Honolulu and Pearl Harbour

We arrived in Honolulu around 8.30pm Thursday local time (Hawaii is 18 hours behind Perth time) and caught the shuttle bus to our hotel which is right next to the airport. Because we had an early start in the morning to tour Pearl Harbour we just caught up on emails and news then went to bed early as we had lost 2 hours in the flight over from L.A.

USS Arizona Memorial

Next morning we were picked up from the hotel for the Pearl Harbour tour. Our tour guide was Dennis and he was quite informative, giving us a very good narrative of the events leading up the attack on Pearl Harbour on 7th December 1941. By this time we had arrived at Pearl Harbour and were allowed to look around the museums and other interesting displays until 10.30 when we were all shepherded into a movie theatre which told us of the story of the attack, which was quite moving. Over 2400 people were killed in the two hours of the attack. After the movie we boarded a boat to take us over to the USS Arizona Memorial. The Arizona, an armour-plated battleship, was hit with an armour-piercing shell on its foredeck that penetrated to her armoury which blew up catastrophically, sinking the ship in minutes, killing or trapping most of her crew below deck. Attempts to recover her crew were unsuccessful as it was too dangerous to the rescuers, so over 900 of her crew remain entombed in the wreck.

Touring the memorial was quite poignant, and below the list of the people killed when the Arizona sunk was the list of survivors who had their ashes interred on the site when they finally died. The Arizona had a full load of diesel and to this day, it leaks slowly out of the tanks, 70 years after it sank. People refer to it as "the tears of the Arizona". It makes a colourful rainbow pattern on the water below the memorial.

The three ships that were sunk during the raid, the Arizona, the Oklahoma and the Utah remain where they sank to this day.

Hotdog

For lunch we had traditional American hotdogs, which were delicious. After lunch we caught the bus over to Ford Island to see the USS Missouri, the second-last battleship built and the last to see service with the US Navy. It saw service up until the end of WWII, then was retired. It came back into service during the Korean War after which it was retired from service again. During the Reagan administration it was restored to service and last saw action in the Gulf War before being retired again for the last time. Thirteen years ago it was sailed to Pearl Harbour to become a permanent museum.

USS Missouri

The Missouri is famous for two events, the most historical being the ending of World War II on its deck, when the Japanese signed the Instrument of Surrender on the now aptly named "Surrender Deck" on September 2nd 1945 in Tokyo Harbour. The other event was in 1982 when Cher recorded her Turn Back Time video on her decks, wearing little more than a body stocking and some strategically applied tape!

Surrender plaque

After touring "Mighty Mo", as she is affectionately called, we caught a taxi back to our hotel to collect our luggage and get to the airport for our flight to Kaua'i. Josh asked us to carry two baking trays and an electric mixer as his luggage was overweight. Unfortunately it made our luggage overweight and Hawaiian Airlines charged us $70 for it! Not happy Jan! The flight was just over 30 minutes and uneventful.

We were met at the airport by all the crew, Caleb, Cath, Zephan, Josh, Sam, Gill and Ela. We collected our hire car and did some shopping then drove the hour up to our rental home. Driving at night, along narrow roads, on the wrong side of the road and me on the wrong side of the car made for a challenging drive. Fortunately I could follow Josh in the lead car so I didn't have to worry about navigation.

Wainihi Palms

The house is amazing! It's huge and will sleep 6 comfortably. It is up on high columns because a tsunami went through the area in the 90's and regulations now stipulate all houses to be raised up because of it. The surrounding jungle is even taller than the house, and is lush and green with beautiful flowers. Certainly a home in paradise.