Day 2: Pearl Harbor (Without Ben Affleck) and Snorkeling (With Dory!)

Somehow, (read: thanks to Honey), we all managed to wake up at the ridiculous hour of 4:30 am(ish) and made it out the door some time just after five to line up early enough for entrance to Pearl Harbor.

See, apparently tickets for Pearl Harbor have to bought several weeks in advance. I tried looking up tickets during my last week in Ulsan, and the earliest available tickets were for September 11^th, about a month from then.

The only other alternative is to line up early enough to be one of the first 2, 000 guests at the door to get a free ticket when the place opens up at 7:00 am. If you’re not in the first 2, 000, your only option is to get some sort of audio tour of the museum and the main grounds.

Thankfully, we were in the first 2, 000. Hell, we were in the first ten!

Before heading out to the USS Arizona Memorial, though, we had to watch a short video on Pearl Harbor that included some background information of the historic day of December 7, 1941, as well as actual footage from that day.

Once the film was finished, we jumped on a boat and headed out to the memorial. Along the way, we passed white slabs of concrete with the names of some of the vessels to mark where they went down on that day. They were essentially tombstones for the sunken ships and the crew who lost their lives on those ships.

The memorial itself sits floating directly over where the Arizona went down. I won’t share much about the experience, as I don’t want to ruin it for anybody who might want to visit at some point in the future, but I will say that it is a worthwhile place to visit even if you’re not interested in history. I was actually really impressed with how much heart, respect, and honor there was throughout the entire place. You really get a personal feel for the extent of the trauma and the losses suffered through the stories you hear and read. There are stories that started well before December 7 and stories that continue to unfold to this day.

The next part of the day proved to be a bit of a bust, though I still got a bit of joy out of it. We were headed to Hanauma Bay to do some snorkeling; however, in order to preserve the natural beauty of the area, there are only so many parking spaces available. After they’ve hit their max, the bay is closed to cars and only accessible by bus until space becomes available later on in the day. Due to our visit to Pearl Harbor, the place was full by the time we arrived, so we just kept driving. 

Soon enough, we found ourselves on some fantastic winding roads along the shore that proved to be some of the most fun roads I’ve ever driven on.

After  a quick stop at a nearby beach, we headed back to the hostel and Lex and Honey checked into their new hotel, where they’d be staying for their final night. Once there, they discovered a very cheap shuttle bus that would get us into the bay and provide us with rental snorkeling gear.

Now I should mention that I wasn’t initially crazy about the idea of snorkeling; mainly because I can’t swim. I’m no expert, but I hear swimming is kind of an important skill for snorkeling. Honey and Lex were really gung ho about the whole thing, though, and they even tried to teach me to swim a few days before we left Korea. (God bless them for trying. They’re not the first to fail, and they probably won’t be the last.)

Our driver, who was a ball of energy and kept referring to everybody in the bus as “my darling” or “honey” dropped us off and handed over our gear, including a ghetto looking life vest for me. Lex, Honey, and I were a little concerned for my safety looking at this thing. It was a flimsy little life vest that you had to blow up yourself. There was a pretty good chance that I’d be figuratively and literally swimming with the fishes by the end of the day.

All guests looking to enter the bay are required to watch a 9 minute educational video about the ecological history of the bay and ways visitors can help preserve it. Once we were through with that, on we went!

Now (spoilers!), as you’re reading this, I obviously survived my first snorkeling attempt, however there were some harrowing moments there, I’m not gonna lie. Thankfully, the life vest did work (though by the end of our session, it was definitely significantly deflated). The bigger problem for me was getting used to the whole breathing through your mouth thing.

Once I got that down, I had to overcome my other issue: my fear of drowning. See, my trouble is that I almost immediately start to panic and flail around pathetically once I'm in the water. When Honey and Lex were trying to teach me, I might’ve had good form for the first stroke or two, but then the panic immediately sunk in and I’d sink like a stone.

Since I had this flimsy little life jacket to “help” me, it didn’t exactly squash my anxiety about drowning. I honestly thought I was going to be the first person to ever drown while wearing a life jacket.

Eventually, I got the rhythm down, and I was actually moving around. I started exploring, and found some pretty cool looking fish. I tried to aim as best I could with the waterproof camera I bought and hoped for the best. (Hopefully, I can get the photos developed soon.)

Then some jerk bumped into me, freaked me out, and I had a panic attack! Thankfully, that was only a momentary setback, and the rest of our time in the water proved to be pretty freakin’ awesome.

Note: Thanks, Honey, for the pics!