Ko-Olina 2014

We took the shortest plane ride ever to get to Oahu.  Richard was taking a later flight and Abby was working but she was able to pick us up and drop us off at Ko'Olina until Richard got in.  After seeing so much untamed wild of Maui, our first look at an Oahu beach seemed disturbingly manicured.  Luckily, not all the beaches are this manicured and once you get used to it, this beach does bring a nice almost Stepford wife-ish vibe.  After all, how can you  not like perfection?  These beaches are actually four man-made lagoons next to a handful of huge resorts.  The nice thing (well one of the many) about Hawaii is that all beaches are public.  This means that none of the beaches get very crowded/noisy/polluted and the resorts/hotels near beaches feel the need to keep them nice but understand that everyone is invited.  

This is the Disney resort next to the lagoon we were swimming in.  Shhh!  We took a little dip in their pool, only a few minutes.  They really know how to do it.  Everything was beautiful and they had music from all of their ocean movies playing as well as general ocean sound effects.  They pump in ocean water and get it to the most perfect temperature.  They had a pirate ship splash pool and a lazy river as well as infinity pools and even a pool with a reef and real tropical fish kids can snorkel in.  Genius.  If we bring Josh, that would be the place to stay.   

At another one of the resorts they have an outdoor lounge area sandwiched between the pool and a shark pool with 4-5 foot long hammerhead and grey reef sharks.  Many places in the pool were just shallow enough to require the sharks to let their dorsal fins come out of the water which was pretty cool but probably kind of annoying for the sharks.  

This was a "crowded" beach on Oahu.  Not too bad, especially considering that it was just outside of the Disney resort.  A high reef keeps most of the large wildlife out of the lagoon, it was shallow enough and small enough to warm the water well, and they constructed breakers to keep the worst of the waves out so it was just about as safe and comfortable as you can get swimming in the ocean.