Before we go on, we need to introduce you to some special friends. Reydelle and her husband Eric are our Aggie friends stationed her with the Air Force. They arrived on Oahu about three weeks before we did. Crystal Rose and Reydelle were study buddies and more at NMSU. We live about three minutes from them and we see each other about once a week. They're great company!
Abe and Crystal Rose arrived on Friday morning and went straight to the beach with Reydelle. Mason and I met up with them after work for a BBQ at Eric and Reydelle’s house.
Saturday morning we went to the Arizona Memorial and Battleship Missouri. Definitely worth the visit.
Here it is! The Arizona Memorial on the right, Battleship Missouri on the left. For those of you who don't know (don't feel bad I didn't either), Japan surrendered on the deck of the Missouri which ended WWII. So there you have it, the mark of the beginning of U.S. involvement in the war next to the mark of the conclusion of the war with Japan.
This is the USS Bowfin behind us. We didn't take this tour :(
This is a picture from onboard the Arizona Memorial. There is a hole here where we could look down at the ship below us.
Looking foward (towards the front of the ship). This is a picture of the turrett, the gun base where the big cannons fire from. There is a white buoy out to the very left of the photo which marks her front tip.
This is looking aft (toward the back of the ship). That's right. The white buoy marks the tail end. Maybe it's hard to tell in the photos, but this is a pretty big ship!
Here lie over 1100 sailors. Total crew was around 1400.
These are the best pictures I will ever get of the Shipyard so enjoy!
These shots are looking from the Missouri toward the shipyard where I work! :)
Click on them to make them bigger - get a good look at those cranes.
The Missouri was also super fun. We couldn't help but wonder what it would have been like to be one of her sailors back in the day....(oh yeah! I got my sunglasses back Mom, I left them at Crystal Rose's house :)
So this is the turrett on the Missouri. This is what we were looking at from the Airzona memorial remember? Basically the word for everything on this ship is BIG! The Missouri and the Arizona were both in the same group of Battleships commissioned in the 1940's, so pretty much anything on the Missouri is comparable to the Arizona. If I remember right, there were eight of these guys all lined up on Battleship Row that Sunday morning on December 7, 1941. Missouri wasn't one of them.
Mason pointed out one of the cleaning rods they used to clean out the barrels of the 14'' guns. See it on the white stands at the bottom of the picture? Huge ramrod!
Chains for the anchor.
Oklahoma is another one of the battleships that was lost that morning. The other one which was not recovered is the USS Utah. The others that were hit were repaired.
Reydelle and Eric joined up with us later that day and we went to Turtle Beach. AND WE SAW TURTLES!!!!!!
So, carefully look at the picture below. How many turtles do you see?
We'll help you out a little. The first on is in the bottom left corner. Here's a closer shot of him with the other three in the background.
So here is the second one. There are still two more in the background. Can you see them yet?
Here they are! They're together :)
The red rope there was put out by a volunteer. We thought it was probably a type of humane organization to protect the turtles. We weren't allowed to touch them.
The boys went snorkeling and saw a turtle in the water too! Abe had an underwater camera and got a good picture of it.
The next day we went for a drive around the Windward side and along the North Shore. We stopped at Sunset Beach to pick up some shells and take a few pictures. This is one of the three hot spots for the Triple Crown surf competition. I really just like the colors in these pictures. Enjoy :)
Life guard supplies :)
It's so cool that palm trees grow on the beach.We went snorkeling at one of our favorite spots...Shark's Cove. Mason was super excited because just as we got there, three ducks landed on the water!
Finally, Mason took Crystal Rose, Abe, and I jet skiing. It was so much fun! In my opinion, Mason is the best jet ski driver ever! I'm probably the worst jet ski driver, in his opinion.
This is Mason's company's booth. He drives the shuttle from here to the lagoon where the jet skiis are on most days.
Some days he gets to crew the jet ski barge, which means someone else drives the van and he helps the costumers with the jet skiis. This is the barge, and that's him in the white T-shirt!
So, on a day Mason was working on the barge, the three of us rode the van from the booth over to where the jet skiis are and met up with Mason. He took care of the other costumers and hopped on with me!
That's Diamond Head and Waikiki in the background.
We really had such a good time with Abe and Crystal Rose. It felt a little bit like we were on vacation ourselves! Thanks for visiting!!!
