We drove over to Kaneohe for lunch via the Pali Highway, but since it was raining, we decided it was not a good day for a hike to the viewpoint. After lunch, we headed up the east shore, and stopped for some pictures at Kualoa Beach Park.

This is called “Chinaman’s Hat” Island, and was taken a couple miles before the park along the highway. The picture below was taken from the park, about 90 degrees around the bay for a different viewpoint.

The mountain ridges just rise right up out of the ocean, with just a small area of flat land between the mountains and the ocean, most places less than 1/4 mile wide…

After visiting the USS Arizona Memorial, we decided to take a drive up into the mountains north of Waikiki to a lookout point I found on Microsoft’s Streets & Trips: Tantalus Point. The road was extremely curvy, with 180 degree switchbacks, etc, and traveled through some of the most diverse vegetation we have seen on the island.

Below is a view of Diamond Head on the east end of Waikiki and a view of downtown Honolulu, both taken from Tantalus Road.

After getting all the way up to the top of the ridge, and stopping at a park
with a viewing area, we continued along the road down the other side of the ridge, we came upon a barrier were the road was closed to traffic. So, we had to turn around and go all the way back around the ridge again to Honolulu, about a 5 mile drive at 15-20 mph….

Visiting the USS Arizona Memorial was very interesting. I took several pictures of the wreckage in the water, but unfortunately, due to the choppy water and bright sunlight, the pictures did not show anything but the sky reflecting on the water….

This picture was taken from land in the waiting line to get into the museum.

This one was from the boat on our return ride to the museum.

One of the Arizona’s bells and anchors are on display at the museum.

Wow, we finally made it into the memorial building, and amazingly, we
only have an hour wait for the beginning of our tour. That will give us
enough time to walk around the museum part of the memorial before the
75 minute long movie and trip over to the memorial above the USS Arizona
itself….

We’ll, we arrived at the Arizona Memorial about 7:40am, and we are still
in line to get in…

Tried to get here earlier, but it just didn’t work out…. Looks like
we may get inside in the next 10 minutes, then we will have to see when
we actually get to take the boat to the memorial….