Sunrise Photo Tour: Oahu's Southeast Coast

Sunrise and surf at Eternity Beach

Halona Blowhole

  I have been working on learning my new island home here in Oahu since the start of the new year. My plan is to add island photography tours to the agenda so I want to find the best places for differing light throughout the day. For sunrise the East coast of the island is the obvious choice but there are lots of potentially great spots for sunrise photos from Hanauma Bay to Lanikai. I stopped at a few of these today and had a wonderful time.

The woman on the cliff adds some perspective to the blast

  The first stop on the tour was the Halona blowhole. There is a popular scenic overlook here but I am always looking for new and different angles. Heidi and I found out about a secret beach down under the scenic overlook called Eternity Beach that is a great scuba dive spot so I headed down to the beach. The sun came up right in the middle of the channel heading out between the cliffs. That was what I was hoping for. After a couple shots there I hurried across the rocks to the blowhole around the corner. The swells were coming in and funneling into a submerged cave getting compressed and blown up and out in a geyser of white wash. These blowhole formations can be deadly for unsuspecting people getting too close and falling in. One lady was close but stayed safe and dry, until she ventured to the ledge where a huge wave crashed over her. Still safe but not dry at all.

   
   After the blowhole I continued down the coastline and stopped at one of my favorite beaches, Makapu'u. This is a popular body surfing beach but today the waves were pretty massive. The swell has some east in it so it is hitting this east facing shore pretty hard. A couple surfers were out but what really caught my eye was the silhouetted lighthouse on the cliff facing these beautiful backlit waves.

View towards Sandy's

Water rushing back down the blowhole

  I figured I would hit all the hot spots this morning so I continued on to Lanikai after a quick stop at Waimanolo beach park where I had helped with a photo shoot last weekend. Lanikai is an upscale neighborhood with beautiful clear water and a couple of offshore islands that people love to kayak out to. I have been here for sunrise before and it is always gorgeous. Today was no different. I just love the color of the water here, so tropical and blue.

  Heading back through the Ko'olau Mountain range to Honolulu I made one last stop at the Pali overlook. I had heard about a steep hike heading up from this popular overlook to a hole in the rocks. I was a little unprepared with my slippers (sandals) on but I made it about 3/4 of the way up before having to turn around due to muddy, steep, slippery conditions. And the fact that one side of the trail was a 500ft sheer dropoff raised the stakes a bit as well. I'll save it for another, dryer, day.

Big Waves at Makapu'u

Makapu'u Lighthouse

Footprints in the sand

Beautiful water of Lanikai