mean, heavily used) I digress...
The weather really was terrible and our flight ended up getting delayed a couple hours. We got to Honolulu safely but had missed our time slot to pick up our rental car, so.... We slept in the airport...in our sleeping bags... On the cold floor.
We woke up at 5am (people staring at us of course) and rode a shuttle to claim our exciting new car which ending up being..... A bright red fiat! At first I thought that tiny of a car was going to be awful, turns out, we absolutely love it!
We haven't even had to buy gas and we can fit in any parking space, plus it drives nice. We probably look ridiculous, but who honestly cares??- (not us).. Doug even tried to pick it up and for a second I really thought that he was going to! We have named the fiat Ruby and have enjoyed making jokes about how much we surprisingly love it!
So far Honolulu has been great. It's a different vibe than Maui (much more touristy, more of a city) However, we have been to some great places: the famous Waikiki beach:
Did a hike up to Diamond Head:
The Dole Pineapple Plantation and the North Shore: We camped at a beautiful state park at the end of a bay that had the most dazzling "moon shining on the water" scenery I have ever encountered. It looked like something straight out of a movie.
I also used a port-a-potty and had a rooster jump on top of it (scared me to death- I almost fell off the toilet, Doug and I got a great ab-workout in from laughing so much about it).
We also visited the historic Pearl Harbor ( which I will blog about later, because it deserves a post all its own).
So far Honolulu has surpassed our expectations and has been a perfect change of pace for our travels. We love driving around Honolulu, because it's so diverse from Maui (and because our car finally has a working radio we can rock out to, fiat:1, explorer: 0).
We hope you enjoyed reading about our journey in Honolulu this far, have a wonderful day folks!
Aloha ;)
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