July 14, 1971: A Day in Honolulu
	July 12, 1971: Oahu's Windward Coast
	Return to the Index for My Visit to Hawaii

Today I am going to visit two attractions that I saw yesterday when I was driving along the Windward (east) coast of Oahu. The two are (1) Marineland of the Pacific and (2) The Polynesian Cultural Center.

Marineland of the Pacific was just around Makapu'u Point coming from Honolulu, a few miles up the highway from the Blowhole. The Cultural Center is another fifteen miles north near the small town of Laie.

Note from 2022:
It was not until I actually started constructing this particular photo album page that I discovered that I had made a mistake back in 1971 when I mistakenly referred to "Sea Life Park" as "Marineland of the Pacific". From the notes that I wrote for my pictures back then (notes that I have used on this page) I can find no clue as to why I used the wrong name for the attraction.

At first, I thought it might have been that the attraction had originally been called Marineland, but in the investigation I have done it appears that it was always called Sea Life Park (perhaps because there was always an attraction in California actually called "Marineland of the Pacific" (like the original Marineland on Florida's East Coast where our family stopped on one of our trips down to Elinor Village.

Anyway, I won't go back and change all the references I have already made to "Marineland of the Pacific", but on this page only I will use the official name of "Sea Life Park".

Sea Life Park

To get to Sea Life Park, I retraced my drive yesterday from Honolulu about 15 miles around Diamond Head and Koko Head, to the area around Makapu'u Beach and Makapu'u Beach Park.

At left is an aerial view (obviously current to 2020 or thereabouts) of Sea Life Park. The first thing I should say is that I don't recall the area being nearly as large as this aerial view depicts. I actually recall it as being one main performance aquarium and maybe two or three surrounding pools with marine life. There was a park area and an aviary, and I also recall there was a pool for kids as well.

But this aerial view shows a very large area with lots more stuff than I recall. But of course this view is from 50 years later, and one would logially expect things to have changed.

But the focus of Sea Life Park Hawaii is still the same as when I visited; it is a marine mammal park, bird sanctuary and aquarium. The park first opened in 1964, and now includes exhibits that let visitors interact with the animals by swimming with dolphins, sea lions, and rays, taking a sea safari in the aquarium, and feeding the sea turtles. Today, the Park has all kinds of shows and activities, all with names designed to attract families and their kids. I don't remember any of that in 1971.

Sea Life Park Hawaii was first built in 1964, with the intent to create a shark research facility and by 1971 had become one of Oahu's most visited attractions. Just up the coast is another part of the original research facility, and we will drive by it in a while.

The outstanding feature of the park was a covered "performance pool" where there were frequent shows going on; today, this venue is called the Ocean Theatre- a circular 175,000 gallon tank surrounded by an amphitheater which seats 400 spectators. A show was beginning just as I got there, so I took a seat for the 45-minute performance.

When I got into the "theatre" I could see that the area around the first few rows of seats appeared to be wet, and so I wisely didn't indulge my usually desire to be in the front of everything and I sat about ten rows up. The wisdom of this became apparent during the show.

I think that the animals included Atlantic and Pacific Bottle-nose dolphins, California sea lions, and Humboldt penguins, and they jumped and leapt for fish held out by the trainers.

Here are a couple more pictures from the show.

The Bird Sanctuary is home to many wild marine birds including "iwa" (great frigatebirds), boobys, shearwaters, and albatrosses, most of which came to the sanctuary sick or injured.

There were also demonstrations about how the rescued birds are cared for and rehabilitated, and then out by a small pool there were some seabirds that had, apparently, been trained and were flying around on command.

There was another, outdoor, pool which I have learned since has been named Whaler's Cove. Along with a prop whaling vessel, there were dolphis and "false" killer whales that were performing.

Here are a couple of pictures of the ship and the show.

I watched a team of playful dolphins perform synchronized jumps and maneuvers. They jump as high as they can beside the five-eighths scale replica of the whaling ship Essex.

After the shows, I stopped by the huge, 300,000-gallon aquarium the sported a huge number of all kinds of different sea creatures. I saw sharks, moray eels, giant sea turtles, rays and brightly colored fish. It was really interesting, and by far the largest aquarium I had ever visited.

Makai Pier

When I left Sea Life Park, I continued north on Highway 72 to go again through Kailua and Kaneohe, and as soon as I got onto the Highway I could see the Makai Pier ahead of me.

The Makai Pier is a long, concrete pier built by the State of Hawaiʻi to support marine research efforts in the Hawaiian Islands. This pier houses several commercial marine engineering firms and HURL (Hawaiʻi Underwater Research Laboratory).

The pier, located about 1.2 miles NW of Makapu‘u Point, is a privately operated ocean research facility. The L-shaped pier, protected by a breakwater, extends 700 feet into the bay. The basin and channel leading to the facility are only about 12 feet deep, and so are privately marked by day beacons. A restricted area of the Makai Undersea Test Range extends about 2.5 miles offshore.

I continued past the research pier and then once again drove through Kailua and Kaneohe. I continued heading north, leaving most of civilization behind. But I was rewarded with more of the same spectacular scenery I saw yesterday.

The Polynesian Cultural Center

The second attraction I wanted to see was the Polynesian Cultural Center. I'd seen it yesterday on my drive, and when I asked someone at Fort DeRussy about it, they were able to recommend it.

The Polynesian Cultural Center is a family-centered cultural tourist attraction and living museum located in Laie, on the northern shore of Oahu. One thing I know now, but had no idea of at the time, was that the Center is owned b the Mormons- specifically, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church). The Center was dedicated in 1963 and sits on some 40 acres of land belonging to the nearby Brigham Young University–Hawaii.

The Center is an amalgamation of eight simulated tropical villages, in which performers demonstrate various arts and crafts from throughout Polynesia. I also did not know that more than half of the employees of the Center, which I assume included the "performers", are actually students at BYU-Hawaii.

I also did not know where the funds from the admission fees and concession sales went, and perhaps if I had known, I might have thought twice about stopping in. The profits are used largely to provide financial assistance to BYU-Hawaii students. Now I did recall seeing a sign at the entrance that revenues from the Center were used for daily operations and to support education, and that the Center was a nonprofit enterprise. I guess I assumed this meant for the education of the actually Polynesians who were "performers" there, and this may be true if those same Polynesians are students at the university, but I have no idea.

However, all that aside, I think it would be interesting for you to read what I wrote when I was cataloguing my Hawaii slides later in 1971:

"The following pictures were taken at the Polynesian Village (sic) which is kind of a continuous show put on by native South Pacific Islanders in order to earn money for their tuition at the University of Hawaii (sic). The park is divided into sections devoted to the individual Islands of the South Pacific. At times during the day, all of the personnel of the Village put on a combined show for the tourists. It was all very interesting, and just avoided being too commercial."

So while I might not have known of the Mormon connection, I still have to say that I thought the Center was quite well done. Although I cannot be sure, since I have never been to Tonga, Tahiti, or any of the other Polynesian islands, the eight "areas" seemed authentic enough, and the "performers" also seemed authentic.

Click on the Image Above to View the Slideshow

I found the Cultural Center very interesting. Thinking about it, the Center had to walk a fine line between being educational and realistic and being entertaining, and it appeared to me that they were, on the whole, successful.

I did think, however, that the grounds were not really representative of what the various islands and locations in Polynesia might be like. For example, I doubt that natives on a Pacific island would put so much effort into building a bridge over a lagoon (like the one in my pictures). My guess would be that they would either just walk through the water, or fill in the little neck of water, or build some sort of crossing that would be a lot less complicated- even though it might not look as good. So the grounds were very much idealized, I think. And the people were indeed performers, in that they did little in the way of actual day-to-day living (crafts, preparing food, making clothing, etc.).

Anyway, you should take a look at my pictures, and you can do so easily and quickly by going through the slideshow I have created. Just click on the image at left and the show will open in a popup window. You can use the little arrows in the lower corners of each image to move from one to another, and you can refer to the upper right corner index numbers to see where you are in the sequence. When you are done, just close the popup window and you can continue through the photo album.

Of course, the clothing was another question. I have no idea whether Pacific Islanders had the ability or technology to make clothes anywhere close to what the performers wore, but my guess would be no. And the women certainly had enough necklaces and stuff that I wondered whether in real life the islanders would have put so much effort into those, either.

So the Cultural Center was certainly entertaining, if not the crash course in just how Pacific Islanders actually live that one might have expected.

I enjoyed both attractions here on the Windward Coast and coming back today was worthwhile. Tomorrow, I plan on a relaxing day in Honolulu before my trip over to the Big Island day after tomorrow.

You can use the links below to continue to another photo album page.

	July 14, 1971: A Day in Honolulu
	July 12, 1971: Oahu's Windward Coast
	Return to the Index for My Visit to Hawaii