Day 20 Sunday 16 November

The sailing boat wreck does not look like it moved during the night, so after breakfast we wandered down & had another look at it. It has gotten lower in the water again. I have since found out from the local news that it is 31 feet long & called “Love Boat” & had four people on board when it struck the reef. One swam ashore & the other three were rescued. Then it was time for a swim. The sea bottom is full of little pieces of coral & rock, so it is not that pleasant to walk on, though the water is warm as compensation. No waves near the shore, only some small ones out on the reef. After a long swim, back to the apartment for a shower. I am so missing my 2 swimming partners, Jackson & Austin. Poppy Ron only lasts a short time in the water so I have to swim by myself & that’s no fun. In Hawaii there are no Sea Gulls but the pigeons (they are mainly white) sure make up for it

Monica told us to try the “Dukes” restaurant because she & Charly ate there when they were here on their honeymoon. Today was the day for lunch at “Dukes” – the Outrigger Hotel, on the beachfront, where we had the all you can eat buffet. You can’t really eat very much but the buffet had a lot of salads & fruit, what we are missing from my home cooking. We took our time, filled right up with nice salad/food, finishing off with a big platter of fruit. The pineapple is so sweet in Hawaii. We walked down to the end of Waikiki Beach & came across some emergency vehicles attending to someone. Something amazing, the fire trucks carry surfboards here in Hawaii. We then walked slowly back to our apartment, browsing through a number of shops. The number of Japanese tourists is amazing, though we didn’t see any brides today, time on the beach is not the same without them.

A quite afternoon with our windows wide open to catch the cool breeze & dinner at Snapper’s (again) – they served him such a huge rib eye fillet that I cannot imagine how he managed to eat it all. Ron was hankering after a big steak, he even looked down from our window & counted at least 24 people waiting at the “Out Back” restaurant so we walked down to Snappers – it has a pub atmosphere. I didn’t feel like anything. Snappers were very full too. There are 2,400 Jehovah Witness’ in town so a lot of them were eating in there as well.