I will have to admit from the outset of these next few postings the true level of my ignorance about Hawaii since I had always assumed it to be one big island in the Pacific!! Mind you I never did watch the TV series ‘Hawaii O5’ in my youth. So I thought the best thing I could do was to provide a map of the extensive Hawaiian Islands, some 20 or so in total, that stretch all the way up to Mid Way Island. I think I was more familiar with their former name of the Sandwich Islands.
Neither can I tell you much about the history or the origins of the Hawaiian language other than that the Islands were discovered by the Polynesians and were discovered for the west by Captain James Cook in 1778. They were annexed by the US in 1898 and became the 50th state in 1959. Well I did know that at least but I will still have to do some serious updating when I get home.
Our first port of call was the island of Oahu; the third largest of the Hawaiian Islands and its principal town, Honolulu (On the SE coast) and the State Capital of Hawaii. This island is, of course, the site of the US naval base of Pearl Harbour, where a surprise attack on 7th December 1941 by Japanese carrier borne aircraft inflicted heavy damage and brought the US into WWII but more of that later.
In the meantime since there was no ‘Hula Hula’ welcome only the US Coastguard for immigration here is a welcome from a Hawaiian Petrel that escorted the ship into Honolulu.
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