It was my last day in Hawaii (for this trip anyway), and Jewels had to work all day, so I decided to venture beyond Waikiki beach, even though it was a splendid day.
My first stop was the Pearl Harbor Memorial, which is a national park as well as a naval base. To get there, I had to ferry out to the memorial, which is built over the Arizona. There you can see the sunken USS Arizona, and the memorials to all who perished on 7 December 1941. People were respectful and quiet, and the guide gave us time to look at the memorial wall and to wander around. It is such a mix of beauty and senseless loss. At the time I visited, there were still living survivors of the attack. When one of the 335 who survived the attack on the Arizona dies, family members are allowed to bring their cremains to the site and divers take the urn and drop it into the ship. Their names are added to the interment wall. As of my visit in August 2010, 33 survivors–sailors and marines–had been interred along with their sunken comrades, who numbered over 900. There were brothers, and father-son sailors killed that day.An oil leak continued from the ship as the ship had be refueled the night before, which is one of the reasons it was so combustible upon attack.
The guide points out the other spots where ships were docked on battleship row that morning. The Utah contained an urn with the remains of a baby Nancy, the daugher of one of the sailors who intended to bury her ashes at sea, but was unable to do so without a chaplain, who was due to report on December 7. Her identical twin, Mary, visits every year with flowers. There were brothers, and father-son sailors killed that day.
Tickets to the shuttle are required, and I had been warned that lines get longer throughout the day, so I went early and got the single space on a shuttle leaving almost immediately, so I felt un-oriented when I arrived. Back from the memorial, there is also a park with markers for the ships that sailed from Pearl Harbor. The Arizona is the only one with its own built memorial because the casualties were so high, and the ship was not able to be recovered. The other ships were all recovered, although The Oklahoma sank on the California coast during salvage efforts. The names of those who perished that day, including civilians, are in the memorial garden. Back off the memorial, the center provides really good educational materials: a discussion of the attack in strategic historic perspective, with map of the Pacific and the impact of the attack on Oahu beyond Pearl Harbor. There were films and survivors. It was overwhelming to take it all in.
I had explored it all by mid-day, so I decided to take a public bus to one of two other sites. The bus driver was really enthusiastic about all my choices, so I went out to the Bishop Museum, which was an ethnographic find. It was founded in 1889, following the death of Princess Bernice Pauahi, the last descendant of the royal Kamehameha family by her husband, Charles Reed Bishop. I came because there was a hula lesson at 2 pm, which was great, but I realized once I got there that I needed the whole day to take in the full offerings of the museum. It is organized to move you from floor to floor exploring the natural, cultural, and political history of Hawaii up to statehood with special programs that tell a coherent story as you progress. If I ever get a chance to return, I will be sure to spend the full day. There is a great room with the various feather symbols of power. The bookstore was also remarkable, a real find.
I caught a bus back from the outskirts to enjoy my last evening with Jewels before starting the long journey back to reality. I remember the folks on the bus–a mix of locals and tourists coming from the museum–shared stories about the best of Oahu, and I felt triumphant that my gamble with public transportation had turned out so well. I was very sad to see the sun set on Hawaii that evening, as I had loved every minute of my time there and still had so much to see. Perhaps, one day, I will get back. Until then, mahalo for such a great time!
