Honolulu Explorations, after sailing out of Nawiliwili

 

Entering and exiting the Nawilwili port was a tight squeeze, and we saw the tugs in action as they pushed on the stern to force the ship into a sharp, nearly 90 degree turn with very little tolerance for errors (shoals on the one side and stone breakwater on the opposite side to enter the port.  The pilot had hopped aboard coming into port, but we never saw him leave when we exited (with a beautiful sunset pictured below), so maybe he went with us for a jaunt to Honolulu (pictured above) which was our next port of call.  There, we were moored at Pier 2, not too far from the iconic Aloha Tower lighthouse/beacon.  Both the tower and pier 2 (marked by our round blue dot) are in the photo above. But here's one last glimpse of the Nawiliwili sunset:

The first day in Honolulu was supposed to have been a Holland America excursion, but it was cancelled due to lack of participants. Our plan then was to use local transportation to get around but the taxi bill of close to $40 to our first stop (Bishop Museum) convinced us to try a bus later. 

The Bishop museum was started by Charles Reed Bishop (1822–1915), who was a Hawaiian  businessman and philanthropist, obtaining most of his wealth from being co-founder of the First Hawaiian Bank and Kamehameha Schools.  He built the museum in memory of his late wife, Princess Bernice Pauahi Bishop (1831–1884), who was a member of the royal family and last legal heir of the Kamehameha Dynasty, which had ruled the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi between 1810 and 1872. Although Bishop had originally intended the museum to house family heirlooms passed down to him through the royal lineage of his wife, as the museum was built on the original boys' campus of Kamehameha Schools, an institution created at the bequest of the Princess, to benefit native Hawaiian children.  1898, Bishop had Hawaiian Hall and Polynesian Hall built on the campus, in the popular Richardsonian Romanesque architectural style. The Pacific Commercial Advertiser newspaper dubbed these two structures as "the noblest buildings of Honolulu," and today these halls are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Hawaiian Hall includes a ceiling suspension of a sperm-whale skeleton, with half of the skeleton exposed and the other half encased in papier-mâché to simulate the body skin of the massive whale. Taxidermy birds native to the area are also suspended from the ceiling as if in flight.  The gallery showcases around the perimeter of these halls contain historical materials and explanatory information from all eras of human occupation of the islands.

We asked the entry desk staff if they knew whether a bus passed by the museum and could return us near our port dock.  The Hawaiian man there, who was very friendly, didn’t know because he only drives, he told us, but he asked the lady at the desk who told us the bus number, and the man then took us outside and told us where to go to catch that bus, which was over about two blocks.  As we talked with him, he asked where we were from, and was familiar with both Mendocino and Sebastopol because he had lived in Sacramento, he told us, for 20 years—then he told us he had moved here after attending UOP.  Well, we told him we had also attended UPO, and then it was like old family week, and we talked some more.  How cool is that?  He seemed a wonderful man, and told us that he had once lived in Bakersfield, but decided it was time to come back to the islands few years back. And called his mother, saying “Mom, I’m coming home!”

We followed his directions and got to the bus top just a bit before the bus arrived, and the driver told us to get off at the stop closest to the Aloha Tower.  By then, both our phones were running down, and the phone maps were hard to follow, but we figure we probably circled back on ourselves several time before we walked downhill trying to get close enough to the port where we could see our ship.  It was a 14,000-step day in HOT sun, and we were badly dehydrated by the time we got back to ship.

The next day, we left early and explored the Aloha Tower area before heading back to ship as it was just quite hot to be out and about walking.  On Board the ship, as we were beginning lunch, we saw the Oscar Elton Sette NOAA research vessel sail out past us. 

The Oscar Elton Sette built in Moss Point, Mississippi, commissioned in 2003, and is homeported in Honolulu.   The ship is named after Oscar Elton Sette who served as the first director of the Honolulu Laboratory at U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (now the NOAA National Marine Fisheries Service’s Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center), from 1949 to 1955.  The vessel conducts fisheries assessments, physical and chemical oceanography research, marine mammal surveys, and marine debris surveys. Because the ship is acoustically quieted, it is particularly well suited to conduct fisheries research and marine mammal surveys.  It uses bottom trawls, longlines, and fish traps to collect fish and crustacean specimens--plankton nets and surface and mid-water larval nets are used to collect plankton, fish larvae, and eggs. The ship has wet, dry, hydro-chemistry and computer laboratories—what a great life for a fisheries biologist to work aboard her!