Day of Departure on the Pride of America

Saturday, June 23, 2018

We were up at 5am after a long night's sleep and were soon out walking on Wakiki.

We had a look toward downtown Honolulu, shown behind Brenda, but then decided to walk the other direction toward Diamond Head. It was a nice walk past the park. This was before 6am in Honolulu, although it was nearly noon in Atlanta.

There was a breakwater there with a good view of the other end of Wakiki, so you can pretty well anticipate what Rod was doing.

This was the view back toward the center of Honolulu. Even at 6am there were lots of folks in the surf and a lot of walkers and runners.

This is a look back at our hotel from our walk. The Aston is the second building from right, past the palm trees.

Our general experience is that you meet nice folks when you are out early. We talked to this nice Asian guy who was walking and wanted his picture taken. He then returned the favor.

Rod by this amazing banyan tree on the beach.

Brenda by one of the nice fountains in the park area. The area was quite nice. We ate breakfast later with Jeff and Darla at the restaurant just across the street.

This restaurant was just a block from our hotel and was open to the outside. That's a luxury of Hawaii with its nice temperature all year. We had a nice big breakfast there with the view across the street.

The view from our breakfast table of Wakiki Beach. The cruise ship in view is similar in size to ours, which we saw approach along the same path later.

After our nice breakfast with Jeff and Darla, I took the long lens and went exploring for a while. The pink building is the Royal Hawaiian Resort. It opened in 1927 as the second resort on Wakiki Beach. One history.

The bird above is the Common Mynah according to Hawaii's Birds, p114. We saw it everywhere. It was introduced to the islands from India in 1865 to help control insect pests.

The bird at right is probably just a house sparrow.

There were not as many birds in Hawaii as I expected. It seems to me that in 1959 I saw a lot of birds at the higher altitudes.

I walked out to the breakwater at a point closer to downtown. I enjoyed watching the waves and the boats.

There were a lot of people in the surf, with all kinds of boards. This was at about 9am.

There was a large variety of small boats close to shore, and heavy shipping further out.

A number of surfers further out really seemed to know what they were doing. I enjoyed watching their efforts to get up on the waves.

There was a group of a half dozen or so surfers who acted like they knew each other.

Now for something completely different, I watched this military aircraft lift off from Honolulu.

OK, back to the surfing. This guy made it look easy!

OK, a final shot of homage to both the surfers and the boaters. I had very much enjoyed watching both of them.

We gathered our belongings and checked out of the hotel and waited on the first floor for our pickup to take us to the cruise ship. At 10:45am we were picked up at the hotel for transfer to the Norwegian Cruise Line's "Pride of America" cruise ship. We deposited our luggage to be taken to our rooms on the ship, and proceeded through a security check and were able to board the ship.
The checkin area was huge, but we did get the traditional lei greeting and all the personnel were friendly and helpful.

At about noon we were through the checkin procedure and were on the walkway to the ship. This was the view of the huge ship.

Darla on the stair between the two main dining rooms on the ship. We spent more time in the lower one, called the Skyline Restaurant, which Brenda and I particularly liked at breakfast time. It was close to the water and we could watch what was going on close to the ship.

On the ship at about 1:45pm, I turned my attention to watching the boating in the harbor. I particularly like tugs, so I watched this one proceed across the harbor.

There was a lot of container freight and a variety of vessels lining the harbor. I took this tug picture in that context.

More of the variety of boats and activity in the harbor.

The upper decks of our ship.

Everything on the ship is on a large scale. This fuel barge was brought alongside by a tug to fuel the ship. Next to the fuel barge on the ship are the suspended tender vessels which we would later use for transfer to the Kona coast of Hawaii.

Another view of some of the features of the upper decks of the ship.

We got onboard the Pride of America and found our cabin 8201 on the 8th deck. Jeff and Darla were on the 7th deck.
At about 6pm, there was a rain shower to the east and we got a rainbow that appeared close to the Moon.

Jeff caught the rainbow earlier and got a much nicer view of the whole arc. He even got a bit of the secondary rainbow at the extreme right up by the cloud.
From the top decks we got a view of Diamond Head over the dock area and central city.

The ship has left the dock, which you can see below us to the right. 7:20pm.

There was a rain shower to our right along the coast.

We are now moving away from the docking position across from that little island point. We are accompanied by a pilot boat. Lots of the passengers, like myself, are on the upper decks to watch the process. This is at 7:25pm.

Jeff and Darla were on a different part of the upper decks than I was, and got this view of the people gathered at the front rail of the ship as it headed toward Diamond Head.

Waikiki and Diamond Head are now in view as we move into open water.

View of downtown Honolulu from the bay. A huge amount of container freight on the shore.

Downtown Honolulu swinging more toward Wakiki.

We encounter a couple of smaller tourboats and a sailboat as we move out to sea. The sea is very calm.

You can see lots of folks onboard the Star of Honolulu for their sunset tour.

The tugboat leaves us, so we are on our own, headed for Maui.

The Star of Honolulu heads into port as we head out.

The tug seems to be traveling parallel to shore, so perhaps it has another ship to meet.

The sea looks calm, but this yacht seems to have enough wind in its sails to keep moving along.

We meet another evening tour boat, the Atlantis, as we move toward Diamond Head. It is packed with people.

Our tug is still with us. I thought it had left, but perhaps it is running interference for us along the coast since there are lots of small boats in the water.

The Atlantis goes by between us and the tug.

The yacht and the Atlantis seen with a backdrop of the bay from which our ship emerged.

The two tourboats seem to be headed for harbor.

With the showers and the darkening sea, I think it is time for me to call it a day and let the crew take us to Maui during the night.