Maui 2016 Part 2

Monday – Cabana Day

The next morning we went snorkeling again, this time at Ulua Beach, which was about a mile walk from the condo along the Wailea Coastal Walk. We’d actually done one of our very first scuba dives from Ulua Beach in 1999. Back then, I remember looking up and seeing snorkelers swimming overhead. This time we were looking down at the scuba divers. :-) The water was just as stirred up as it had been the day before, but we did see lots of fish, including a bunch of humuhumunukunukuapuaas. We only saw one turtle, hiding under a ledge with just his back flippers sticking out.

Wailea Coastal Walk

Ulua Beach

Wailea Point

We spent the rest of the day hanging out with Jenny and the kids at the Grand Wailea. Jenny had booked a cabana for the day and our cabana was by the uppermost pool at the start of the water slides. We ordered lunch from our lounge chairs, had a drink at the Grotto Bar, and just relaxed. The boys mainly played on the waterslides and we’d see them swimming by every so often. Towards the end of the afternoon, Reid walked by with a very cute girl, studiously pretending he didn’t know us. Ahhh, summer love. Of course, we teased him relentlessly about it afterwards. :-)

Grand Wailea

Dinner was at Ko, a Hawaiian/Asian-inspired restaurant at the Kea Lani. Yet another amazing Maui meal!  We ate outside on the patio where we could see the clouds turning to gold and then the lights of the tiki torches and fire pits. We shared two pupu platters, which probably would have been more than enough to eat, but I also had the Pancit Noodles with shrimp and scallops. I was soooo stuffed, but it was delicious. We didn’t stay up to talk that night because Ron and I had big plans for the next day.

Tuesday – Oahu

Last year Ron mentioned a couple of times that he wished we’d had time to visit some of the other islands, so this year when we started planning our itinerary, I looked into day trips to Lana’i. But then I realized that Ron was talking about the bigger islands like Oahu. He’d always wanted to see Pearl Harbor because his dad had served in the Navy at the end of World War II. Was a day trip to Oahu even doable? Turns out it was! Hawaiian Airlines had reasonably priced flights almost every hour between Kahului and Honolulu. If we left early and got back late, we’d have time to visit Pearl Harbor and Waikiki too. Of course, by the time we figured all this out, most of the tickets to the Arizona Memorial were gone, but we were able to get a couple for the 2:45 time slot. We would head to Waikiki first and then spend the afternoon at Pearl Harbor.

I woke up on Tuesday at 4 AM, ready to go. We’d barely even made it out of Wailea yet, and I was excited to start sightseeing! As our plane landed at the Honolulu airport, we could see bands of rain over Waikiki and Diamond Head, but by the time we picked up our rental car, the clouds were blowing away over the mountains and it turned into a glorious, sunny day.

We drove first to Diamond Head so that I could take some pictures of the Diamond Head Lighthouse. I knew there were amazing views of the lighthouse from the crater but we didn’t have enough time for the hike. So instead we found a little path leading down to the water and walked along the rocky waterline to see the lighthouse from below. It was beautiful – the white lighthouse perched on the edge of the rocky cliffs. I‘d taken a bunch of pictures when I realized that there was a man climbing around on the rocks wearing a thong bathing suit. Yikes! I didn’t want his full moon in my pictures so I had to wait until he climbed out of view and retake all the shots. :-)

Diamond Head Lighthouse

Next we drove to Waikiki Beach where we eventually found a place to park. Waikiki was crowded! We saw the statue of Duke Kahanamoku, father of modern surfing, and walked around the pink Royal Hawaiian Hotel, built in 1927. We had lunch at Duke’s Waikiki, sharing a plate of chicken wings and ahi poke. I couldn’t believe we were in Waikiki! It seemed totally surreal. I don’t know why sitting on a beach in Waikiki would feel any stranger than sitting on a beach on Maui, but somehow it did. Maybe because it was so iconic.

Duke Kahanamoku

We got to the Pearl Harbor Visitor Center at around one o’clock. Since we had some time before our tour of the Arizona Memorial, we decided to get tickets to the USS Bowfin, a submarine nicknamed “the Pearl Harbor Avenger” because it was launched on December 7, 1942, exactly one year after the attack. Before we got onboard the sub, we walked through the Waterfront Memorial, a tribute to the 52 submarines and 3500 submariners lost during the war. 52! I hadn’t realized there were so many. Walking through the submarine was fascinating. It was so compact, I couldn’t believe it had held 80 crew. Where did they all fit? Even the captain’s quarters were tiny, barely more than a bed and small desk.

USS Bowfin

Next we walked through the two museums, “Road to War” and “Attack”, and the Circle of Remembrance, a memorial which listed the names of the men, women and children killed during the attack. Seeing all the names was a solemn experience. It was a lot to take in, and I was glad I’d done a little research on Pearl Harbor before our trip. Ron and I had even watched the movie Pearl Harbor, which, yes I know, was very Hollywood-ized, but it helped me visualize what it was like to be there on that day.
 
Finally we boarded the little boat that would take us out to the USS Arizona. The memorial straddled the hull of the sunken battleship like a bridge. From inside, we could see parts of the ship visible below the water and the sheen of oil rising to the surface, “the tears of the Arizona”. Even 75 years after the attack, over a quart of oil still leaks from the ship each day. The National Park Service monitors the condition of the hull for deterioration and while we were there, we saw a team of scuba divers, gearing up to inspect the hull.

Arizona Memorial

The Tree of Life, symbolizing renewal

USS Missouri

By the time the tour was over, the Visitor’s Center was getting ready to close so we decided to head on to the airport and return the rental car. Our flight to Maui wasn’t until 8 but we were able to switch our tickets to a 6:30 flight and were back at the condo in time to finish off some of Jenny’s yummy pork fried rice for dinner. It had been a long day but a really amazing and memorable one.

continued on Part 3