As we drove along, we also saw signs pointing us toward the USS Arizona Memorial, including this one - I think it's probably the ultimate in ironic.
We got through security with a minimum of hassle - they made us unpack all our SCUBA gear and they looked at *my* flashlight intently to make certain that it wasn't a miniature shotgun. We arrived at our gate an hour and 40 minutes before our flight was due to leave. Luckily, I had spent a bunch of frequent flyer miles and we were flying first class, so we got to go hang out in the First Class Lounge. They had large, soft chairs, free food and drink and (best of all) no crying babies! Hobbit and I ate bagels and cream cheese, fresh fruit and I had a cup of coffee heavily laced with Bailey's Irish Cream.
We left the First Class Lounge about 20 minutes before our flight was due to depart. We got to our gate, handed the tickettaker our tickets and she screamed down the gangway, "Out of the way, rabble! Gangway, peasants! First Class Passengers coming through!"
We walked down the gangway, through the door of the plane and, for the first time in her life, Hobbit turned left instead of right and we entered First Class. No crying babies, plenty of overhead luggage space and a wide, comfortable seat with so much legroom that the airline thoughtfully provided a footrest. As soon as we had placed our dive gear in the overhead compartment and settled ourselves in our seats, the stewardess arrived and asked, "Would you like some water, champagne or a Mai Tai before we take off?" Hobbit had a glass of water and I had a Mai Tai (it came with a small paper umbrella and several hunks of pineapple attached to the rim of the glass.) Five hours, brunch, a movie (Lords of Dogtown - I highly recommend it) and 6 paper umbrellas later, we landed in Honolulu.
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We had a 6 hour layover in Honolulu and nothing to do. I had initially setup the itinerary so that we could go visit the USS Arizona Memorial (we wanted to see it after watching Tora! Tora! Tora!.) I researched it after setting up the itinerary and the park website said that we would need to arrive at the park really early in the morning to get tickets. We decided that we would hang out in the First Class Lounge until our flight to Kona. Once we got to the lounge, we decided that we could kill some time by going out to the park and checking it out, even if we didn't get to go to the Arizona. I asked the person staffing the lounge how far it was and she told me that it was only a 12 minute bus ride from the airport (and the city bus comes right to the airport.) She gave us really good directions and even drew us a map. We stashed all our stuff at the First Class Lounge, grabbed a bottle of water, sunscreen and our hats and we dashed out to the bus stop. The Honolulu city bus is a lot of fun - it's called The Bus and the driver's uniform is black pants and a Hawaiian shirt. After a few minutes, we noticed that the driver's shirt had a pattern with The Bus logo, palm trees and busses in the pattern. |
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As we drove toward the Arizonal Memorial Park, I spotted the H1 "Interstate Highway" signs. I pointed these out to Hobbit. In order to get federal funds to help pay for construction, it was required to be an interstate highway. Rumor has it that the Hawaiian Congressional representatives submitted two bills. The first was to pay for the highway that goes around Honolulu (like I-405 goes around Seattle.) After it was approved, they submitted a second bill to "complete the interstate highway" - with a bridge from Honolulu to San Francisco. That bill didn't pass. As we drove along, we also saw signs pointing us toward the USS Arizona Memorial, including this one - I think it's probably the ultimate in ironic. |
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We arrived at the Arizona Memorial Park and went up to the counter and asked about tickets for the boat ride to the memorial. Their official website (http://www.nps.gov/usar/) says, "Tickets are issued on a first come, first served basis ... expect crowds." We expected that they had given out their last ticket around 9am, however we were handed a ticket and told that our program would begin in about 45 minutes. While we waited, we toured the Bowfin submarine. |
| The USS Missouri (where the Japanese signed the surrender documents) is also docked nearby and open for tours. During the Reagan regime, the Missouri was actively in service (they did a little landscaping in Lebanon in '84) and I attended NCO school with some Corporals who were part of the Missouri's Marine detachment. | |
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After touring the Bowfin, we went back to the Arizona Memorial Park and watched the documentary about the Arizona. The movie theater empties out onto a pier and we rode the a US Navy launch that takes people out to the Arizona memorial. The memorial straddles the wreck of the Arizona. The Arizona was fully fueled when it sank and there's still oil seeping up out of the wreckage - while we waited for the launch to return, we watched as oil bubbled to the surface. |
We took the bus back from the Arizona Memorial, picked up our stuff from the First Class Lounge and hauled it over to the Inter-Island Terminal. We got on a Hawaiian Airlines plane that flew to Kona (the flight was so fast that they barely had time to serve us a cup of juice.) Once we landed, we headed over to our Hertz "Gold Club" checkin, but my name was not on "the board." The person at the counter told me that I was "Ineligible to be a Gold Club Member." She them typed frenetically on her computer terminal and got us $20 off our reserved rate and a free car upgrade. We wound up driving a Chevrolet 4 door car instead of the Ford compact that I'd reserved. We drove down to our condo (the Sea Village) and checked in. The condo was a one bedroom with two double beds - one in the bedroom and a fold-out bed in the living room. There was no air conditioning and the translucent bedroom curtains let in all the light from the insanely bright breezeway light. We slept in the living room most nights - the sea breeze, the fan and the fact that it was dark made it much easier to sleep in the living room.
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We walked down to the main tourist area in Kona, had breakfast in a restaurant/bar and then walked down to the start of the Ironman Triathlon. The race organizers had setup the swim course and we watched dozens of competitors swimming. |
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As we were watching the swimmers, we were talking about bicycles and we got in a conversation with a fellow about bikes. We noticed him because he had an Ironman logo tatooed on his ankle. His name is Derek Handley and he is from Birmingham, England. There are several ways to get to the Kona Ironman - you can be invited (like the professionals), you can qualify at a local Ironman triathlon, you can buy your way in (entry is $1,000) or you can win a slot via lottery - if you compete in an Ironman Triathlon, you have a chance at winning one of 250 "lottery" tickets - 200 are awarded in the US and 50 to non-US competitors. Derek had, like Charley Bucket, won a "Golden Ticket." |
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After our tour of the triathlon start, we went to Jack's Diving Locker and got information about local dive sites. We went and checked out to 'Place of Refuge' - the first site on the list. It was getting too late to dive, so we checked out the park that is next to the dive site. The native Hawaiians had some very strict rules (called kapu) and if someone violated a kapu, they would be put to death. Examples of kapu would be trespassing into royal/sacred/taboo areas, commoners casting their shadow on the king, etc. If a person who violated a kapu were able to escape to the "Place of Refuge," priests would absolve them of their sins/crimes and they could return home. Each island had its own "Place of Refuge." The big island place of refuge was encircled by a military camp on land, which meant that anyone seeking absolution had to swim through nearly a mile of open ocean, then run barefoot across 1/4 mile of very sharp lava rocks. In the Place of Refuge the local parks department has restored the thatched huts and added signs explaining how it all works. They also restored the "stacked rock" walls that the native Hawaiians built. This picture shows some of the tikis in the background and the place where the pirests staued. In the foreground is a lava rock gameboard for a native Hawaiian game. As we passed by the royal landing beach, we saw a sea turtle basking in the sand. Here's a panoramic view of the site: http://www.letsgo-hawaii.com/honaunau/panorama.html
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We drove back to Jack's Diving Locker and got our tanks refilled and then drove 2 miles to the "Mile Post Four" site (so named because it's the beach at mile post 4 on Alii Drive.) There was a 4' wide sand path from the beach into the dive site, so we walked in until we were waist deep in the water, put on our fins and snorkeled out to the 20' deep water. We got down on the bottom and found ourselves on a large lava shelf. Thousands of years ago, lava had poured down the side of the mountain and hit the water and stopped - backing up into a lava plain that was (later) covered by the ocean. We swam to the edge and it dropped off about 10 feet to the sandy bottom. We swam around to the left for about 30 yards and saw a lava tube that ran toward the shore. The tube had several openings to the sky so there was some light in the tube. It was about 12' in diameter and went back about 50 feet. There were three "chambers" and a couple of tubes merged with it, so we got to do some underwater cave exploring. There were several sea turtles inside - they looked like they were getting ready to go to sleep for the evening.
After we finished with the tubes, we went back to the shelf and swam along the 10' high wall between the sand and the top of the shelf. Once we got down to 1/3 of a tank of air, we surfaced and started swimming in to the beach. Hobbit got a bit misdirected and started swimming toward the wrong beach - the beach at mile marker 3.5 is a surfing beach and she would have gone for quite an exciting ride trying to get into the beach. Thankfully, we landed on the correct beach without incident.