Friday Night Regatta

It seems to be the same picture every Friday night at the coast of Waikiki ... sailboats, busy crew members hissing kites and boats racing to be the first in their class to cross the finish line ..
Friday night is Regatta night! The boats are leaving the harbor around 5pm and depending on the length of the boat the start is around 05:20! I got lucky once more and got the chance to crew aboard 'Runaway' - a 4o foot aluminum race yacht. It is a fun international crowd from New Zealand, Australia, Canada, Germany, ... all over the world. The race lasts for about 90minutes and if the wind blows hard and the crew is in the mood for more beer than we keep on sailing until sunset ... I get the chance to learn so much about racing and the first time it was already adventurous... two boats crashing into each other, ripping kites and a hard breeze ...

Dolphin Pictures

Lucky me - my friends Jeri and Ken brought a disposable waterproof camera to the snorkel day with the dolphins ...
So just to proof that they were really there .. are here some pics!!

Drinks in Town

One of these Fridays ... Iris took me to the 'Romano's Macaroni Grill' for drinks - it's a great Italian restaurant with a cool bar next to an indoor fireplace. It's locatet at the Ala Moana shopping center and because she is coming here all the time the bartenders are super nice and kept sliding us weird drinks I never had before .. like a 'mudslide' or an 'oatmealcookie'.

A Day With The Dolphins

Unbelieveable!!! I never experienced that before .. let me call it one of the best days of my life!
Today I drove up to the northshore with two friends of mine (Ken and Jeri) - passed by Haleiwa and finally got a parking spot at Waimea Bay and wanted to go for a little snorkel tour..
Our favorite corner is the very left side of the bay - you can see turtles there quite often and a looot of fish .. The weather wasn't so good today so I left my camera on the beach for our first trip ... (if I would have known ..). As we stick our heads into the water we can hear the lifeguards yelling something about 'stay aways from the dolphins' - so we look up and see a whole herd coming up about 100 yards away from us .. about 40 to 50 dolphins. You can hear their voices under water - how they get louder the closer they come ... so we swam in that direction alwys sticking our head first over water looking for them jumping until we finally saw them underwater not far away from us ... It wasn't scary at all, it was wonderful, truly fascinating and fulfilling. For about 15min we were in the middle of the family, they swam over us, underneath and next to us .. they were cuddling and snuggling and having sex - never seen that before :)
They were playing in the bay for a long time and moved along the shore for about 3 hours, but never came that close again ...
Wow - spinner dolphins - love them!
After that we went again in the water - spottet turtles, fish and had fun playing with the camera!

Pike Place Market

The pike place market in Seattle is like an institution - you just have to go there!
So I looked for my favorite Backpacker - the 'Green Turtoise', it's right at the corner of Pike Place and just one block from the waterfront and for 30$/night you get a nice bed, breakfast, wifi and helpful people.
The next morning I visit the market early, grab some fruit, a hot chocolate and watch the famous fishermen prepping their fish display and throwing fish around .. a popular tourist attraction in the afternoon, but tough business because which tourist has a kitchen to prep some fresh catch later?
I wander around downtown for a while, spend some time shopping for a bikini and decide to be brave and try some new mexican place .. I already forgot the name again, but it felt a little like the 'Subway' of Mexico and I was overwhelmed with all the choices of ingredients and sauces and the staff guy was a little overburdened when I asked him to just put a tasty burrito together...
But it tasted aaawesome and I joined some tromped duo outside to enjoy my lunch.. nobody really seemed to care for their music, but I thanked them for the nice time and they seemed to be happy about the fact that they entertained one person!
In the evening I catched a plane to ... HONOLULU!