Book him Dano

 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 50^th 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 !