Black Pearl sailing Hawaiian waters

More shipping news - Hot on the heels of the Queen Victoria coming to town, early last week the Black Pearl sailed into Kalaeloa Harbor. What is the Black Pearl? Well, if you have to ask, you're not a tween! (And I'm guessing that's most of my readers, so I'll explain...) It was announced last month that the latest installment of the Pirates of the Caribbean movie franchise (#4, again for the non-tweens) will be filmed on and around Hawaii this summer. Johnny Depp is on board (pun intended) for the film, but other stars Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightly have abandoned ship. It was reported that the boat was heading to the West Oahu harbor (immediately next to the dock where Noel used to take TheBoat ferry downtown) for multiple reasons, one of which is that the harbor is "a secured facility." Umm, close but not really. I guess they mean secured so you can't board it yourself. One morning I pulled right up into the parking lot where I used to wait for Noel and walked around taking pictures. While doing that, another car cruised up, an actual tween hopped out of the passenger seat, snapped a few pictures, too, and then got back in the car and drove off with his mom.
The boat is not ready for it's close-up. It is here early to get spruced up and camera-primed. It sailed from California under it's real name, Sunset, registered out of Long Beach. And it is not a true reproduction of a 17th-century warship either, the masts are all for show and sailed here via a pretty strong engine. But if you want to believe, I can't stop you here.
In more local movie news, if Pirates doesn't doesn't get your heart beating, maybe this will! In other words, GEORGE CLOONEY ALERT! GEORGE CLOONEY ALERT! It has also been announced that Sir George (yep, that's an honor bestowed by me) is coming this Spring to shoot a new film in and around Honolulu with Alexander Payne, director of Sideways. More news to come from me on this one!! I'll be in make-up on, hair down, camera fully charged mode for the next few months and on the look out.