Taking a break from Terra Firma, I found myself at Windward Watersports in Kailua with the Barefoot Hikers group, getting a crash course in kayak handling and the waters surrounding the Mokulua Islands, also known as Na Mokulua, Twin Islands and the Moks. Don’t stand up in the kayak and avoid the coral reef. Got it.

Who’s first?

We launched from the beach access off Lanipo Road. There is a ban on kayak rental companies from launching at the beaches, luckily the shop let us borrow their truck to haul the kayaks down to the beach.

One leg at a time

I paired up with Jimmy and we climbed in our kayak one leg at a time. Just like putting your pants on.

Use those forearms

We started paddling towards the Mokulua islands, with light winds and 2-3 foot waves. Perfect day for kayaking.

Moku Nui

Left. Right. Left. Right. After making a couple directional corrections to compensate for the currents, we soon spotted the beach on the larger island of Moku Nui.

Beach landing

We dragged our kayak out of the water and onto the beach to avoid being tossed around in the surf. It seemed that waves were coming in from three directions on this beach.

Panoramic view of the Kailua coastline

Click here for the larger image.

Taking a walk on the rocky side

After everybody made it in, we took a short walk on the edge of the island. Going into the interior of the island is forbidden, as it’s a seabird sanctuary for shearwater birds and Bulwer’s petrels.

Queen’s Bath

Jeremy doing a cannonball in the watering hole, known as Queen’s Bath. A pod of whales put on a spectacular breaching show off the islands.

Shearwater burrows

Walking back towards the beach, we noticed a cracked egg lying outside the hill that was pockmarked with shearwater nests. Shearwater birds only have one chick at a time.

Moku Iki

Group photo of the Barefoot Hikers, with the smaller and off-limit island of Moku Iki in the background.

Hit the surf

We didn’t have that much time to explore the island, as we had to return the kayaks back to the rental company by 4:30pm. It was already 3:20pm, so we all decided to head back as the waves were also getting bigger.

Aim for the green house

It was a little harder paddling back, due to the currents and bigger waves. In fact, we “surfed” some of the waves coming back!

Back on the beach

Coming back to the beach access was a lot easier than landing on the Moks. We just basically glided in and dragged our kayak onto the beach.

GPS Tracks

The entire trip was 2.1 miles. Almost makes me want to buy a kayak!

Having hiked Haiku Stairs from the Windward side before the sun has even cracked the day due to access issues, I have found there is another way to get to the top of Haiku Stairs, without skulking around in the dark! That being said, I picked up my friend in Kaneohe and drove into Moanalua Valley and parked at the end of Ala Aolani Street which is right before the park. We climbed over the fence and came across some hunters who were opening the second gate to the trail. They asked us if we were hiking to Haiku Stairs and gave us a couple of pointers and we started out on the old Damon Estate road now known as the Kamananui valley road that took us an hour to reach the Kulana’ahane trailhead.

Middle ridge

We walked about 30 feet past the trailhead markers and crossed the river bed and started working our way up the ridge. If you cross the stream at the trailhead markers, that will take you to the Moanalua Saddle which also leads to Haiku Stairs, but I understand it’s intense okole busting.

Moanalua Valley

Here we are looking back into Moanalua valley with the ridge splitting the valley into two. We also caught glimpses of the Windward side over the Koolau mountains.

Clouds rolling in

Pushing up the ridge, the clouds started to roll in and the wind started to pick up, Mother Nature’s air conditioner was cranking full blast.

Where's the ridge?

At this point in the hike, the clouds and the wind made it a real challenge to walk on the ridge. Luckily, heavy mud glued our feet to the ground as we trudged along the heavily vegetated trail.

Pu'u Keahiakahoe

We came upon the geodetic marker for Pu’u Keahiakahoe at an elevation of 2,820 feet after hiking for about three hours. We had zero visibility thanks to the clouds that had enveloped us at the peak. But we knew the CCL building had to be close by, so we branched off to the right from the sign, hoping the clouds would clear up soon.

CCL building

After hiking for about 10 minutes, our hiking prayers were answered and the clouds cleared up to reveal the CCL building.

Kaneohe

We carefully made our way along the ridge towards the CCL building, with steep drop off views of H3 and Likelike highway snaking through Kaneohe.

H3 freeway

From the CCL building, we saw the H3 freeway disappear into the cloud capped Koolau mountains. To the left, is the ridge that comes up from the Moanalua Saddle, another trail for another day.

Mokoli'i Island

From this direction, we could see all the way up to Kualoa Ranch and Mokoli’i Island sitting offshore, or more commonly known as Chinaman’s Hat.

Haiku Stairs

Looking down at all 3,922 of Haiku Stairs. One thing that was strikingly missing from this hike was the absence of other hikers. We had not run across another soul from the start of Moanalua valley to the top of Haiku Stairs. Where did they all go?

Olomana

Coming down the stairs, we saw the Mokulua Islands, Olomana and Waokele Pond before the clouds started spilling over the Koolau mountains and splattering us with a light rain.

Hoist house

We stopped to take a breather at the graffiti covered hoist house. Hmm, A-frame, pulley, could a zip line be in the works one day?

Going down

When we reached the bottom of the stairs, the guard asked us if we saw a dog up there. On the stairs? He said hunters were looking for their missing dog. Then he casually threw in that he had called the cops about 15 minutes ago when he saw us coming down the stairs. He said there were some recent injuries, so they were really cracking down. That explains the lack of hikers. We beat a hasty retreat, found out that the hole in the fence that we had used months ago was now fixed up, so we had to scale the fence and walked back to my friend’s house in Haiku Gardens, where he drove me back to Moanalua Valley.