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Published: March 16th 2011
The King of Surf
As surfing used to be a purely royal pursuit in Hawaii, statues celebrate surfy-dude kings and princes.Thursday 10th March – Tsunami Watch
After a flight from Hilo to Honolulu, we head to our hotel in Waikiki and settle in before realising that a huge wave is heading our way:
Coconut Waikiki –Checking into our hotel suite and unpacking, booking a few trips for Friday and Sunday, all seems well in island paradise.
Hawaii 5-0 – Running along the Ala Wai canal, trying to keep pace with two 6 man Hawaiian canoes in the late evening sun, humming the theme tune to Hawaii 5-0 – it really doesn’t get much better than this!
Tsunami Watch (full story at bottom) – Hearing the news of the earthquake in Japan, we decide what to do for the best as we wait for the effects to hit Hawaii and more specifically Waikiki. Luckily the eventual impact is lighter than feared.
Friday 11th March – After the Storm
After re-booking our cancelled tour we head into Waikiki which looked like nothing much had happened the previous night:
Shaved Ice – After a strange stroll along Waikiki beach we stop for a shaved ice, which is basically a large mound of ice soaked in fruit syrups.
(tip: never Hawaii 5-0
People of a certain age will still be able to hum the whole theme tune while imagining 6 tanned guys paddling like mad in one of these. order a large size in the US)
Da Big Kahuna – Kahuna burger and garlic shrimps in Da Big Kahuna bar and restaurant, as we enjoy some excellent Hawaiian slack key guitar.
T-Shirts – Less than 12 hours after the event, the “Tsunami Watch” T shirts are already on sale (see pic) with a portion of profits going to the Japan disaster fund.
Saturday 12th March – Hawaiian Lu’au
A lazy morning, building to an afternoon and evening of island song, dance and Hawaiian feast:
Guns n God – Only in America would you see two street preachers (one in Japanese) thumping out the scriptures while about 12 guys walk around in sandwich boards inviting you to “shoot real guns” at their various gun clubs.
Heart Attack Option – Instantly regretted ordering the Crispy Blueberry Banana Cheesecake once it arrived and realised that it contained all of the major heart attack ingredients in a single dish – would’ve been rude to leave any though!
Hawaiian Lu’au – A wonderful outdoor feast and a fabulous show of dance and song from South Pacific islands along with the captivating and beautiful Hula (all hip-swinging, waving arms and suggestive
Got the T Shirt
Within 12 hours of the all-clear the local T Shirt shops were offerring momentos of the near-disaster in Hawaii. expressions).
Sunday 13th March – Pearl Harbour and Honolulu Festival
A morning at Pearl Harbour followed by the culmination of the weekend’s annual Honolulu Festival:
Obama-ville – Now fully aware of where the US President was born, went to school and where his grandmother had an apartment – the Hawaiians are rightly proud to have a home-grown President.
USS Arizona Memorial – A moving trip out (via boat launch) to the white memorial building perched above the sunken but not fully submerged wreckage of the USS Arizona, in which the bodies of over 900 navy men are entombed and survivor’s ashes are added as they pass on.
Honolulu Festival – A parade of American and Pacific dance troupes, dignitaries and beauty queens with a distinctly Japanese flavour marked the 17th annual Honolulu Festival, although the huge fireworks display was cancelled as a mark of respect for those still struggling in Japan.
Personal Tsunami Watch Story
Below are our personal recollections of the events following the realisation that we may be struck by a tsunami wave, albeit luckily having so much more notice than the Japanese:
– We arrived in Waikiki (Honolulu /
Mai Tai in Paradise
Deborah models the lei (flower necklace) and cocktail, required to fully appreciate the palms, sandy beach and Hula music at the Paradise Cove Lu'au. Big Island) mid-afternoon after a short flight from Big Island (Hawaii). After a short walk into town and some food, we go back to our hotel with take-out cheesecake, start eating and turn on the TV…
– News starts to filter though of a massive earthquake in Japan (magnitude 8.9) followed by multiple aftershocks, many between 5.0 and 6.0+. News footage shows the centre of the earthquake being offshore and a huge tsunami wave wiping out large areas of coastal Japan.
– In conjunction with news from Japan, warnings are given about the likely impact on the Hawaiian islands. We don’t get to finish our cheesecake before it seems that some kind of personal action is needed. Deborah heads to the hotel reception and Simon starts sorting out all the important items we could fit into our large rucksack if we needed to evacuate.
– We find that the hotel is not in a direct evacuation zone and the hotel reception staff advises that we should stay put after confirming we are on the 8th floor (anyone below the 3rd floor is evacuated upwards). We then check the Hawaiian area maps (on the Government website) for Waikiki
Burger King Waikiki Style
Gives a new meaning to the saying "Do you want that to go". to see where the evacuation zone lies. It starts only 50M from our room (on the canal) and wraps around the street the hotel is on, meaning all buildings over the canal and from a point behind us and towards the beach need evacuation. We seem to lie in an island of two blocks wide and several blocks long that is completely surrounded by a red evacuation zone area.
– The earthquake happened mid to late evening Hawaii time and TV reports from Pacific Tsunami Watch give estimates of when the tsunami will reach the different Hawaiian islands. We are expecting the force to hit us at 3:19, with the first island due at 3:07.
– The streets start to jam with cars as people try to make their way out of Waikiki and other parts of the island, heading for higher ground. The flow starts to thin out by midnight. TV coverage show jammed highways and panic buying in the supermarkets.
– …so we pack enough to be able to leave in a hurry if we have to and go to bed, setting the alarm for abut 3:00. The hope is that we are far enough
Shoot Real Guns
Don't mess around with those pretend guns, this is Hawaii 5-0 territory so really blow them away... from the beach and high enough up in the hotel to stay put through any water surge and see what the morning brings. Sirens sound every hour, with continual sirens from 3:00 onwards. Police vehicles prowl the streets, moving on any pedestrians.
– The alarm goes off at 3:00 and the TV goes on. Along with the horrible reports from Japan, images from cameras and web-cams around the islands show water starting to surge and recede at various points. We are told that tsunamis at this distance may build over a period of time with the pulses of water increasing in intensity each time.
– Out from Diamond Head beach (a mile or so across the coast from us) the water starts to move closer to shore and then remarkably recedes several hundred metres out, exposing large sections of reef. This looks like the start of a major surge but the water comes back in relatively slowly and the pattern is then repeated several times.
– TV viewing continues until about 5:00, at which time it looks hopeful that the worst of the risk may have passed, although it will be some time before an all-clear is
Paddle that Canoe
Guests at the Lu'au get to see what it is like to paddle a Hawaiian canoe, and no-one can get that damned theme tune out of their head for days. announced. We go back to bed setting the alarm for 6:40, in the vain hope that the tour we had booked for 7:15 the following morning actually goes ahead – it doesn’t, as roads are still closed and public transport is at a standstill.
– TV reports stop short of giving the all-clear but reduce the position to an advisory, so people start venturing out even though public transport is not yet running.
- We hear news of some of the property damage across Hawaii and Maui islands as well as severe boat and marina damage but luckily no loss of life or injury.
– We head out for a stroll along Waikiki beach where the lifeguards struggle to get people to understand that the beach is closed – strong surf and rip tides are now likely. As we walk in view of the water we keep an eye on what we might hold on to or climb up if a large wave came our way…
We wanted to offer this account as a record of what was a scary time for us. Clearly it pales into insignificance for those directly (or even indirectly) affected in
Paradise Cove
...enough said! Japan, who our hearts go out to.
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Lunar Hine
non-member comment
It's not that we don't love you...
We are all missing you and looking forward to the first 50 photos (that's the human endurance limit), but you seem to court disaster, so we were thinking perhaps you should just keep traveling. London just wouldn't work as well under water or exploded or cracked in half or drowned in a plague of frogs or whatever else will happen (but not directly to you) when you land in Heathrow. Do take care please, and keep having fun x