Recently, I was lucky enough to visit the Hawaiian island of Oahu for the first time, and now here are some posts to share some of the experience.

Oahu is one of the smallest of the Hawaiian islands, and by far the most densely populated. I made the trip for work, so I spent most of my time indoors in meetings. Still, I managed to enjoy a week of sunrise and sunset at the beach, and although I was “stuck” in tourist-riddled Waikiki Beach – well, there are reasons that locations become popular, and here the natural beauty shines through the murk of tourism and overpopulation. Honolulu may be the least lovely spot in Hawaii, but that least surpasses many a most.

To get to Hawaii from Los Angeles I took a five hour flight over the Pacific Ocean.

Traffic sucked on the shuttle from the airport to Waikiki. Turns out traffic sucks everywhere in Honolulu. I could even see traffic snarls from my hotel room.

Fortunately my room had a big window and this was the rest of the view, at night

and during the day.

I was on the 17th floor and I kept the large window open all the time to luscious warm fresh air.

The harbor water is brown for at least two reasons. The rocks and dirt are all volcanic – very high in iron –  which makes standing water look rusty.

Also, the harbor water is filthy. You probably can’t see the black fish nibbling this trash from below.

Best to view the harbor at night, especially when the neighboring hotel stages its weekly fireworks display.

One wonders whether the hotels also stage the vast number of rainbows that materialize over their roofs. Many are double rainbows.

Here’s a rainbow with a nearly full moon, just prior to a golden sunset.

I spent my days at meetings in the convention center, where this was the view of the ocean.

But the sunsets were my own to enjoy.

And I was up to await the dawn, just like these palm trees.

Amazing how many people were in the water at dawn!

Hawaiian beaches are gorgeous yet incomplete, as they lack pelicans. There are plenty of pigeons and seagulls. Also, this handsome bird hung out with fisherman near a bridge.

He never let me get any closer than this. Catlike, he would walk  as though indifferent to me, but aware of my every move, to maintain this distance whether I slowed down, sped up, or stopped.

I have multiple  pictures of this bird, taken on more than one day, all at this distance.

This is the first of three posts about my trip to Hawaii. I also blogged about a walk from Waikiki to Diamond Head and glimpses of non-tourist Oahu.