Family Trip to the Makapu'u Tidepools

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Makapu'u Tidepools - March 18, 2015

Today we finally had a chance to do the Dragon's Nostrils hike. Jared and I have been wanting to do this hike for a while now. Today, we finally committed to the hike.

This hike starts on the Lighthouse trail. About halfway on the Lighthouse trail, you take a junction down to the tidepools. Not only were we going to see the tidepools and dragon's nostrils, but also whales playing right off shore. 

The drive to Hawaii Kai was slow because of all of the lane closures. Getting anywhere on Oahu now days takes a lot of time. Its a 'catch 22'. People complain about our crappy roads. When the city decides to fix the roads, they have to close lanes. Now people are complaining about the traffic. 

We took a risk today going to the Lighthouse trail because the city is fixing it and have closed it a few times in previous weeks. Although they were doing work today, the trail was open, probably because of spring break. Jared was exhausted walking up the trail, he is really out of shape, or I'm in really amazing shape. I probably can run the trail up and down without any problems. 

About a 1/2 mile in, the whale sign is the junction to go down to the tidepools. As we proceeded, a tourist couple warned us that going down was "too steep". I ignored their warning and headed down. After about 2 minutes, they realized I was an experienced hiker and asked us if they could follow. I told them, "sure, but they would have to wait for Jared". They agreed. 

Going down took us about 10 minutes, maybe longer. Immediately, you can hear the Dragon's Nostrils. Its powerful, and the tide was low today. Can't imagine when the tide is high. In the summer, the south swells probably pound the rocks and the nostrils will probably blow hard. Today, it only blew a few times and we were there for over an hour. At the same time, humpback whales were playing about 150 yards off shore. There were about 20 people watching the show, mesmerized by the events unfolding. The whales played for about 20 minutes and then drifted away from us. 

Kiawe tree & Koko Crater Rim

tidepools

dragon's nostrils

whales playing offshore

lighthouse in background

Jared and I walked to one of the tidepools and put our feet in the water to cool off. It was hot today!!! Very hot! After cooling down, we headed back up. Jared went up fast and I was surprise at his cardio because he struggled on the way over to the tidepools. After the hike, he got super tired though and took a nap in the car while we headed to Chinatown for some dim sum at Royal Kitchen. Today was an amazing day, Jared actually soaked it in very well. 

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