Skip to main content

Diamond Head Lighthouse

This is one place that most people never get to tour. But because I'm special, I got to go.

Actually this is a case of just knowing the right people. Our friends who popped up to surprise us know the people who live by this lighthouse. It's in a gated area and in the yard of their house. You can see it from the road and the beach, but you can't get close to it or go in it unless you know the folks who live there.

Or know someone who knows the folks who live there.

We went with three of our favorite families. The Diamond Head Lighthouse is on the southern side of the island. You can read about it here if you are so inclined.


Before we even walked in to the lighthouse, we stood on the retainer wall to watch the whales. I have never seen them so active! They were leaping out of the water over and over. One lay on his side and whapped his flipper onto the water again and again. Another one kept slapping his tail down. It was an amazing display and now ranks up there in one of the top best days of my life.

We got to go inside the caretakers cottage which is now used as a guest house.

It is the cutest little house inside with a kitchen and bathroom. I'd love to stay there but will most likely never have the opportunity.


Then we headed inside the actual lighthouse. At the base there is a guest book for everyone to sign as they go in. We all signed it in case we are ever famous and they want to frame it and put it on the wall to show that we were once there. This particular framed page from the guest book shows the month of December in 1941. On the 7th someone wrote, "Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor". No one signed the guest book again until the 21st.

We climbed all the way to the top, up a spiral staircase. I was a nervous wreck while we were out on the ledge. That rail looked pretty flimsy. I stayed near the wall.



We even got to see the lens which was really cool. The view in both directions was amazing!


Mostly.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Mammogram

I'm having my annual mammogram today. I always hear about how painful they are, but honestly, I've never thought they are that bad. Not the most comfortable, but not painful either. Every time I have a mammogram, I'm reminded of this story. It won the Erma Bombeck Writing Competition and I still get a kick out of it every time I read it. So I'm posting it here today for your reading pleasure: Erma Bombeck Writing Competition 1st place in Humor Category Winner Leigh Anne Jasheway of Eugene, Oregon "The First Time's Always the Worst" The first mammogram is the worst. Especially when the machine catches on fire. That's what happened to me. The technician, Gail, positioned me exactly as she wanted me (think a really complicated game of Twister - right hand on the blue, left shoulder on the yellow, right breast as far away as humanly possible from the rest of your body). Then she clamped the machine down so tight, I think my breast actually turned inside o...

Ben's Feet

Ben went camping with his youth group this weekend. He said it was the best weekend he's had since we've been in Hawaii, and possibly in his entire life. The one negative part was that he stepped on some coral out in the water and cut his feet up pretty good. He swears it was all dead coral - you shouldn't touch live coral, much less walk on it because it damages the coral. No one ever mentions that it also damages your feet. They just tell you not to damage the coral. Also, coral is a living organism . If you step on live coral and a tiny piece breaks off in the cut, it will continue to grow. Did you see the movie Alien ? If some creature incubates in Ben's feet, then breaks out and eats us all one night, I'm going to be quite miffed. (Make sure you read the inscription on his tee shirt in this picture. It's quite appropriate.)

Luau, Luau

This week we attended our first luau! We went to the luau at the Hale Koa hotel. The grounds were just incredible. There were men playing soft Hawaiian music, the plants and flowers were glorious. There were people in native costumes making headbands out of palm fronds, chopping up fresh coconut for us to taste, handing out flowers for us to put behind our ears and handing out seashell leis to each guest. It was very relaxed and peaceful. This was a Samoan man who kept us entertained during the cocktail hour. He was very funny! Check out those tattoos. He said the tattoos were part of a rite of passage that he had to go through. He said it took fourteen days to complete the tattoo and, yes, it hurt. And yes, everything was tattooed. He demonstrated how to climb a coconut tree using only a bandanna around his feet. They picked people out of the audience and gave them a quick hula lesson. Katie was thrilled to be one of the people chosen and of course it irritated Ben because he thi...