August 30-September 4, 1987

August 30-September 4, 1987

For our honeymoon Aimee and I went on a two-week vacation to Hawaii. Aimee had been there with her family but I hadn’t and it had always been a dream of mine. We spent our honeymoon night at the Hyatt Regency O’Hare and in the morning took the shuttle to the airport. It was a long flight to Hawaii but we were enjoying our first moments in public as a married couple. We landed in Honolulu on the island of Oahu and were greeted by a couple native Hawaiians who gave both of us leis made from beautiful fresh flowers. Our vacation package had us staying at the Hilton Hawaiian Village on Waikiki Beach. Interestingly it is the same hotel Aimee’s family stayed at many years prior.

After checking in, the first thing we did was change into swimsuits and head for the beach. On the way we stopped at the poolside bar, ordered a Pina Colada and toasted our arrival in paradise. Oooh! It tasted delicious! I don’t know if it was the fresh pineapple or the ambience. But everything seems better in Hawaii.

The next day I took Aimee shopping at the International Marketplace and we bought some clothes better suited for our stay. For Aimee we got a flowery Hawaiian sundress that made her sparkle. For me a bright blue Hawaiian shirt. We also bought a fresh pineapple that we dug into with my dive knife in the hotel room.

Aimee thought we were going to spend the week on Waikiki Beach. She doesn't know me yet. Instead we drove to Pearl Harbor. There we took the ferry tour to the USS Arizona Memorial. The often-pictured white Memorial lists all the crew lost in the attack on December 7th, 1942. The memorial rests atop the hull of the sunken ship. Since many of the dead are still entombed in the ship, the site is an official Navy Cemetery. The water is pretty murky so little can be seen of the hull below except a rusting gun turret sticking out and the remnants of still leaking oil. That evening we took a cruise off Waikiki Beach.

On Wednesday we rented scuba tanks for the day and drove to Hanauma Bay on the southeast corner of Oahu. On the way we stopped at Diamond Head, Honolulu’s famous icon at the end of Waikiki Beach. You realize it is an extinct volcanic crater when you drive inside the circular walls. You can climb the tall ocean-side wall bringing you to old gun emplacements from WWII.

Hanauma Bay is a very picturesque circular inlet. Like Diamond Head it is also a volcanic crater. One side sunk or eroded away letting the sea fill the interior. A shuttle service gives us, and our heavy dive equipment, a lift down the steep hill to the beach.

This is our first Scuba dive without an organized group. Aimee is not too whoopee about the idea; I don’t think she has learned to trust me yet. In addition I find for the first time that she is not too fond of wildlife. I excitedly point out to her that the reef we are following out to sea contains Moray Eels. For the rest of the dive she stays about 20 feet to my side and keeps waving me away from the reef. I guess it would look bad to friends and relatives if she loses her husband on the honeymoon. She is quite ecstatic when we finish the dive and return to shore. Although the diving here wasn’t great, it so beats Pearl Lake, our practice area in Wisconsin. No thick full body wet suit needed!

After the dive we take the long way back to Honolulu giving ourselves a circle tour of the island. Oahu is gorgeous. This island gets a bad rap because of Honolulu being just another big city. But Oahu is much more than Honolulu. Those critics obviously never saw the rest of the island. Our next stop is just east of Hanauma Bay at the Halona Blowhole. Here an old lava tube sometimes directs the surf in blasts into the air. It must not be high tide, as we don’t see anything spectacular. Another nearby scenic stop is Makapuu Lookout. On the north shore we stop at Ehukai Beach (Banzai Pipeline) famous the world around for huge winter waves that challenge even the expert surfer. In summer the waves are quite tame and it is deserted.

Cutting back inland toward Honolulu we pass pineapple groves and sugarcane fields. Fondly remembering the C & H commercials from my youth I tried gnawing on a stalk of sugarcane. Yuck! Not sweet and not tasty!

Back in Honolulu we did a quick tour of the downtown sights. We stopped at the Punchbowl, yet another old volcanic crater. Within its wall is the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific. The crater is on a rise above Honolulu and provides nice views of the city. We also stop at the Judicial Building with its King Kamehameha statue in front. Kamehameha was the first Hawaiian king to unite all the islands. We also saw Iolani Palace, which before statehood, was home to the Hawaiian royalty. The last monarch, Queen Liliokulani, was overthrown in a coup and the islands handed over to the US.