It kind of sneaked up on me that the month is halfway done already! 15 more posts to finish NaBloPoMo!

Today we spent a few hours playing tourist in Waikiki. My husband has been trying to get a photo of this rig, or any of several others here in Honolulu that also feature a surfboard as necessary equipment. He and the friend who requested the photo, both Chicago firefighters, would be hard pressed to find themselves in any situation that require a surfboard. Obviously here in Honolulu, water rescue is a much bigger part of the job.

My November trip to Hawaii usually takes place later in the month, beginning just before Thanksgiving and sometimes running a few days into December.

It isn’t really a big deal to miss Thanksgiving itself. Whether I’m here on a holiday or not, I’ll still see most, but usually not all, of the family.

But the timing is causing me to miss a few other things. The Christmas parade in my folks’ neighborhood is on the Friday after Thanksgiving. It is a very small one but I always enjoy watching it. We’re also too early for the humpback whales. Even our usual trip dates fall a little too soon, but mid-November means there’s just about no chance of actually sighting a whale.

Three Sumatran tiger cubs were born at the Honolulu Zoo in September. They were the first tigers born there in almost 30 years. And again, that timing thing. They are doing well, but still not receiving visits from the public. They’ll probably be ready to receive visitors shortly after we leave.

Even an old standby day trip couldn’t happen this year as the Diamond Head summit trail is closed for maintenance from October 20-November 20. And to top it off, the Royal Hawaiian Hotel is undergoing major remodeling and is closed until January 2009. We always have a drink at the Mai Tai Bar there on the last night we’re here. The only other time we weren’t able to do that was in 2002 when Governor Linda Lingle chose to have her inauguration ball at the Royal Hawaiian. We weren’t totally kicked out of the Royal Hawaiian, but we were shoved off to some tiny poolside bar area instead.

Timing is everything, huh?

Finally, an actual vacation-type activity!

Today we drove up to the North Shore of Oahu. Every year that drive makes me a little more nostalgic for the way things were when I was a child, or even for the way things were on my husband’s first trip back to Hawaii with me in 1993. I will spare you all the rant about how progress is not always good, or the one complaining about how tourism has wrecked Haleiwa town for well, me. Tourism is down right now and God knows my hometown needs the income it provides.

The highlight of the day for me was visiting the basking sea turtles at Laniakea Beach. Volunteers are always there protecting the turtles from overzealous tourists and local residents alike. You can still get pretty close and the turtles really don’t seem to mind.

The photo links to a few more turtle and beach photos in a Flickr! set for those of you who enjoy turtle watching as I do!

Malama na Honu is the organization whose volunteers devote their time to protecting the turtles, and there is more Laniakea turtle information at turtles.org.

I think we’re finally done battling technology.

Tomorrow I hope to do something more in keeping with a typical tropical vacation, and see green sea turtles basking on the beach. I hope they are more cooperative than the humpback whales, which I have seen exactly one, exactly once, despite a yearly wintertime trip to Hawaii (not to mention the 18 years living here prior to that).