Real Hawaiian getaways: a brief guide to some great adventures in paradise.

A brief guide to some great adventures in paradise.

When world travelers speak of great adventure in exotic places, America's only tropical place seldom makes anyone's wish list. Africa, India, and Malaysia get the call, but Hawaii gets a laugh. You go there to kick back at Waikiki, sip fresh pineapple juice, and enjoy the sun.

While this easygoing image, carefully crafted by tourism brokers, is accurate, it is not the full picture, as anyone who explores beyond the beach mat soon discovers.

No other place, certainly no other chain of islands, offers such a variety of adventure as Hawaii. The reason is simple--no other place is so geographically diverse with its rain forest, volcanoes, waterfalls, tropical lagoons, and snow-capped mountain peaks.

The Hawaiian Islands may appear on the map as punctuation in the Pacific--apostrophes and commas on a blue sea--but each island is larger than life and infinitely complex. Oahu alone has 112 miles of coast with 50 miles of sandy beaches and 594 known surfing spots -- including Waikiki.

Honolulu is a city founded by great adventurers -- whalers, sailors, and missionaries--and, despite a century of urban sprawl, great outdoor adventures are still only a step away. Nowhere else within 60 minutes of downtown in any major U.S. city can you snorkel a crystal lagoon, climb an old volcano, surf monster waves, fish for record marlin, kayak to a desert isle, picnic on a sandbar, soar in a glider over tide pools, skin-dive on a sunken airplane, bicycle through a rain forest, golf a championship course, or sail into a Pacific sunset.

The nicest thing about Oahu--besides its eternal June--is you can drive a little and do a lot. The island is only 44 miles long and 30 miles wide, but its 594 square miles are incredibly scenic.

Oahu at a Glance

(oh-aw-hoo) Nickname: "The Gathering Place" Flower: ilima Color: orange Capital: Honolulu Area: 594 square miles Population: 836,231 (1990) Highest point: Ka'ala Peak, 4,020 feet

Most Oahu adventures start with an ascent of 760-foot Diamond Head, the landmark crater whose summit offers a 360-degree view of Waikiki and the blue Pacific.

No greater view of an island exists anywhere than the one from atop Diamond Head. It's can easy 45-minute morning hike up almost 100 stairs, through tunnels to the top. Go early, before the noonday sun beats down.

How to do it: Enter at Monsarrat and 18th avenues on the crater's inland (or mauka) side. Catch Bus 58 from Ala Moana Shopping Center.

The big waves snarl out of the Pacific on Oahu's north shore like a tsunami and roars like a freight train to form a perfect barrel-shaped wave before smashing almost at your feet in foam. You may have seen the Branzai Pipeline, the world's most famous surfing wave, on television reruns of Hawaii Five-O, but it's not the same as seeing it in person. In winter, when it can hit 20 feet and more, world-champion wave riders challenge the pipeline. Don't forget your binoculars, or your surfboard, if you dare.

High up in the Koolau mountain range that defines Oahu's windward side, the Nuuanu Pali lookout at 1,186-feet above sea level is no less breath-taking, especially when the wind blows straight up the corrugated green velvet cliffs. From this vantage point Oahu reveals its full natural beauty with jagged cloud-wreathed peaks, turquoise bays, and the deep blue Pacific beyond. This lookout is worth a look. It's just off the Pali Highway (State Highway 61) about 25 minutes' drive from Waikiki.

For most, Oahu's greatest adventure is Hanauma Bay, where the warm clear water in an open-mouthed sea crater teems with tropical fish.

The calm, shallow inner reef is the most popular snorkel spot in Hawaii. Just wade in and look down in this outdoor aquarium with 150 varieties of tropical fish, like the banana trumpet fish, rainbow wrasse, and Hawaii's celebrated humuhumu-nukunuku-a-pua'a, a tiny triggerfish that is the official state fish.

Go early, about 9:00 a.m. Pack a picnic lunch, or try local snack bar, and spend the day at Hanauma Bay.

How to Do It: Take Highway 1 east until it becomes Kalanianaole Highway (State Highway 72). Go past Hawaii Kai subdivision to Lunalillo Home Road. An overhead sign points straight ahead to Hanauma Bay, on the right, around the bend, about four miles.

Adventure on Maui starts before sunrise and lasts deep into the tropical night. The thrill of a lifetime for most is a coast down the volcanic slopes of 10,200-foot high Mount Haleakala (Hawaiian for "house of the sun"). It's scary at first because it begins in darkness high above the clouds.

Maui at a Glance

(mow-ee) Nickname: "The Valley Isle" Flower: lokelani Color: pink Capital: Wailuku Area; 729 square miles Population: 90,000 Highest point: Mount Haleakala, 10,023 feet

In the thin air of the two-mile-high summit you jump on a 19-inch Schwinn cruiser bike with 26-inch wheels and "megabrakes" for the longest downhill ride in the world-38 miles of switchbacks.

Anyone can do it, except expectant moms. More than 10,000 people from 7 to 70 have cruised the crater.

Down parkas give way to aloha shirts as riders glide down Maui's mighty volcano through seven different climate zones, from subarctic to subtropical, on the 6-hour ride. Average speed is 15 to 20 miles an hour.

Keep an eye out for the nene, an endangered goose that's Hawaii's state bird; and look for the silversword, a six-foot silvery plant that grows only on Maui.

How to do it: Buy a $99 ticket at Cruiser Bob's Original Haleakala Downhill at 505 Front St., Lahaina, Maui, or call [phone]. Includes bike, escort, gloves, and breakfast at Kula Lodge. Children under five feet must ask for a small bike.

After sunset the stars above Maui shine big and bright because the tropical sky in the mid-Pacific is almost pollutant-free and there are no big-city lights to interfere with what astronomers call the "seeing."

Every amateur astronomer can actually see the Milky Way, the rings of Saturn, and the Sea of Tranquility on the moon.

Welcome to stargazing Maui-style, a year-round adventure on the roof of the Hyatt Regency Maui. Tap a computer keyboard to find your star, then push a computer joystick to zero in on galaxies through high-powered binoculars.

How to do it: Call the Hyatt Regency Maui, 808-661 - 123, for a 90-minute look at the stars. Three slows nightly after sundown. Free to hotel guests; $5 per person for others.

If you go the Big Island of Hawaii and don't see the volcano, you've missed the greatest show on earth.

It's a hot, sweaty, often scary 1.5-mile hike across new lava beds to Apua Point to see the earth on fire in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. Yet more than 1,000 people a day, mostly families, take the hike.

Big Island at a Glance

(ha-vi-ee) Nickname: "The Big Island" Flower: lehua Color: red Capital: Hilo Area: 4,039 square miles Population: 105,000 Highest point: Mauna Kea, 13, 796 feet

Rivers of red molten rock run down the slopes of the crater and cascade into the cool saltwater. Steamy clouds rise like a thousand campfires. The whole world smells of sulfur. Go before sundown when red-hot magma shows its full fury in gathering darkness.

How to do it: Before you go, call Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, 808-967-7977, for the 24-hour volcano eruption update. Pay $5 at park entrance, take Crater Rim Road around Halemaumau Crater to Chain of Craters Road. Drive 30 miles to the end of Chain of Craters Road, where trail head begins.

Everyone held their breath as the submarine angled deeper into the Pacific to the lair of the white-tipped shark. Dive with sharks? It's safely done in submarine, one of Hawaii's most popular deep-water adventures

Atlantis Submarines offers day dives, but the night dive from the Big Island's Kailua-Kona Pier is the most thrilling. because of the sea creatures you'll meet.

The 65-foot sub, with 26 portholes, dives to 18 fathoms (108 feet) just before sunset. Little reef fish scurry to safety in coral heads as sharks and barracudas begin to prowl. In the inky deep, the sub's spotlights pick up octopus, free-swimming eels, and, occasionally, a 40-foot-long whale shark.

How to do it: The sub departs from Kailua-Kona Pier at 5:30 p.m. nightly. It costs $74 for adults and $48 for children, who, by U.S. Coast Guard safety regulations, must be at least 36 inches tall. Call Atlantis Submarines, 808-329-6626, at Hotel King Kamehameha for reservations.

Kauai at a Glance

(cow-eye-ee) Nickname: "The Golden Island" Flower: mokihana Color: green berry Capital: Lihue Area: 549.4 square miles Population: 45,000 Highest point: Mount Waialeale, 5,243 feet

It looks like Arizona except that it's in Hawaii--which is why Kauai's Waimea Canyon got the nickname "Grand Canyon of the Pacific."

A canyon hike that's not a cliff-hanger, the three-hour round-trip family hike to Waipo'o Falls in one of Kauai's best.

The trail goes gently through a green jungle dotted with wild yellow orchids and flame-red torch ginger before you step out on a descending ridge back that just deep into the canyon carved by the Waimea River.

At the end of the promontory, take a left and push on through the jungle to Waipo'o Falls and a refreshing splash in the pool.

How to do it: Drive up Koke'e Road (State Highway 550) to the 3,6360-foot Pu'u Hina Hina Outlook. A quarter mile past the lookout, near a NASA satellite tracking station on the right, a two-lane dirt road leads to Waipo'o Falls trailhead.

10 Greatest Hawaiian Adventures

If you want to keep your adrenaline higher than your cholesterol, it's easy in the islands. Here's my 10 Greatest Adventures of Hawaii:

Helicopter Kauai

Enter the realm of tropic birds, where waterfalls splash to the sea on an island so rugged no road can ring it. Come dream-fly over the spectacular wilderness of Kauai.

Snorkel "Forbidden" Niihau

Crystal lagoons, huge tame fish, the silence of the land on this museum-piece island that is the last real Hawaiian place, all add up to a once-in-a-lifetime experience no longer forbidden.

See the Volcano

No matter how you see it, from the air, land, or sea, see it. Hawaii's greatest natural attraction, the most active volcano on earth, is simply awesome.

Kayak to Desert Isle

Row a solo kayak across an emerald lagoon to one of two pyramid-shaped islands off Lanikai Beach known as the Mokulua. Go early, just as the sun climbs out of the Pacific, and you may be the only one on this desert island.

Sunrise at the "House of the Sun"

Rise before dawn and drive to the 10,023-foot summit watch the sun come up like thunder at the volcano Hawaiians call Haleakala, the house of the sun. One of the great natural wonders of the world.

Gallop the Hana Coast

Let others crawl up this jagged coast in a rental car parade. The best way to enjoy the Hana Coast is on horseback past secret coves and hidden beaches and across the open range of Hawaii's most beautiful sea ranch.

Sail Waikiki at Sunset

Come sundown the best place to be is on a starboard tack off Diamond Head as the city lights of Honolulu begin to sparkle. Take a sailboat like Leahi, a 42-foot racing catamaran, and really get down to sea level on Oahu's Mamala Bay, where dolphins and flying fish play.

Hike the Kalalau Trail

Follow the footsteps of ancient Hawaiians along a cliffside path to the Valley of the Lost Tribe. Hiking the Kalalau is the most difficult and challenging hike in Hawaii and one you will never forget.

In Search of Marlin

More existing than a new Ernest Hemingway biography, this is the stuff of raw high-sea adventure where 1,000-pound marlin fight the hook by dancing on their tails along the Kona coast, one of the world's best game fishing grounds.

Soar off Makapu'u

If God had wanted us to fly He would have made our brains small and bones hollow, but if you insist on trying your wings, jump off Oahu's windward cliffs and catch a Makapu'u thermal to new heights on a hang glider. Rick Carroll, author of Great Outdoor Adventures of Hawaii, covers Hawaii and the Pacific for United Press International. His book is available at all major bookstores or by writing Foghorn Press, P.O. Box 77845, San Francisco, California 94107. 415-241-9550.