Hawai'i 1: Oahu: USS Arizona - Pearl Harbour

Finally! The time has come to embark on my sooo long anticipated 4-months trip as part of my Sabbatical Leave! I couldn't believe it :) On August 10, Neil dropped me off at the airport, and at 20:30h my Air New Zealand flight left on time, bound for Honolulu. Unfortunately, I had a not-so-nice person (very tall and very broad shoulders) sitting next to me, who continuously tried to invade my space. Air NZ's B767s are not equipped with personal TVs, and the sound through my headsets for the main screen was very poor. Thus, I preferred to sit back and just read and sleep. After all, it was just an 8.5 hour flight.

Arriving in Honolulu at 7am (the same day!), I had onward flights to Maui (via Moloka'i) booked for the afternoon. Thus, I booked a rental car and got a pretty new Ford Focus from Budget. My aim was to drive over to Pearl Harbour, and see the site of the Japanese attacks on December 7, 1941 and the now USS Arizona Memorial. It was just a very short drive from the airport, and entrance was free. But despite the early hour, I had to wait for about 2 hours to get on the boat over to the memorial site. One could fill that time in the museum on shore, but the queues there were endless. Overall, this site was far too small for the tremendous visitor numbers they are getting. At 10am, finally the boat left for the memorial (a 7 minute boat ride). At the memorial, all passengers were herded to the small memorial, had about 10-15 minutes there, and then were boated back to shore.

The site was quite interesting. the memorial was erected right on top of the sunken USS Arizona, and you can see the rusted remains below and to both sides.

One of the gun turret bases that sticks out of the water.

Inside the memorial: The names of all sailors who have died during the attacks on December 7 have been engraved here. Interestingly, some of the surviving sailors requested to be also inscribed once they have passed away many years later.

After the visit to Pearl Harbour I drove to town, and had a late lunch and a look around. Certainly not the place I would like to spend my holidays. It feels like a concrete desert, and the heat didn't help either. After that, it was back to the airport for my connecting flights to Maui. I booked myself on Pacific Wings Express, and the flights on the Cessna Grand Caravan were great fun (and a bit of an adventure). I had the seat right behind the co-pilot, which gave me great views during the flight. Here is Honolulu:

After we landed in Moloka'i, the plane took off again to do a quick trip to the Kalaupapa airstrip on Moloka'i and back. The airline works their crew pretty hard. I talked to the (very young) pilot, and he said he'd been up at 5am, started work at 6am, and has done 15 legs since! The flight from Moloka'i to Maui would be his last for the day (arrival 18:15h). Here is the plane taking off for the short hop to Kalaupapa:

The trip from Moloka'i to Maui was breath taking! We were only three passengers left, and after taking off, the flight went over flat land, until it suddenly dropped off in form of a high cliff into the sea. I heard a few times during my time in Hawai'i that these are the highest cliffs in the world. The captain stayed at just 1000ft (ca. 300 meters). I assume, not just to provide us with fantastic views, but also to stay below the bad weather. It was dark and raining, but we had spectacular views of the coast/cliffs.

Leveled out at 1000ft with an airspeed of about 150 knots.

Rain on the windscreen and a rainbow.

The landing and take-off in Moloka'i were very windy and turbulent :)

The landing on Maui was much calmer, and I queued for ages to get my rental car at ALAMO. They have a system I have never seen before: They do the contract and then send you outside to see an agent there. That agent looks at your booking, and says: "There are the cars of the class you have booked - choose any of them - key is in the ignition!" Well, in my case she said: "We don't have a compact car available, we have upgraded you to mid-size". I had chosen a nice Chrysler PT Cruiser, but quickly realised that the central locking didn't work. Back to the agent, who exchanged the battery in the remote locking system. I drove off to my accommodation (just about 3 miles away), and there I noticed that the car still didn't lock. I was able to lock the doors manually, but the boot was unlockable. So next morning I drove back and exchanged the car. Without any fuzz the guy said "Sorry for the inconvenience, we upgrade you to a mini-SUV". I wanted another PT Cruiser, but there was no car in the mid-size lot. So I got a Saturn VUE, which was a nice set of wheels as well...

The accommodation - the Banana Bungalow Maui Hostel - was quite basic. For a few days it should suffice, but my scouting days are over, and I don't need shared bathrooms with rotting cabinets, etc. At least I had a private room, and after a couple of days it didn't appear too bad anyway...