Hawaii Trip #1: Day 5

For our 3rd day of playing in Oahu, I was kind of in the mood for something non-snorkeling to start the day, so someone suggested flying kites, which I thought sounded fun. Kites were acquired and we headed north a bit to Kualoa Beach park for kite flying and beach enjoying.


Kualoa Beach park

We had 3 kites in all, and 2 of the 3 launched fairly easily, and after some reengineering by Grandpa Tom the lizard kite joined the others in the sky.


Kite Flying

After a while playing with kites everyone was ready for more beach time and we all pretty much ended up over at the beach, just across the way from the famous Chinaman's Hat island.


Lucy playing in the water


All the kiddos at the beach

George decided to snorkel out to the island and after a while we couldn't see him anymore, which got Grandma Liz worrying. A sign indicating strong currents didn't do much to help settle her down. In the George returned safe and sound and reported that the water was shallow enough that he could have stood up all the way out to the island.


Mom worrying

After a fun morning at the beach, we headed back to the house to clean up and get ready to head to Honolulu for a special, military-only tour of Pearl Harbor. We made a quick stop at the big swap meet that surrounds the University of Hawaii football stadium, where we picked up a variety of knick-knacks and souvenirs.

Then we headed over to Pearl Harbor to catch our tour boat. Only it turned out that we'd been given the wrong time. Luckily we were early instead of late. After a quick stroll over to McDonalds, eventually our tour boat arrived. An admiral (retired?) described what we were seeing as the boat took around most of Pearl Harbor, ultimately arriving at the USS Arizona Memorial. Among the interesting sites we saw along the way was the wreckage of the USS Utah, which is very much destroyed and rusted. I wasn't sure if we were supposed to take photos, so I didn't take any until we arrived at the Arizona.

One of the most interesting things (to me, at least) was how shallow the harbor is (around 50 feet deep). Many of the ships that were sunk during the attack were ultimately rescued, repaired and put back into service. The Arizona Memorial sits over the wreckage of that ship and some bits of it even poke up above the water level. As you may have heard, there is still oil slowly leaking from the wreckage that you can watch.


USS Arizona Memorial


You can kind of see the oil sheen in this shot


Part of the ship that is visible above the water

After our tour, we drove over to the Hickam portion of the base (Pearl and Hickam had just merged the week before we were there) to see the clinic where George works and just drive around the base a bit.

We then headed home, had dinner (I think that was the night we went to a burger joint), and got the kids packed off to bed before calling it a night ourselves.


Grandma Liz reading the kids a story. Austin was definitely more interested in smiling for his picture. :)

More pictures from Day 5.