My week in Hawaii …

… was awesome!

Part 6 - Submarine adventure 7/7

We had yet another early start to the day, and were wolfing down breakfast under the nervous watch of our parents, who didn’t want to be alte for our bus.

Turned out the tickets we had were mis-printed, and told us to meet for the bus two hours earlier. I could have told them that. Why would we need to meet up at 11am to get to a 1pm submarine ride, when it is just down the beach!

So finally we had some free time to lounge by the pool, and get some sun. With my fair skin, not too much. Nyssa showed us up, with her ridiculous tan, after only a very small time in the sun.

The bus took us to the Hilton hotel at the end of Waikiki beach, and onto a wharf where we waited for the shuttle boat to the submarine site. These submarines are able to hold over 60 people and take them down to a depth of almost 150ft. They could probably go deeper, but the US Coastguard sets that limit.

We had to wait for a while, until we spotted the first submarine breach the surface of the water. From there the first 60 people jumped on and disappeared below the surface. After that we raced to the second site, where the other submarine would shortly surface.

We were able to spot its shape beneath the water, and I got a picture or two of it surfacing. Once on board we were treated to a great view through massive portholes, made of 3in glass.

Once everyone was in the submarine, we dived to about 40ft, to check out some artificial reefs and the marine life around them. We then dived to 80ft to check out some pyramidal reefs, placed by the University of Hawaii. There was quite a bit of activity around these reefs, quite a lot of tropical fish. At 80ft beneath the surface, the light coming from the sun is heavily filtered, removing pretty much all traces of the colour red. It was quite unique to look around and see that everyone had become bluish! We also passed a plane wreck, put there on purpose, not a real one!

We made our deepest descent to 120ft, where even the yellow on Andrew’s shirt and turned pretty much blue. Here we saw a shipwreck (artificial again) and plenty of fish, even a turtle or two. Finally after about 20 minutes we surface to the top. I didn’t even notice any change in the pressure, which was very welcome as I was getting progressively sicker at this stage.

It was a really cool experience to be down that deep in a submarine, but overall the marine life wasn’t very impressive. I’ll take snorkelling off the coast of Australia any day.

Back at the beach we had some food then headed to the Ala Moana shopping centre. It is apparently very big, and has lots of designer outlets. Nyssa was drooling at the prospect. I wasn’t entirely unimpressed, it’s certainly much bigger than crappy Westfields in Sydney, but once again, I’ve seen bigger in Shanghai and Hong Kong. Andrew always gets annoyed when I compare things to China, but it’s true. It wasn’t that big. I ended up leaving quite early as I began to feel dizzy and very crap. I did however pick up some Tylenol PM (Extra Strength) to knock me out once I got back to the hotel.

For dinner we went to a steakhouse, and I finally was treated to a big meal. I had a 450gram steak and prawns. I was very satisfied after that meal!

A couple of Tylenol later and I was sleeping like a baby.