Honolulu Botanical Garden

Today we took the bus into 'downtown' Honolulu to visit the Foster Botanical Garden - a collection of tropical trees (some over 150 years old) from many different parts of the world, together with palms, orchids and 'prehistoric' ferns.  

In common with other tropical trees that we have seen, many of the trees had both flower, immature and mature fruit on the tree at the same time.

The Cocks-Spur Coral Tree has brightly colored flowers growing on small leafy stems growing directly out of the trunk of the tree.

Many of the trees were heavy with fruit.

This Pummelo was not a large tree but it was certainly laden..

Nearby was a tree with unusual shaped fruit, known as The Buddha's Hand..

Some of the fruits were very oddly shaped..

The flower on the other hand was quite delicate..

One of the most unusual trees was the Cannonball tree..

All around the base of the tree were very large, hard, brown seeds, maybe 4 or 5 inches across, together with a notice advising that you watch out for falling ones!  Apparently the large seeds contain a foul smelling blue pulp which is attractive to foraging animals.

The flower was most unusual but quite spectacular..

Certainly some amazing trees!

Pearl Harbour

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..

Exploring Waikiki

When the sun came up this morning it was easier to appreciate why Waikiki beach is as famous as it is.

We walked along the beach while it was still quiet.

A view of our hotel..

Our room is just below the bottom left hand leaf of the right hand palm tree, if that makes sense.

Between the beach and the road along the front there is an enormous Banyan tree, which appears to be home to a number of white doves and some intermingled pigeons..

This afternoon we took a boat to a small submarine moored offshore which allows you to view fish on the sea floor and reef.

The views back to Waikiki from the boat were good although the cloud was rolling down from the mountain.  Our hotel, a third from the left of the picture is dwarfed by the larger hotels around.

Diamond Head is a famous landmark along the coast and an extinct volcano crater.

Believe it or not, from the boat, the water close by did look this extraordinary almost royal blue colour.  (The picture of the submarine coming to the surface, below, was taken after our trip.)

The submarine came alongside the boat for an exchange of passengers.

Inside it was not as claustrophobic as I feared although watching the depth indicator as we went down was sobering.

We took a selfie in the strange blue light..

It was good to see the fish but low light and the movement of both fish and vessel did not make good photos.

But the bubbles as we came back up were impressive!

By the time we returned to the surface and shore the clouds had gathered and it was starting to rain, although the swimmers and surfers were undeterred.