Aloha Cruising

After enjoying one more breakfast on the cruise ship, we disembarked, and began our final excursion of the week. This one was to an historic location - Pearl Harbor, and the memorial to the USS Arizona, which lost 1100 men in 9 minutes on December 7, 1941. All of you know the story, so I'll just post the pictures and let them speak for themselves.


The Arizona had about 1 million gallons of fuel oil on board when it was bombed, and it continues to leak about 1-2 quarts a day even now. Experts worry about what will happen when seawater finally corrodes the fuel tanks to such an extent that the remaining oil will be released, creating a serious environmental problem. The sheen from the fuel oil on the water is clearly visible. Moored nearby is the "Mighty Mo", the battleship Missouri, which has its own claim to history - on its decks Japan surrendered in Tokyo Bay to end World War Two.


During the visit I couldn't help but think of my uncle Joe Houdek, who was killed in 1944 in the South Pacific when his ship was torpedoed by the Japanese.

After the tour, we checked our bags at the airport, then took a shuttle downtown. We found a neat shopping center by Honolulu Harbor, a brew pub with terrific views. It also has free internet, so I'm sitting at a table with my laptop, posting this, as Cindy shops.

Next stop - IOWA!

We can see why Norwegian makes a big deal about promoting their trip around the northern coastline of Kauai - it is stunning. Sheer cliffs rise from the sea, deeply grooved, seemingly carpeted in green felt. It is almost surreal. We enjoyed it a great deal.

Final dinner with the Robinsons, then back to the room to pack up. This will be the last posting from the cruise ship. Tomorrow Cindy disembark and take a tour of Pearl Harbor and Honolulu, then to the airport for our 11:30 PM flight. Will post more if and when internet is available. Thanks for following us and posting your great comments. We really enjoyed them

We succeeded in doing absolutely nothing today. Breakfast, sunbathing on the sun deck, drinking drinks out of actual pineapples - these were our goals, and we did it! We toasted Jane, as we sipped our pineapple drinks - she's taken care of our cats this week, and says she may try to adopt them, but we plan to take her to court on that one...even if we lose, we appreciate her efforts this week.

Na Pali coast is coming up, so we gotta go...

Just had to comment about all the chickens running around on Kauai! They're all over the place, and you can here roosters crowing pretty much nonstop. Ooops, there goes another one...

The chickens apparently escaped during a hurricane, which blew them all over the place, so many of them are now wild.

Terry S, those flower pics were especially for you.

Sister Judy tells us we missed a tornado in Oahu yesterday. Man, we just can't go far enough to fully escape that Midwestern weather! Weird.

Our cabin steward keeps amazing us with his towel creations. Here's yesterday's.

Today is shaping up to be a reading / relaxing day. We sail at 2 pm (6 pm Midwest time). We hope to get some pictures of the stunning north coast of this island, the Na Pali Coast. Check back tonight.

The Robinsons attended their first luau last night. We haven't seen them yet to find out how it went.

Bye all!

Kauai is a lovely island, and, as you can see from some of the photos, is filled with colorful blooms and lush vegetation. We are docked in Nawiliwili Harbor (pronounced nah-WILLY-WILLY) (doesn't that sound cool?), and just got back from a shore excursion. We took a tour bus to Waimea Canyon, which Mark Twain dubbed "The Grand Canyon of the Pacific".



We've never been to the Grand Canyon, so we can't do a proper comparison, but we were suitably impressed today by the grandeur of this place - colorful strata of lava rock in this vast canyon in the uplands of Kauai island.

We just got back not long ago - it's 2:15 here, and there's a beach near the ship, so.....seeya later!