Oahu and Wedding Meet & Greet

Thursday was the day before the wedding, and there was a Meet & Greet at the hotel bar in the evening. We were up early to go to Diamond Head for the hike to the top, almost compulsory for those visiting Honolulu.

Diamond Head is an extinct volcano caldera that the US Army used to defend Oahu in the early 20th century. They had buildings in the crater and pillboxes and artillery spotting points up towards the summit. As such the hike used the old infrastructure, tunnels and a spiral staircase, to get to the top.

The trail is only 1.6 miles round trip, gaining 560 feet of elevation. The view from the top is pretty good.

While we were on our way up there were four US Army Black Hawk and one Chinook helicopters that had landed on the field inside the crater. There were a bunch of new recruits that were training on exiting the helicopters and on working with radios when they weren't doing that. It was fairly obvious that this was one of their first days with the helicopters as they were moving very slowly and being shown the same thing multiple times; even a couple placed their packs upside down when the exited the choppers.

We got back to our hotel while it was still decently early in the morning. We got all packed up and checked out and stored our bags there until check-in time at our last hotel. During this time we had booked a catamaran sailing tour. The marina was a fair bit away but we had time so walked and checked our some stores along the way. Getting there, we had a couple choices for lunch from food trucks. We were tight on time so picked the one with the smallest line (not always the way you want to pick your lunch place) and came away with an amazing hot dog to share. 

The catamaran was a very fun time. I don't think either of us had sailed before and it was so nice quietly slicing through the waves. We sailed all the way east to Diamond Head, used the engine to turn us around, then sailed back to the marina. 

There was a bar aboard that poured some very strong drinks. The Long Island iced tea had to have some extra soda added to it to make it palatable. The bartender was not all that excited to be doing his job until the fishing lines they write trailing behind the boat caught something. They reeled in a stout, yellowfin tuna.

Once back on land it was decided to try and walk off some of the drinks before cabling the rest of the way back. We grabbed our bags from the old hotel and walked them the four blocks down Kalakaua Ave to our new hotel, where the wedding was taking place. We got checked in, then headed down to the beach to try boogie boarding. The swells were too small to catch a wave, but we had fun in the water nonetheless.

Got cleaned up at the hotel and headed to the Meet & Greet in the hotel bar. It was a nice setting with appetizers, champagne, and many Mai Thais. After that was done, we joined Stephanie and Big Tom for a couple drinks before heading off to bed.