Visiting With The Black Pearl (PotC4)

So back when I had all those visitors last month, I found a way for them to finally get out and check out the island. They had been here for almost a week and had only seen Diamond Head, Waikiki, and a couple of beaches. In an attempt to get them to some of the island's more distant destinations I pulled my trump card: The Black Pearl from PotC. Yes, the Black Pearl was in one of the northern harbors for filming of the 4th, as of yet, unannounced movie for several weeks and was open for viewing by the public.

In all honesty, it wasn't solely my idea. I had be trying to come up with several things to take my guests out to see and given one of them has advanced vision problems, was coming up short. I wanted to hit a beach on the Eastside of the island, and a waterfall on the Northwest, but needed an activity to join the two. Otherwise it would be nearly impossible to get them to committ to the long drive. The idea of seeing the Black Pearl came from my boss's boss during a mentoring lunch. Add to this the fact that one of my guests thinks Mr. Depp is God's gift to acting (too much wierdness for me) and I knew I had to do it.

We ended up parking up on a hill a couple hundred feet from the harbor the ship was docked in and walked down to a viewing area setup maybe 40 ft from the actual Black Pearl. Everyone started taking pictures and looking for Mr. Depp. It turned out to be a rather uneventful setup, with only a couple of pirate extras walking around and no major action scenes taking place. We stayed for several minutes and then left for our next stop. We did have a little bit more fun on the walk back though.

Everytime we saw another group of people walking toward the ship we'd start talking about how "I can't believe how Jonny Depp was so polite," or "I thought Jonny Depp was taller than that," or something along those lines. Everyone we tried this with started walking faster/nudging their companions/or whispering to one another. It was hilarious! Anyway, that's pretty much the end of that chapter. I've included a slightly "off" panorama of the Black Pearl docked in the harbor. Just a disclaimer, it looks MUCH larger in the movies than in real life. Oh, and in case it isn't obvious, it is seaworthy. Peace out.

- TiH