An early start this morning to join an island tour, starting with the queue to await the opening of the Pearl Harbour national historic site at 7am.
It is a naturally sheltered and quite shallow harbour - originally used to grow oysters before it became the strategically important American military base in the Pacific. This morning it was quiet, calm and peaceful in the early light and it was hard to imagine it as a place full of fire and noise with warships and submarines under attack as it was in the early morning of 7 December 1941 when it was one of five important military sites in Hawaii that were attacked and crippled by Japanese planes.
The main focus of a visit to Pearl Harbour is the memorial to those lost in the USS Arizona which still lies beneath the water. This white marble memorial is built over it and is accessed by boat.
Parts of the ship are still visible above the water.
There are memorials in the harbour to all of the thousands of army, navy, marines, submariners and air force who died in the attack.
This is the submarine USS Bowquin, moored next to the submarine memorial.
This ship is USS Missouri which was in use in 1944 and decommissioned in 1955.
We left Pearl Harbour to continue our island tour under grey skies and unfortunately it got wetter as the day went on...
Our guide and driver, however, was unendingly cheerful - especially considering that it was an 11 hour day! At one point he serenaded us with a ukelele accompaniment..
At the end of the day, back in Waikiki, it was dry and the sunset looked promising..
Sounds like an interesting day. Quite some memorial. Did you ask him if he played the banjo too.
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