Honolulu, Oahu Hawaii

We have arrived in Honolulu.  The old volcano Diamond Head greeted us to port. 

Off to ride in a Submarine!  Really!  We even saw the sub being towed out this morning to open sea where we would be boarding later today.

We took a bus from the cruise ship to Waikiki beach where a boat that would ferry us out to the Atlantis Submarine. 

Before we boarded the ferry, we saw a sea turtle swimming near by.

The sub was off shore in deep water.

The Atlantis is the largest in the fleet of subs the company owns with a max of 64 passengers, 100 feet in length, and a max approved diving depth of 150 feet below the surface.  With only electric propulsion, the top speed is 2.5 knots.  View ports for each passenger are large and 4 inches thick.  Our first view of the sub was it surfacing.

 I almost didn't get a picture of the sub coming up and blowing it's tanks.  Cool!

​Our sub has arrived.  This is going to be fun.

After the current passengers leave the sub, we board.  We got seats right up front. That works to our advantage later.

Soon after we dove everything looked green.  The reason is that blue light is filtered out by the sea water.

We dove to just over 100 feet in depth. The entire time we kept surface pressure so there was no need to clear our ears at all. The tour guide told us that we were now members of a limited number of people in the world that have been that far below the surface.  Only some scuba divers and military submarines go deeper.  Neat!

The sub had huge windows for us to look through.  Each of us had our own to look through.  We saw lots of fish some that were very big and some green sea turtles.  The company placed several ships, a couple of planes, and some reef structures that we passed very close to and gave us great pictures.  The largest structure was fishing ship that was over 100 feet in length.

We all loved the trip and would have done it again if we could.  This submarine trip was great.

After that, we had a couple of hours to shop near the shore and have some lunch.  It is amazing to me that even a hole in the wall food vendor will place a pretty flower on your plate.  We did shop at the "required" tourist shopping location, the ABC stores.  Locals say this means All Blocks Covered.  They are everywhere.  The stores have lots of tourist stuff along with some convenience store items, like food and liquor, wine, beer…  The strangest thing was Tuna and Wahoo Jerky.