Sand Island

Yesterday I had more fun than I have for awhile. I went down to Sand Island to try and sell some old army crap to the surplus store and to check out the old bunkers at the park. I wanted to do the surplus store and then the park, but I accidentally drove past my turn off and decided to do the park first. I didn't think that I'd be there for nearly as long as I was, but I covered a lot of ground and saw some pretty weird sights. I've been to the park maybe twice, but only did a drive through- I'd never gotten out of the car to do a proper walk about. I don't recall seeing anything particularly notable in my past visits. Recently, I heard that there were some old WWII bunkers out there so I decided to do some investigating. Well, the bunkers are there and right out in the main area of the park so I don't know how I didn't notice them on the past trips or maybe I didn't realize what they were. Also, I don't know how the hell I didn't notice the big tower as it's a rather giant feature right in the midst of the park grounds. I followed the road as far as I could drive and then parked my car and set out on foot through the wastelands. Sand Island is an industrial harbor area of Honolulu. There are a lot of shipping warehouses and other things of that nature. The first thing that I came upon was a set of derelict baseball fields. After that I found a muddy lot of rubble on the shore with a set of weirdly cryptic log arches and a bunch of semi-abandoned construction vehicles. Continuing down the shore of the wastelands I came across two separate nude men, two homeless encampments, a BMX track, a mysterious island with several anarchic squatter type houses on stilts, and a yard full of outrigger canoes. On the way back I walked along the beach around the point rather than trekking through all the brush back through the baseball fields. I saw several more nude or semi-nude men including one older Asian man who was incredibly tan and wearing one of those 80s style wireless AM/FM headsets with the antenna on it. He was staring at me. It was very sketchy. The whole place was sketchy and weird and absolutely, totally heavenly. The park afforded some spectacular views of Honolulu and Diamond Head and the surrounding areas.
No one's keeping score:


Looking back:



A long pause during something or other:

What the hell are those arches all about?




The beautiful shoreline:

Industrial wasteland:










Stilt houses on the mystery island:



Naked dude:


The airport's not far away so planes were frequently flying overhead:

Looking back the way I came; there were a couple of derelict lifeguard towers:


Homeless encampments:






The Sandbox BMX track:



More mysterious island stilt house pictures:






Outrigger Canoes:





Someone was paddle boarding:


I walked back briskly because I was totally being baked by the sun. I took my shirt off and made a makeshift turban to keep the sun off my face and neck. The second nude due that I came upon on the way out was now wading about in the water while totally nude. He didn't seem to be the least bit disturbed by an approaching stranger. Now, approaching the point, I opted to go around on the beach rather than cutting through and getting cut up by the brush through the baseball old fields. Along the way I encountered some more nude or semi-nude dudes and sketchiness.
Coming back into the park I encountered these views:







Then I got into my car and took a couple of sips of left over coffee and made my way to see the bunkers and tower:
Sand Island Tower

The first bunker I looked at; there was a feral cat in it:



More bunker fun:







Gun Turrets:
In this first one you can see the mounting brackets that some huge cannon would be attached to-





This is a view of one the tower from one of the ocean facing gun turrets:


Stairway to Nowhere:

She said hello, I said goodbye:





Stopped at the playground on the way out:
Playground train with a big ocean liner docked across the channel-

Tug Boat:

Coast Guard:


Aloha Tower and Cruise Ship:


On the way out  I took a picture of the park's sign: