On dry land at last, as we
moored up successfully in Honolulu, the capital of Hawaii. It is on the island
of Oahu, a mountainous region constructed from erupting volcano’s all of which
are now extinct.
This holiday has been planned as a pilgrimage for SWIMBO.
She had planned to meet her brother here in Hawaii for his 50th
anniversary party, but he was sadly taken from us a few years ago, so the
rendezvous will never happen.
We started the day at the USS Arizona war grave and memorial
in Pearl Harbour, a place which has been a pilgrimage for many American and
Japanese citizens for over seventy years. We saw the statistics, the names of
the fallen, and oil still leaking to the surface after all this time. We visited
the memorial to the 50 or so submarines lost in the conflict, and then visited ‘mighty
Mo’ the USS Missouri on which the Japanese surrendered.
The below decks tour was fascinating given we are on a
pretty large ship ourselves. It makes one understand the conditions some of our
crew will be experiencing.
We finally went down to Waikiki for spot or sun bathing, and
then brought a Lei in Liverpool colours, which will be placed on Martin’s grave
on our return. We toasted his memory in a local bar and are now set fair for
tomorrow on Maui.
The ship is quite cosmopolitan and that embraces both crew
and passengers. In one bar a Latino band called the Emmanuelle Blanco band is
proving popular with the Japanese. Last night they got adventurous and banged
out a song by Dire Straits called ‘Butterfly’. Never heard of it said I to SWMBO,
when suddenly the riff kicked in……. dada dadadadada dada….. and it tlanflormed
into ‘Walk of Life’ silly me !
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