There is a place along Waikiki beach where the sand narrows to nothing, and flaneurs are forced onto a stretch of concrete walkway between the softly melodic performances in the hotel gardens on one side, and the rocky ocean on the other. In fact this is one of the loveliest portions of the walk, since it is a dangerous area for swimmers and a fruitless one for surfers.  In other words - it is quite empty.

Apparently I am not the only creature to notice this.  At midweek, when I walked up the stairs at the end of this walkway, I noticed a group of people who had gathered to look intently at the ocean below.  Peering over the railing near them, I saw why: the lonely strip of unpopulated water attracts giant sea turtles, who will come right up to shore to frolic.

And now, as promised yesterday, the pictorial O'ahu diary. 


It was overcast at midweek, to the undoubted distress of those who had only a few days here to crisp up their tan and make up for fifty straight weeks of cubicle dwelling and vitamin D deprivation.  But the ocean manages a gunmetal beauty regardless of the weather.


And of course the sunsets are all the more dramatic for peeking beneath a drapery of clouds.


You get a sense here of yesterday's point about the way the seascape rings changes on any number of saturated colors in a matter of minutes.  These photographs were taken over a period of about forty minutes....