World Cruise - Day 22 - Feb 3 - Honolulu

We got up pretty early this morning, about 5a, since we went to bed early last night and there was also a clock change of an hour back.  We are now two hours earlier than Pacific time.  We are hoping to call our kids today along with a few others.

The stars were still very visible and the lights of one of the islands is visible on starboard side of the ship:

OK, I know, not a very impressive pic, but it was the best I could do in pitch black conditions.  I tried taking pics of the stars as well, but not enough light and too much ship movement to keep the shutter open long enough to capture them.

The pic above was with my PowerShot.  I wasn’t able to get a good pic with my Rebel, since I couldn’t get the settings correct.  It wanted to go to a long shutter exposure, which would have required a tripod and a non-moving base (i.e. not on a ship), so I ended up with blurred images.  But finally I was able to figure out the right settings for a good photo:

I know it looks like it’s already after dawn and light outside, but the pic above was taken 30 minutes before dawn.  It is still pretty dark, yet the camera was able to pick up much more light than actually existed in our view.  That’s Diamond Head to the right and Waikiki Beach in the center and left.

Then we turned toward the harbor in Honolulu just before dawn and I got this pic of Diamond Head just after the sun crested the horizon:

I love the colors of the sunrise and sunset photos (if you couldn’t tell by now).  We will arrive at the port at approximately 8a and will go first to the USS Arizona Memorial (along with Dennis and Roberta), then will try to connect with Patti Poston (Eric is currently out of town) and her two kids, Caitlin and Scarlett.

We toured the USS Missouri (“Mighty Mo”) and then were able to meet up with Patti and her kids (and dog, Apollo):

I tried to get a pic of the girls, but the sun was in their eyes:

Caitlin was very observant and noticed that I had an owie on my lip (I split my lip from chapped lips).  Then she told me about all of her owies.  It was nice to meet up with the girls, although just bad timing that we weren’t able to meet up with Eric, since he’s currently out of town.  Patti was getting ready to teach two different Zumba lessons later that day.

Then we went back to board the USS Arizona Memorial:

The battleship USS Missouri stands watch in the distance over the submerged hull of the USS Arizona:

It was a very somber scene, especially with the two battleships nearby each other, Missouri carefully keeping guard over Arizona:

In the afternoon, we decided to keep things a bit lighter, so we set off in search of beaches.  This is the local beach at Ala Moana:

We continued walking past the marina to Waikiki Beach, which is marked on the north end by Hilton Hawaiian Village:

We continued walking down to the Outrigger, which is where we stayed the first three nights of our honeymoon (it’s directly behind me, we stayed on the top floor penthouse suite, which isn’t very visible, since it is set back from the front edge):

We met up with Chuck and Lorraine on the beach.  View of Diamond Head in the background. 

I took some photos of surfers off in the distance with my new telephoto lens, but I had to compress the photo down for the blog, so it lost some clarity in doing so.

Closer in view of Diamond Head:

There was an outrigger canoe going out near the surfers:

I took these photos with my new lens.  I love the color depth I was able to get with the new lens:

This photo almost looks a little surreal, like a painting with the white edges so clearly defined:

Anyway, taking photos is my new hobby on this cruise.  I hope you enjoy the pics.  See if you can tell what these are (taken with my PowerShot, didn’t want to wrestle my Rebel out of my backpack):

Maybe this more closeup pic will help?

These jellyfish were floating in a smaller waterway that empties into the ocean, I assume they must have floated in from the sea?

In the evening onboard, they had a local hula dance company come on and perform for us.  They were all quite young (most were under 10) and quite good.

Sonia, there is no separate ping pong tournament for women.  We have several women who have played to date in the tournament.  We usually get between about 8 and 12 players.

Julie, Krissie showers two or three times a day, especially on hot days.  Morning, then after Zumba, then after suntanning before dinner.  Plenty of towels restocked in the cabin.

Patti, nice to hear you are having some warm temps.  Most passengers onboard hear the weather forecast from friends back home.  There are other parts of the world that are going through a cold snap right now.

Tomorrow is Nawiliwili, Kaua’i.