RonnieAdventures: RonnieAdventure #0534 - Hawaii Trip

In 1987, Linda was with the Arizona State University (ASU) Choral Union when they were invited to perform in Honolulu, Hawaii. Since air transportation and hotel prices were so reasonable, we decided to take the entire family and extend our stay. Before we left, Kristin's friend Katie made a Rice Krispy Hawaiian Girl that went along with us on the trip, but she did not make it back to Arizona.

The emotional part of the trip occurred on Memorial Day weekend, when we arrived at Pearl Harbor before the gates opened to get in line for the USS Arizona Memorial tour boat. As the military security detail arrived and started raising the flag, the Choral Union spontaneously sang "The Star-Spangled Banner." Hearing "The Star-Spangled Banner" performed by that many singers as the flag was being raised was a moment that we will never forget.

Following the USS Arizona Memorial tour, the group went to Punchbowl National Cemetery and Iolani Palace. There is a statue of King Kamehameha I in front of the Palace.

View Ewa (toward Ewa) from Punchbowl

View Makai (toward the ocean) from Punchbowl

View Diamond Head (toward Diamond Head) from Punchbowl

Iolani Palace and statue of King Kamehameha

The kids insisted on some beach time, so we watched while they wore themselves out peddling water tricycles around the ocean.

While we were in Honolulu we drove by the apartment building where Linda and I lived in 1967-1968. The building is just Mauka (toward the mountains) from the Ala Moana Center on Keeaumoku Street, then a few buildings Ewa (toward Ewa) on Young Street. We lived in a two-bedroom unit on the 7th floor (second from top) in the right corner unit. Our Lanai was adjacent to Steve and Tina's, our good friends from California.

There was a shortage of apartments when we arrived in 1967, and we really had a difficult time finding a place to rent. We were thrilled when we found this place because it was new, but built very cheaply. The apartment units had no heat, no air conditioning, and no glass in the windows. Instead of glass windows, there were wooden shutters that could be opened and closed. The building and adjacent church have now been demolished and the land is used for a parking lot.

No trip to Hawaii would be complete without skin diving at Hanauma Bay

When Linda and I first moved to Hawaii in 1967, I did not realize how easy it was to get seriously injured or killed at Sandy Beach. One day when myself and two friends decided to go body surfing when the black flag was out (extreme danger). I had never seen waves so large, but we decided to body surf anyway. Getting out past the break was not too hard, but treading water on the waves before they broke on the beach was something I had never before experienced. When I was on the wave crest, I could look way over the parking lot and when I was in the wave trough there was about 20 feet of water above me on both sides. Ken was the first to catch a wave and a short time later Steve made it safely on the beach. I spent about 10 minutes trying to figure out a strategy on how make it safely to shore, but finally decided to just go for it when a smaller wave appeared. I made it without injury, but spent the remainder of the day body surfing in a different area with smaller waves.

There is a Blow Hole near Sandy Beach that shoots water into the air when waves come into a sea cave and pressure pushes the water out of a small hole in the cave's ceiling. When we visited the Blow Hole on this trip, the waves were quite small; so there was not much water shooting into the air.

Another one of my 1967 adventures occurred when the Ken, Steve, and I decided to swim out to Black Island (just in front of Rabbit Island) to look for shells. Black Island turned out to be a lot farther from shore than what it appeared to be. On the swim out I was tired and had just about reached the Island when a school of Barracuda fish appeared between me and the Island. I started swimming parallel to the Island and the Barracuda just swam at the same speed, keeping a few feet distance between us. Whenever I changed speed or direction, the fish made the same correction. I finally made it to Island and just laid on the rocks to rest. After a while I decided to get back in the water to look for shells. I was only a few feet from the Island when a large Moray Eel that was about four feet long swam within about three feet of me, stopped in front of a rock hole, and then backed into the hole. Back out of the water! By this time everyone was tired, so we decided to swim back to shore. We were really tired when we reached the shore and just as I was just getting out of the water a wave hit me and I rolled across the coral. That's painful. I never tried to swim out to Black Island again.

Located on the Windward side of the island is the location where they filmed the Karate Kid movie. Chinamans Hat Island is located in the same general area.

Brigham Young University-Hawaii (BYU-H) is located on the North Shore of Oahu and many of the students from BYU-H work at the Polynesian Cultural Center (PCC). Money from PCC is used to provide financial assistance to over 10,000 Polynesian students that attend BYU-H. PCC is the number one tourist attraction on Oahu and a visit requires an entire day (and evening) to see everything.

In the afternoon we attended a show that was performed in a lagoon and then went around to the various villages to participate in some of the cultural activities. There are eight villages that represent different cultures throughout Polynesia.

Several years later, we became good friends with one of the people that worked at the PCC and it turned out that his uncle was my roommate when I was in the Air Force stationed at Goose Bay, Labrador. Our friend has since moved from Hawaii to Alaska, so I stopped to see him and his family a few years ago when I was in Haines. I asked him how he liked living so far from Hawaii, and he said that when he was younger he never would have thought that someday he would be chopping wood and taking it around to other people in the neighborhood to heat their houses in the winter.