New Year's Day, 2015 Catamaran Sail, Cheesecake FactoryThere

The firecracker guy living in the apartment building across the street from us kept busy setting off strings of firecrackers every ten minutes after midnight until after one in the morning, so we were glad to sleep in just a bit, but we didn't sleep in too late. Harry wanted to take me up to look at the boat he was considering buying, so we grabbed breakfast on the fly from Jack in the Box and headed towards Schofield Barracks which is near where the guy with the boat lived.

Unfortunately, even though the boat was pretty wide for a 22 foot boat, I still couldn't visualize living in a space that small for more than a week or two. We decided not to pursue the idea further. I told Harry I hadn't really wanted to live in Hawaii two months of every year anyway, I would like to have more variety to our travels, and thought we needed to try housekeeping on a small boat we already have before we invest in another, in case we don't end up liking that life after all. I appreciated his efforts to find a way to bring us back to Hawaii, and I will regret it if we can't come back every again, but that still doesn't make me want to jump in and buy the boat he was considering.

We headed back then and got ready for our afternoon adventure using the Go Oahu cards our two youngest sons got us for Christmas. They got the three day version, so our plan was to use New Year's day, Saturday and Sunday to do activities using the cards. Earlier in the week I made the reservations for all the activities, including an afternoon sail on a Catamaran in Honolulu Harbor.

Makani Catamaran

The boat turned out to be first class, good sized and in sparkling shape. We had soda instead of the complimentary alcoholic beverages. As soon as the safety briefing was done we got underway and I went up top and found a spot in a sharp curve of railing at the tip of one hull. I stayed there the whole time, taking photos and enjoying the bounce as we went over the storm generated swells on our way back.

The only disappointment was that we didn't see any whales, dolphins or sea turtles (honu). We saw a school of tiny fish that jumped out of the water like flying fish but that was it. The stormy weather may have been a culprit, though. We could see stormy clouds over part of the land.

When we got back, we went back to the hotel and set right out to walk down the street to the Cheesecake Factory. Kevin and Jessica and kids gave us a generous gift certificate.  We got there close to 4:30 and in spite of there being a number of people waiting, we were able to get seated within about 5 minutes. By that time the line was three deep to the door and was well out the door by the time we left an hour and a half later. Harry had a platter with a few deep fried shrimp, seasoned mashed potatoes and a bit of steak. It was good, but not ample. I, on the other hand, ordered a triple decker BLT with the extra layer being big, fresh, plump grilled local shrimp. Heaven! The tomatoes were ripe, sliced thick and the bacon was as good as any I've had anywhere. The mayo was seasoned with herbs and all was cushioned by finely chopped lettuce on grilled bread. I had a salad with it.

Harry had the raspberry cheesecake for dessert and I had the Godiva chocolate with a base of flour-less chocolate cake and a layer of dark chocolate mousse as well as chocolate cheesecake. There were chunks of Godiva chocolate on top of the cake. It was decadent heaven. I ate it all, but felt stuffed when I was done. It was worth it though.

We cut through between buildings to the beach and walked along as the sun dropped towards the horizon. Harry hadn't been down to the beach with me at any time, let alone at sunset, so it was nice to have him there to see the sunset and listen to the cacophony of birds that come to roost by the hundreds in the Banyan tree nearby.