Wacko Waikiki

I'll bet you thought I was kidding when I said I was on my way to the beach. I wasn't. I actually took this with a little camera with more bells and whistles than my home computer. Talk about learning new tricks.

This is supposed to be the beach. It attracts as many as 110,000 people a day! I know. Who in their right mind would want that? But hey, it was my first time in Honolulu and I really wanted to see it for myself.

Contrary to what you might think, I learned that this is not a friendly place for people who like to go for a swim. A scientist named Chuck Blay did research on death by drowning in Hawaii. He explained it this way: "A guy comes here. He looks out there. And it's so beautiful and blue and inviting that he goes in. The water's warm and pleasant, and it seems benign. But what he doesn't think about is that we're in the middle of the ocean here, two thousand miles from the nearest land. There's nothing to stop the waves or slow their momentum." Of the many drowning victims he'd studied, 75 percent were visitors and 90 percent were white males in their forties and fifties. In that case, I decided I'd be pretty safe, since I'm just an old dog.

In the foreground you will see Ralph, the guy with the white hat. He was a member of our group and one of the nicest people I know. I will tell him that my first ever digital photo posted in this weblog is of him - along with all the other people sitting on the beach next to the ocean where people are advised not to swim.