After a long day on Kauai yesterday we slept in because we didn’t have anything on tap until noonish when we had lunch with our Sitka friend Fred.  Fred has a place on the other side of Oahu and came into Honolulu for a morning appointment.

While sleeping in has its advantages it can sometimes be alarming. The crew has drills in the late mornings on some port days.  You do NOT want to be in an elevator when the general alarm goes off.  It is loud and the closed in walls of the elevator assure that you will continue to hear the sound echo in your head for a while.

Fred took us to the Moku Kitchen run by Chef Peter Merriman.  He is one of the founders of the Hawaiian Local Cuisine movement.  Monkey Pods is his well-known upscale restaurant.  He started Moku Kitchen to offer more affordable fare.  I had the snappiest ginger beer I have ever tasted. I ordered a pizza with pulled Kalua pork (cooked wrapped in banana leaves and steamed underground), jalapeños and, of course, pineapple. It had that mix of sweet, smoky and sharp – good!

After lunch we took a short stroll to look at some street murals sponsored by the Pauahi Foundation.

Then Fred took us to the Foster Botanical Garden.  It is a small garden in the middle of Honolulu that provides a respite from the urban hustle of the state capital.  We enjoyed a walk through the garden.

But beware the cannonball trees.  

Fred left us at the ship in time for sail out…

…And sunset

That night we looked up and found the comet C/2023 A3 Tsuchinshan-ATLAS.  The Captain explained that the C meant it was non-periodic comet, 2023 the year it was discovered, the year is divided into sections,  A3 is the first half of February, and the two names following are the two observatories that discovered it at the same time, one in China and one in South Africa.