Hawaii 2017 - Day 8

Day 7 – Pearl Harbour & Dukes Restaurant

We had to get up early today for our Pearl Harbour tour today. Who knew? They have great sunrises as well as great sunsets!

 

After our early breakfast we waited for our tour mini-bus at the designated spot and were picked up by Christie our entertaining tour guide. With only about 10 others, we headed out to the Pearl Harbour Memorial site. We had some time to wander around the site and take some photos in the walk through museum before we joined our tour of the USS Arizona Memorial. This consisted of a 25 minute film of the background of the Pearl Harbour attack on 7 December 1941, why it occurred, and the aftermath. One of the bombed ships, the USS Arizona, sank with over 900 personnel on board. In 1960, it was decided to build a memorial on the spot where the ship still lay. After seeing the film, we were taken by boat to the memorial which was very moving.

    

It is 9/11 today and all flags were flying at half-mast – all in all, a fairly sombre experience but one worthwhile experiencing. I was really glad we went.

 

After the tour, on Carly’s recommendation, we headed to Duke’s Restaurant at the Outrigger Hotel to sample their famous Hula Pie. I’m getting very used to these cocktails too! The food and the pie were fabulous – Gary has voted it the best meal so far. 

    

I knew I was good at “putting the mock” on things, but I didn’t know I was this good! After my discussion yesterday about the perfect weather here in Hawaii we had our first experience of precipitation today … but we were so lucky. The first heavy shower occurred while we had our late lunch at Dukes’. While we walked back to the hotel it cleared up and then within half an hour of getting back to the hotel it started pouring again. That put the kaibosh on our plans for an afternoon swim, but hey, that’s OK. We started our packing instead – that’s right, it was our last day today and we fly out tomorrow. 

Should be a quiet evening tonight with maybe another DVD. By the way Meagan Leavey, last night’s DVD, was pretty good – it was about a US Marine dog handler – can’t beat a war story … except with a dog story … or a war with a dog story!

It’s been a fabulous holiday – met all my expectations and I would thoroughly recommend it. I would be happy to come back and maybe one day I will!