Honolulu on Oahu- Wednesday, January 27-Thursday, January 28

It didn’t take us long to get from Hilo to Honolulu; when I woke up we were in port.

At 7:45am on the first morning I had an FDP (Faculty Directed Practica) to go on with my Oceanography professor, Dan Abel. It was to the Hawai’i Institute of Marine Biology on Coconut Island. There were 13 of us on the trip.

We took a bus through Honolulu to rent snorkel gear; Prof Abel made a coffee run for us while we were inside. Then we got back on the bus and headed for the island. The drive was beautiful; the mountains were cloudy and green. The driver dropped us off at the top of a hill and we had to walk down to the dock where we were taken across in a small speed boat six at a time.

Coconut Island is small and largely restricted to researchers, so there weren’t many people there. A PhD candidate named Jon gave us a tour of the facility aka walked us around the island. We got to see pufferfish, jacks and a black tip reef shark. The pufferfish was spitting bubbles at us, which apparently meant that he was begging for food… like my dogs… haha.

Jon told us all about the research and native species, which was much more interesting than it sounds. Then we went inside to eat lunch while he gave us a lecture on sharks and rays (also much, much more interesting than it sounds).

Fun Fact: The tiger shark has no distinct migration pattern when it comes to moving up and down the islands. The only time their movements can be predicted is during the 2 or 3 weeks a year when the albatross eggs hatch in one specific location. During those weeks the sharks just chill in the water, waiting for the baby albatross to fail at flying. Aside from that, they’re very unpredictable in their movements.

After the lecture we were given 4 baby hammerhead sharks to dissect; they had died in captivity and were only 12-15 inches long. I held one for a picture and then just watched as everyone else dissected; it was interesting, but I don’t like to cut animals. One of the sharks had small crab claws in its stomach.

After the dissection we got to snorkel on the coral reef around the island, which is a rare treat because it’s not usually open to anyone except the researchers. We saw a bunch of fish and an eel in the hour or so that we were out there.

We got back to the ship around 4:30pm, showered and went out for dinner to a pretty sketchy looking restaurant that Helen’s friend recommended. It was delicious and the 3 boys met us there. We had a great time getting to know the guys and after dinner we walked to a local Coldstone. Later they waited (very patiently) with us for the bus that would take us back to the ship. It was a solid night.

The next morning Helen and I took a bus over to Pearl Harbor. We took a tour of the Arizona Memorial and the Pearl Harbor museum. My grandpa has a friend whose father died on the Arizona and we found his name on the memorial wall. It brought tears to my eyes to see how many of the survivors chose to be cremated and later interred with their shipmates who didn’t make it.

Reading about the other ships was also incredible. Mary’s neighbor survived Pearl Harbor. He was on the Oklahoma and managed to climb out a porthole. Upwards of 300 men died on that ship when it capsized; it had the highest number of casualties after the U.S.S. Arizona. There were pictures of everyone who didn’t make it.

By the time we got a bus back to the ship it was already close to on ship time, so we grabbed our computers and set up camp in an Internet café across the street. It was called Badass Coffee and has another store in Yokohama, which I’m going to try to find. The owner gave me his card and told me to say hi to the owner in Japan for him.

Back on the ship everyone was crowding the decks making last minute phone calls home while we still had reception. When I went to bed the lights of Hawaii were still visible. By the time I woke up we were alone in the Pacific.

Updates for the next week or so are going to be sporadic and probably pretty boring. We don’t arrive in Yokohama until February 9 and I’m going to be busy with classes, homework, tutoring, vicarious voyage and intramural volleyball.

LoveLoveLove,

Molly