Mokulua Plane Wreck

I love having visitors. My mom came to Oahu for the Labor Day weekend. We had a wonderful time hiking, kayaking, and just spending time together. Our kayaking adventure was something I have had on my list of Hawaii gems for six months. We rented a double and a single kayak. Mike took the single. We loaded our boats with fins, masks, and snorkels. I love the picture below. Mom is working hard and I'm hanging out. Good job, Mom!

We used GPS coordinates found on this blog and used Mike's triathlon watch to get us there. Mike found the wreck with far less trouble than I would have thought. Basically we looked for the dark reef and the landing strip at Bellows Air base. He jumped in and swam around until the watch told him we were there. Voila! While he was splashing around, Mom and I looked for sea turtles. She saw three. I only saw too. They poked their cute curious little heads out of the water to watch us, but swam away when we unloaded our fins.

The plane is a cool old P-47 thunderbolt that's been hanging out down there for the past 70 years. The engine of the plane failed right after takeoff from Bellows. The plane went down, pilot lived. Apparently in Hawaii, if you wreck your plane, you just leave it. We've been to three plane wrecks on Oahu now. I'll post on the other one soon. It seems the wreck was still visible above the water until the 70s when a storm pushed it out to see. Now it's wedged between sections of reef about 12 feet down. The tail is ripped off and lays to one side while the engine and propeller are further beyond it. The whole plane is in remarkably good condition for 70 years of harsh ocean water. We jumped in and did a whole bunch of swimming around. Mom even leaned over the edge to check it out. I paddled her over to the engine too.

After 20ish mins, we'd seen what there was to see and jumped back in. We took off toward the Mokes, a pair of beautiful islets off the coast of Lanikai. We landed on the bigger of the two (with about 50 other people...ewwww) and did a little walking around. The islands are bird sanctuaries and smell about how you'd expect. It's about two miles to paddle from Moku Nui, the larger of the Twin Islands, back to Kailua Beach Park. We totaled 4 miles round trip paddling. Go us! Our arms were noodles.