Jason and Dawn - Around the world 2011 travel blog

We woke up early, got ready and arrived at Pearl Harbor by 7:40am. We wanted to beat the rush of tour buses but that didn't work out so well. The crowd going in was steady. We saw a bit of Pearl Harbor already when we spent our first day in the Hawaiian States in Honolulu. However we wanted to see the USS Arizona memorial before all the time slots were booked up, we were lucky to get into the 9:45am tour group which gave us an hour and fifty minutes to wander around. There are many great educational museums on the grounds which portray the different stages of what drove the Japanese to attack and what took place that horrible day, December 7, 1941. Just a little less than 2,400 navy and Hawaiian citizens lost their lives that day within just a 2 hour time frame(8am - 10am)while only 64 Japanese perished - huge difference. We saw short films on the attack, how people lost their lives, how the ones that survived recovered and got a true sense of the devastation left behind. We watched a short film prior to our departure on the boat to go to the USS Arizona, you learn that many of the men perished by burning to death either on the ship or in the ocean water because of the oil that was released once the bombs hit the ship. Those who survived and tried to swim to shore burned their lungs while coming up for air inhaling the flames that sat on top of the water. Their faces melting, skin pealing off their cheeks and buttocks...absolutely horrible and heart wrenching. Once we arrived at the USS Arizona you walk onto the memorial building which sits on top of the sunken ship. Knowing that 1,170 men died on the ship that morning, some were recovered others are forever entombed within its hauls is kind of creepy. The ship was refilled the day prior to the attack with oil so its tanks were full when bombed, a lot was recovered after but no one knows just how much burned off the two days it was on fire. Visually as you are standing inside the memorial looking over onto the top of the ship bubbles of oil were appearing on the surface of the water. (which left me with a feeling of mystery for what lies below) Quite a bit of oil, there was a guide there with his group that said it was leaking about two quarts a day but at the amount we saw released during the period of time we were there I'm not sure I buy it. How sad to think that these men lying deep in the depths below never knew what hit them and never had a chance to live their lives out to the fullest. To see the wall holding all the names of those that died is mind numbing, you can't even fathom what that harbour truly looked like that day. Terrible. I'm sure everyone on that memorial bridge and within the grounds of Pearl Harbor said a prayer for those who lost their lives and those who had to carry on without their loved ones. I left there with a feeling of gratefulness for the country we call home CANADA! In hopes that we and our descendants will never have to be apart or witness such cruelty and horror. We stopped in at the Dole plantation. Had ourselves some pineapple dole whip ice cream in a cup with fresh dole pineapple pieces. At $3.25 it's not a bad deal at all. They have acres and acres of pineapple fields, it takes 20 months to germinate and start to grow, 36 to produce and get the first flower to fruit and 45 to produce their last fruit. So they replant continuously to keep the pineapple fruit producing all year round. One beautiful sight was driving along the pineapple fields with the teal blue ocean off in the distance. Next stop was the North Shore, yesterday on the radio we heard that the waves were going to be "big" over the next couple of days. Some reaching 40 feet high, so it was a no brain er that we had to drive up to the North Shore and see if any surfers would be taking the waves on. We drove to the Historic Town of Hale'iwa seeing beaches all along the coast line, massive waves rolling out in the ocean. Just past Hale'iwa we drove to Waimea Bay Beach Park where we spotted a group of surfers clustered together waiting for the big kahuna. We parked the car and walked to a high point just off the highway where we had a prime view. Just as Jason was setting up the camera a big wave came in and several surfers took the ride. One guys board went flying and twisting in the air, leaving him behind somewhere in the wave. A few caught some nice tunnel and air time on the white wash. At one point the waves came in so hard that in knocked the majority of the surfers off their boards. We watched for a while and to the left of us came in a huge wave that was at least 40 feet high, crashed and the mist from the wave swirled and blew on the wind to greet us. At the same time waves started to come hard and fast and the surfers took that as a sign. So much action Jason took over 200 photos. We could watch them all day long, so relaxing and calming for us, I'm sure not for them. We continued on to Papa'loa Beach where season 1 of the TV series LOST was filmed. We came upon the trees the survivors set their huts up in after washing ashore from the crash. Beautiful beach, one of the cleanest sand beaches I've ever put my feet into. Houses line this coast and they are not cheap. From there we drove to Mokuleia Beach where some Lost scenes were shot and across the way at Camp Erdman is where the "others" lived in the village of houses. We are not huge fans of lost by any means but these sights where they have filmed are amazing in beauty and lushness and they are so easy to gain access to. O'ahu has some of the greatest beaches we've seen so far. The sand is so clean and the ocean water so clear and blue/teal in color. After our scenic beach touring we headed back to Honolulu to Waikiki.

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