Friday, October 6, 2017

Along the South Shore of Oahau



We spent much of one day visiting sites and beaches on the southeast coast of the island of Oahau, which is the island that Honolulu is located on.  This first photograph shows the magnificent landscape and the two kinds of coast there, as seen from Halona Cove..  In the foreground is the coastline formed by lava flows.  In the distance is a beautiful sand beach at Sandy Beach Park.  Sandy Beach Park is a well known body surfing beach because of the waves there.  The waves, however, are really tricky, and dangerous.  That beach is informally known as "Break Neck Beach" and people have been disabled and even killed there, when they were dumped on their heads on the beach, by a wave.


This is a view of an area at Halona Blowhole Lookout.  At first I thought these towers of rocks were some kind of natural erosion, but then I realized that they are cairns - stones piled like this by people.  This is an area where waves crash all the time, so  I am not sure how long the cairns last.  It is such a strange kind of landscape to see these towers on the edge of the lava.


And this is the main attraction - the blowhole.  You can watch this for a long time, waiting for the perfect wave pattern to arrive so that water and wind is forced up through the blowhole and you are rewarded with this really cool effect!


4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Beautiful scenery! Trace

Anonymous said...

Beautiful landscape photos. How long did you have to wait for water to rise in the blowhole? That seems amazing.
Joan

Ken Spencer said...

Joan: We watched it for at least half an hour. Of course you are looking over the ocean and the blowhole shoots small amount of spray every few minutes. The trick is to keep watching and watching until a big spray comes out. I must have taken 20 photographs to get this one - some shots are just small amounts of spray.

Anonymous said...

Love the scenic shot of Sandy Beach Park. The 2nd photo looks looks like little creatures looking out :-) Love the blowhole! You have a lot of patience! But that's how you get the best photos!!! betsey