Day 13

We spent the morning driving around the coast towards the North of the island but we kept stopping at view points as the scenery was so dramatic and there was a lot of amazing beaches. We kept seeing mountains and wondering if they were the ones that we would watch on Lost!!

After returning to Waikiki we went into a shop to buy some water when James noticed that they sold something called 'crickettes' beside the till. On closer inspection they were actually real crickets that you would find hopping about! He had to buy them and eat them - I couldn't touch them!!! Yuck!!

We had booked on a submarine trip in the afternoon so we went to the Hilton hotels private jetty and got onto the boat that would take us out into the sea where we would then transfer onto the submarine. On the boat out we saw lots of people surfing quite far out from the beach - which is one of the things that made Waikiki famous. Once we were out in the sea the boat stopped and we had a quick safety briefing and we were told to watch out of the right side of the boat as the submarine emerged from the sea. The submarine lets up a huge bubble first to let boats on the surface know it is coming up - then pops up a few seconds later. It was something I had only seen in films before but it did literally come shooting out of the water! We then stepped down from our boat onto the top of the submarine and climbed down the hatch. It was surprisingly spacious inside! We then dove to 110ft below sea level and instantly seen some of the man made reef. There was old planes and boats sunk to the bottom of the sea and through the really clear light blue sea there was huge schools of fish, sharks and sea turtles.

The rest of the day was spent wandering around Waikiki and enjoying the relaxed atmosphere felt in the Hawaiian city.