Surviving Chinaman's Hat

We finally got to climb Chinaman’s hat yesterday!! It has been on our to do list for MONTHS. I did a little Google search in the AM and learned that the water you swim though to get there is hammerhead shark territory, and that the current sometimes gets strong and carries people out to sea. It almost detoured us… almost.

It was great weather and we were excited and nervous.

We took some borrowed boogey boards and the fins that we use to go snorkeling. Jon also had the foresight to bring a dry bag that we filled with water, cameras and our shoes.

The trip out to the island took about 20 min… I kicked as fast as I could because I could not shake the feeling that there were sharks under me (freaky! and most likely all in my head). We got there and found a small trail up, it was some expected hiking and an unexpected amount of rock climbing. I’m not super good at rock climbing; I tend to freak out and have a hard time knowing where my center of balance is. Good thing Jon was a patient teacher :-).

We made it to the top and had the most beautiful view! Looking back at Oahu you can see the Ko’olau mountain range. I hear it is the view from Lost- I’ve never seen the show, but maybe we should start now that we live here!

Coming down was a bit trickier than going up.. but we survived and were happy to get into the water (Because we were pretty hot). We swam like heck to get back to the beach. It was a fantastic whole body work out!

This is not us.. but probably what we looked like swimming back.

On our way home we rewarded ourselves with a trip to a local favorite Papa Ole’s for some shortribs and garlic chicken. A perfect end to a great Saturday hike.

Thanks for reading!