Sunday, March 26 – Pearl Harbor and Waikiki Sunset Cocktail Cruise
We purchased the USS Arizona Memorial Narrated Tour option from recreation.gov for $7.50 each, at 60 days in advance, so that we could choose an early tour out to the memorial at 8:00 AM. We wanted to arrive before the gates opened at 7:00 AM, so that we could get parking in a convenient lot, and have time to watch the theatre presentation and see the displays before our tour began. We left the Hale Koa about 6:00 AM, and arrived and were parked and in line by 6:45 AM. That was exactly what I planned, but I was amazed at the number of people already in line before the gates even opened. Many, many tour buses and private parties were already there.
After we walked through the gates, we headed to the desk for the USS Arizona Memorial Narrated Tour, which was NOT the correct thing to do. So they sent us away from that desk to the regular Tickets and Information desk, who exchanged our tickets for passes to pick up our headsets at the place we started. So, to repeat this for anyone in doubt, here is where you go first:
And here is where you are sent NEXT if you have this particular tour:
Once we were squared away, we all found that the headphones were very useful. Great narration by Jamie Lee Curtis, and it was interesting, not dry at all. We looked at the various displays, and also watched the theatre presentation, all of which made history come to life. The most amazing thing to me that became evident during the presentation was the number of things that had to happen to make this attack successful (or unsuccessful, depending on your point of view) for the Japanese. Radar was a fairly new thing, and the radar picked up the large number of Japanese bombers coming toward Oahu, but the Navy was expecting a large number of B-17 planes in from California on the same day, so they assumed it was the planes they were expecting, and therefore the navy missed the opportunity for early warning from the radar. Also, there was low manning on this Sunday morning, which resulted in fewer lives lost during the attack, but would we have had been more prepared to fight back sooner if more men were at their duty stations? It’s interesting to think how history might have been rewritten if the circumstances were different.
There were many Japanese and American citizens visiting the monument on the same day we visited, and I think this is a place of great healing and reflection, particularly for familial descendants of the attack. Another interesting thing to me is that in 1941, a great percentage of Hawaiian citizens and immigrants (about 40%) was of Japanese heritage. You can still see a huge Japanese influence in Oahu, where the numbers of those of Caucasian descent is about the same as those of Japanese descent – about 20% each. What must those Japanese immigrants and Japanese-Americans have experienced or thought during those horrible hours of destruction?
We boarded the ferry transport out to the USS Arizona Memorial at exactly 8:00.
Everyone on the ferry was very quiet and somber, and when we tied up at the memorial entrance, everyone was reminded to be respectful of the final resting place of so many brave individuals who paid the ultimate sacrifice. This photo of the position of the memorial above the remains of the Arizona was very helpful to understand where we were in relation to the ship. The white narrow rectangle is where the memorial is, crossing the ship like you would cross a "t", with the entrance at one end, and the Shrine Room at the other end.
Once in the memorial, you could see the rusted remains of the Gun Turret #3 poking out from above the water.
Here is a photo I found of the Arizona in the 1950’s. The clear water gives an impression of the ship that I haven’t seen. According to a map of the site, Gun Turret #4 is the one below the highly visible Gun Turret #3. Gun Turret #4 is where more recently deceased crew members assigned to the Arizona on the date of its destruction are buried with their shipmates if they so choose.
We walked up along one side of the memorial structure, which is all open-air out to the waters of Pearl Harbor. The guys took some time for silent reflection of the events of December 7, 1941.
The mooring quays, which were where the ships in the harbor were moored during the attack, and where other ships resided during the salvage operations, were reinforced with these white structures, but have recently begun a five-year restoration process because they are beginning to deteriorate, and are an important part of the history of the attack on Pearl Harbor.
Here is a look at the mooring quays (2 per ship) as they are laid out in Pearl Harbor. This photo is courtesy of the Historic Hawaii Foundation website, and is a great illustration.
We walked down to the end of the memorial structure, called the Shrine Room. We passed the Viewing Well before we entered the Shrine Room, but it was hard to see anything in the viewing well. This is where some people drop flowers and leis in memory of those lost, but there were no flowers here this morning, probably because we were only the second or third tour boat out to the memorial. The shrine room was beautiful. The large white marble panels were recently restored in 2014, as they were beginning to erode in places. This was completed in preparation for the 75th anniversary remembrance in 2016. On the wall are carved the names of the naval sailors and marines who lost their lives on the USS Arizona on that day.
In front of the wall are two additional monument structures to record the names and dates of death of those crew members who were interred in Gun Turret #4 after their deaths in later years.
An interesting fact: Elvis Presley performed a concert here in 1961 to raise money for the building of the USS Arizona Memorial, so he was a major contributor to the structure.
I especially loved the plaque of the poem that Eleanor Roosevelt carried with her during the years of WWII to remind her of the importance of our military to each one of us:
(In case you can’t see the words, here’s what it reads: Dear Lord / Lest I continue / My complacent way / Help me to remember / Somehow out there / A man died for me today. / As long as there be war I then must / Ask and answer / Am I worth dying for?)
After our somber reflective time at the WWII Valor in the Pacific National Monument, we drove out in search of lunch. We all wanted to try conveyor belt sushi for the first time, and found some good reviews on Yelp for KuruKuru Sushi. It was about 15 minutes from Pearl Harbor, in the Pearl Kai Shopping Center in Aiea. It was a very small little restaurant, and a little hard to find, as it was around the corner from some other shops and faced out to the main street, but the sushi was good, the friendly servers refilled our drinks continuously, and there were indeed many locals dining inside (and that’s always a good sign!)
We then made another detour to the Waikele Premium Outlets in Waipahu, where we checked out the Vans and LeSportSac Outlets. DS got a pair of flip flops from the Vans outlet, but nothing else really appealed to us at either shop. Across the street from the outlet stores was a McDonalds, where we stopped for a REAL HAWAIIAN TREAT: Old School (read: fried) Apple Pies. Ahhhhh….. memories of childhood when apple pies from Mickey D’s were fried, not baked! And yes, they tasted as we remembered. We may have had another two or four of these during our trip on Oahu.
We then journeyed back to Hale Koa, and at 5:00, headed next door to the Hilton property and found the kiosk for the Hawaii Nautical tours out on the beach. Too funny. We didn’t really know where to find it, but we could have literally walked out to the beach in front of Hale Koa, turned right, and followed the paved pathway right to the small hut that served as the check-in point.
We were given tickets to the tour, and soon a guide led us out to the catamaran docked in the harbor.
The captain welcomed us, introduced the crew, and invited us to partake in some snacks before we set sail.
After we set sail, they turned on the music, opened the bar for anything we wanted to drink (I think officially we were offered two drinks to begin, but we must have looked REALLY thirsty, because we were able to have another drink or two toward the end of the cruise, probably to finish off what they had pre-mixed to bring on board). I remember that I began with champagne, and then had some kind of rum punch. There were about 10-15 people on board, and only 2 or 3 of them were kids. They had a special non-alcoholic tropical drink for the kids, as well as some normal soda choices.
The crew invited us to have a seat on the bow of the boat, so DH and I found a comfortable spot to lounge against the windows in front of the cabin.
DS found that he preferred to sprawl out on the “cargo net” in the middle of the bow with his non-alcoholic red solo cup.
The hot appetizers were out by now, and included meatballs and some sweet “hot” wings. (Sorry, foodie photo fail – I didn’t want to pause from my time watching the sunset to snap more photos inside the boat.) They were all very good, and was a good snack following the sushi and apple pie earlier in the day.
The boat ride was just long enough – about an hour and a half. We had a great view of Diamond Head and the Waikiki area.
And we watched the sunset, which was just beautiful.
We also were entertained by a pod of dolphins swimming alongside the catamaran. So special! This was a great harbor cruise – perfect weather – the sea was a little choppy, but that made it more fun to be jostled around a little. The views were spectacular, and we had an amazing time – I highly recommend it!
After the sunset cruise, we went back to the Hale Koa (this time walking on the path out on the beach) and stopped into Bibas Courtyard Grill, where we shared an appetizer of Blue Crab Crostini and a wood fired Margherita Pizza. Our stomachs satisfied, we went back up to the room, and off to our separate pursuits. For me, that meant time on the balcony with a POG cocktail whipped up by DH – who is my favorite bartender, and a good book on my Kindle.