In Oahu, we stayed at the Waikiki Marriott, which had a nice ocean view (at first they tried to stick us in what I call a binocular ocean view room, but we asked to be moved). It’s a large whoop-de-doo kind of hotel with a shopping complex, pools, and restaurants. Last night, we ate at the on-site, Zagat rated sushi restaurant, which was 50% off on Mondays if you get there early enough. We got there early enough. Delicious.
Tuesday morning we headed to Pearl Harbor. We poked around the museum there, but didn’t do the video and memorial tour (the main attraction), as the wait was over 2 hours and would have chewed up half our only full day in Oahu. I don’t feel much connection to World War II or the Pearl Harbor attack, but I was interested that the museum had some models, pictures, and info of the Japanese commanders, warships, and terms. It seems obvious that the museum would have that, but somehow I imagined the museum would only focus on America’s side of the story.
It was also interesting to me that the admiral in charge of Pearl Harbor was held fully accountable for the attack, even though some say there was intelligence of an impending Japanese attack he was not privy to. I only caught a couple of minutes of the video on the admiral, but the fact that he was held accountable is interesting to me for 2 reasons:
1. I’ve just read a book on the unpredictable, outlier “Black Swan” event that is easy to spot (and lay blame for) only after the fact. I have a lot of sympathy for that admiral, who was likely a scapegoat for not predicting something that someone would have been very LUCKY to have predicted.
2. The top man was held accountable in American chain of command! The admiral of the Pearl Harbor fleet was dishonorably discharged. His career was ended in a heartbeat. What a different America existed in 1941. Abu Ghraib? A few bad apples. Katrina? Doin’ a heck of a job, Brownie, here’s a medal. The list is tragically much longer than that. Perhaps the most ironic current-day bastardization of accountability is that the man who chose to locate the emergency response center in the World Trade Center, after having been told by experts to put it underground (and not in a building that had already been bombed by terrorists), is now a leading presidential candidate precisely BECAUSE the attack he helped cripple our response to came to pass (the man is Rudy Giuliani). To quote from my new favorite book (“The Black Swan”), “Everybody knows that you need more prevention than treatment, but few reward acts of prevention.”
The waves roll into Waikiki Beach slowly and eventually. There are tons of them crashing at any time – out at sea, close to shore, everywhere. From an elevated height (our Marriott balcony), I could see multiple sets of waves heading into shore, staggered at identical intervals like airplanes queued to land at LAX. The waves seem to be in a constant state of crashing, allowing surfers to ride them all the way into shore (or until they lose momentum). Seeing all this, I decided Waikiki would be a perfect place to try surfing. Having lived in San Diego most all my life, it’s sort of sad it took Honolulu to get me to try surfing, but whatever. I signed up for a $40 group lesson.
After 3 minutes on shore showing us how to go from stomach to knees to feet, 3 of us paddled out on long boards behind our instructor. The instructor, by the way, was a little too cool for school, providing minimal instruction in that you-already-get-this-right? sort of way. But it sort of worked out for the 3 of us, as we all stood up and surfed on our very first wave try. I only “caught” a few more waves after that first success, and I could never duplicate my beginner’s luck. On subsequent waves, I was off balance by the time I stood, and just jumped/fell off when the surfing was supposed to commence. The last half hour was spent frustratingly trying to catch waves and failing. I think the swell was dying off, as Kelly confirmed she saw from the shore.
Let me say, surfing is fricking exhausting. I had no idea. I’ve been boogey boarding and bodysurfing my whole life. But surfing cuts out your lower body from the propulsion equation, leaving only a tiny muscle in the upper tricep/shoulder area to do all the paddling. That muscle reached exhaustion in about 3 minutes, and it was basically will power that kept me going after that. Also, I underestimated how different a longboard is from a boogey board. I can turn my boogey board 180 degrees in a heartbeat. A longboard is more like a dinghy. You have to plan ahead of time when turning that sucker around. And, at least at Waikiki, you have to already have a good velocity going when the wave reaches you. All of this means more exhaustion. After about 90 minutes, I collapsed on the beach and began to count my (until then unnoticed) numerous minor injuries. They were:
Portion of left index fingernail torn off
Lower, inner thighs and stomach rubbed raw into rash
Nipples rubbed raw
Skin on big toe torn off
Blister on palm of hand
I limped back to the hotel.
That night, Kelly and I went to a rotating bar atop Waikiki and had a drink, then moved on to a different bar with live Hula music for another. We walked the main drag of Waikiki, buzzing a bit from vodka and rum. Our bodies and minds were fully in sync with the slow speed of Hawaiian living. We were relaxed, we were close, we were probably both a little excited to get back home. It was a perfect last night of our vacation.
