Beach sand and sunshine

A bizarre day, we had a full day in Auckland and then flew via Fiji to Hawaii, crossing the International Dateline along the way and so we arrived before we left and therefore have Sunday 25th again....am wishing it was my birthday - would be cool to have 2 !!!

Anyway, the plane was late due to a delay in Fiji as the satellite phone didn't work or something, so an hour on the tarmac which wasn't fun, finally arrived and had a nice shuttle bus to the hotel. Our hotel is circular so the rooms are an odd shape, takes a bit of getting uised to as you feel like you are drunk as the wall is closer then you think because the bed is straight - not been drinking yet honest - it's only 10am. We manage to keep ourselves awake throughout the day with short walks along the beach and watching TV. Collapse in bed after watching the Oscars live - well you have to since you're here don't you ?

Next morning is an orientation breakfast - read - a hard sell of tours....breakfast is edible but that's about it. We have prebooked tours at home so the morning is a waste of time, only thing we learn is some Hawaiian customs and that it is pronounced Ha - wah - i.....not as we have all been taught. The Canadians at our table and us spend some time practising...the local language and pronounciation is used here instead of the american so a new language to learn ! Wai - means fresh water and Kai means sea water - see we did learn something. Back to the hotel and sort out times for our tours before browsing the many shopping malls, thank god our bags are already full. Walk a mile or so to find Hard Rock Cafe and add a pin to my growing collection plus a brief lunch and beer there before a splash in the Pacific Ocean opposite the hotel. Colder than anticipated but bearable.

Up at some daft time this morning to get our bus to Pearl Harbour, where we queue for a ticket. (The Navy only allows so many tickets a day and they are timed so you have to get here early to get in and out without waiting around a lot...just like the White House and Washington Memorial). We are lucky - we only have a 30 min wait before we see a video on how the Pearl Harbour incident came about....please someone tell me...we don't park all our first class battleships in little rows next to each other and then place all our planes, wing tip to wing tip in the centre of our airfields with no guns or ammo when we are busy arguing with another country...don't be fooled that 4,000 miles of Pacific Ocean is a defense - it clearly isn't. The video is quite sad and the actual memorial very moving. We take a boat out to the white pontoon straddling the sunken U.S.S. Arizona. Beneath us the bodies of those who died are still encased in the ship, you can see various turrets and so on of the ship. I'm impressed they keep you silent whilst you are here, adding to the atmosphere and our 14 minutes goes very quickly, as the next tour arrives and we leave. We have some time to do the museum and gift shop before getting on the bus for a city tour. We see the King's Palace, the State House, the Govenor's House and many pretty gardens and churches, plus some schools and important sites. We are back at the hotel by lunchtime so have a nice lunch and then take the local bus to a big shopping centre. We are well behaved and buy nothing !

Another early start for a tour, this time right around the island. We start with Diamond Head, a large volcano, supposedly dormant but due to go pop in the next 50 years. Then on to Haunama Bay (another volcanic crater) where they filmed Blue Hawaii (the Elvis movie). Next we see a blowhole - well it's low tide so we don't see much but it is there. Next we climb into the mountains and look down on the island before doubling back to the centre of the island and the pineapple plantations where we have lunch. They don't actually grow pineapples here anymore, it's not economical too, instead they grow macadamia nuts (apparently they produce 50% of the worlds macadamia's). We move on to the world famous surf beaches that can have 40 foot waves in winter (it's winter now, despite it being 80). The tradewinds are here but the surf is not, 2 foot at most with the odd 5 foot rolling in but I wouldn't be standing on the sand when the 40 foot ones come in....wow that would be scary. The driver tells us the course of action for a tsunami, Hawaii gets little ones all the time but is due another big one - I really must research things better, I don't like all these dangerous life threatening things. Come back around the island and stop at a macadamia farm for coffee before back to the hotel.

A late morning today and a last minute booked tour - Humpback Whale watching. Might as well see another species if we can...so we get picked up mid morning and board our ship for lunch, which is buffet style. We are just finishing food when the first whale is spotted, we don't get as close as in New Zealand, these whales are here only to breed and often have calves and so are very agressive - best not to mess with a 50 foot whale so the boat keeps it's distance. it is frustrating as we can only see them blowing water out, then suddenly there is a tail going down. Don't get the camera up quick enough but we saw it, from now on there are whales everywhere, blowing all over - I reckon about 20 or 30 ! We see a couple arching before they go back down...hooray, another solid sighting of whales :-) No photos but we saw them and that is all that counts. Back to shore for a swim in the ocean and our last dinner in Hawaii.