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Sabrina presented a paper at the conference this morning, and had the afternoon off. So I had a late breakfast at the hotel, and then sauntered in the general direction of the conference hotel.
Between our hotel and the conference location, there are several parks and an Army Museum. I wasn't especially interested in the contents of this museum, but I did step in for a moment to borrow some of their air conditioning and check out the gift shop.
When Sabrina was done, we met up and headed back towards our hotel for lunch. En route, we came across a food-truck food court, and ate there instead. Well, Sabrina ate, anyway. I just watched.
The plan for the afternoon was to drive out to Hanauma Bay to do some more snorkeling, so we retrieved the car, obtained some towels from the hotel, and headed about 10 miles east. Along the way, we stopped at a scenic overlook with the other side of Diamond Head visible in the distance.
Hanauma Bay is the type of location they put on postcards. It's really unbelievable. I had seen photos while researching it earlier in the week, but it's even more incredible in person. I took about 40 pictures of it, from different vantage points, and at different times of day, hoping some of them would look as good as the ones a Google image search turns up.
The walk down into the crater is quite steep, but they had (what they call) a tram you could ride (for a nominal fee) if you don't feel like exercising. Really, it's a trailer pulled by a Jeep Wrangler. Actually, they had several of them.
The snorkeling was excellent, as advertised. Once again, I decided to push my luck with the length and depth (literally) of the waterproof phone case, but I think the risk was worth it.
No seal this time, and I was mildly disappointed that we didn't see a turtle. The assortment of fish resembled what we recall from snorkeling in Maui. Most of them are easily identifiable.
Some of those fish were quite large; it was slightly startling to come upon one or two of them suddenly, over a ridge of coral, but being in the middle of a school of them was downright unnerving. The fish in the last few pictures were in the 18" to 24" range.
After several hours of alternating snorkeling with beach-relaxing (and phone recharging), we were exhausted, so we hopped in the Hyundai and headed home to the hotel.
For dinner, we again decided to embrace our inner (resort) tourist, and headed to Duke's Waikiki, right on the beach in one of the resort hotels just up the street. A serious slice of Hula Pie ended the evening.
Tomorrow, no conference. We plan to head to the west coast for a day of slow(er) paced relaxation.
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