Island time

Day 57 - 15 August
One of those funny days (as was last year), as it is *really* my birthday today, but due to the dateline, it is only Monday here, so noone here takes any notice 😴.  Still, I can live in anticipation for tomorrow.  OK, that to the side, another lovely day, with bright sun and relatively clear skies as we sail towards Nawiliwili, on the island of Kauai.  We arrived just after 8.00 and after waiting for the tours and the really anxious,  we were on land just after 9.00.

Unfortunately there was complete shambles after getting off the ship.  No organisation at all and we all queued up waiting for (?).  It seems that most wanted a shuttle further into town, but fortunately we were able to short-circuit the queue and get a local shuttle out of the port and to the small shopping area adjacent to the Marriott Hotel.  This was actually only a 10 minute walk away & if we'd known that we probably would have walked.

The Marriott is located in the main bay, with sandy beach & breaks for surfers, which reminds me - the access for the ship into the berth is almost a figure of eight, with very tight turns.  From the beach it was extremely hard to visualise how the ship our size was docked where it was.  I digress, we walked to the end of the beach and met up with Bev & Rick and together went back to grab a drink and a bite (for Vivian ).  On further discussion,  we thought we would take a taxi together to the Waimea Canyon, which we were told was about 40 minutes away.  Not quite true as we eventually found out.

Got another shuttle back to the ship and waited for a taxi.  And we waited.  And waited.  Eventually established that all the taxis were already booked and so we had the thought of going into the main shopping centre, where we thought our luck may be better.  So caught yet another shuttle (all shuttles were free) to Kmart and after a series of misstarts, established that no taxi was going to take us at that time of day - 1.00.  And that it was 2 hours each way!! OK, so that was off the menu.

Big mistake was that we'd walked through Kmart and came back through Ross', which is a "Dress for Less" clearance shop.  I'd seen a shirt in San Francisco,  but it was the wrong size so we had to go through but no shirts, however Vivian found a dress,  so there goes our expense account ☺☺.  Took another shuttle back to the ship and indulged at the International Cafe.  Very convenient on port days, when most are still ashore.  The sail away was most interesting,  retracing our steps out of the harbour.   All the staff have changed into Hawaiian shirts/blouses and looked smart, however it was hard to distinguish our Head Waiter or the Maitre D from the general waiters.

Day 58 - 16 August
Today is Honolulu and of course it is my birthday on board.  The usual balloons and sign on the door as we left for breakfast. Not that the day was all about me, it was a great arrival with clear skies and warm temperatures.  The day eventually reached about 30 degrees and as I am updating this at 7.00pm on our balcony, it is a beautiful balmy evening, with cheese & crackers we picked up from the International Cafe on our way upstairs.

We had a ship's tour to visit Pearl Harbour and while the assembly time was 10.00, Vivian was anxious for us to be early, so there we are at 9.30, sitting waiting.  We eventually got to our bus at 10.20!  One of the strangest tour arrangements we've ever come across, as somehow groups #1,2 & 3 got mixed up and it didn't seem to matter.  Our driver /guide was Ed,  not, he assured us Mr Ed!  but he was a talker.  And he talked constantly, not that it overly concerned us, but I think that he actually confused some people at times.

Briefly, we had a city tour  (to fill in time) then to the lookout of the other side of the island - been there done that earlier in the year and then reaching Pearl Harbour about midday.  Now, we assumed that this was to coincide with our scheduled tour time - which turned out to be 2.15!  While there were some exhibits and displays, there was not a lot to do for all of 2 hours really.  Got a sandwich & bottle of water to fill in the time/tummy.  Forgot to mention,  but no bags or anything larger than 12 inches was allowed in.  Said to be for Naval security, but the whole memorial setup is actually operated by US Parks.  Yet another overkill.

Eventually it was 2.15, & in groups of 150, we rush into the theatre for 20 minute film on the Japanese  attack of 7 December 1941 then onto the navy boat and across to the Arizona memorial for about 10 minutes and back to mainland & the bus home, via Punchbowl Cemetery.  While we were pleased to have done the trip and seen Pearl Harbour, we felt that it was overly long and we would have been more happy with a 2 to 3 hour trip, rather than over 6.

Unfortunately we struck gridlock on the way back through Honolulu to Punchbowl and we were treated to seeing the less glamorous side of life in Honolulu as we took a shortcut through suburbia!  We were eventually an hour late in getting back and although Vivian thought it might be a good idea to go back in to town for shopping,  I reminded her of the time it took us to get to & fro on our last visit and the fact that we had "visitors" for dinner.

As the ship did not sail until later in the evening, we enjoyed the sunset from our balcony, prior to dinner.  Being a port day, it was open dinner seating - which was most fortunate.  Vivian had planned my birthday dinner with our Head Waiter, Sean and believed that we'd be at the back of our dining room, where we had been for Ash's birthday.

When we arrived (with a bottles of Omni (sparkling wine ) in hand), Victoria our waiter  told us that we were in fact at our original table #48!  Fantastic to have our friendly team of Victoria & Dianne, plus other waiters just helping out as they were not at all busy tonight.  So our table mates, Margaret & Roger, Margit & Jim were joined by Marilyn & Ray and Bev & Rick.  Wow, what a good time we had.  Vivian had ordered dessert of fruit platters and had convinced Princess to provide 2 birthday cakes (only 1 candle though), so we could all share.  The evening was topped of with Limoncello all around - never had it before but I am sure that they forgot the lemon but not the alcohol!  However I am now the proud owner of 9 green shotglasses.

Day 59 - 17 August
And again, a very hot day ahead as we arrive at anchor off Lahaina, Maui.  After breakfast we headed down to get our tender tickets, a short wait and there we were, once again on the waterfront about 9.00. The only problem is that nothing gets going until 10.00, so a quick wander around and although there were a number of taxis available, they had a set "tourist" route & price.  We didn't want to repeat the trip we did in February, so we flagged the idea.

When we were previously here, we'd spotted the Yellow Submarine, so here we were booking a cruise, but unfortunately not until 2.15.  Cost us just under USD100 for 90 minutes.  Found yet another shuttle to go to the shopping centre (which turned out to be be less than a kilometre away).  Overpriced and nothing in our sizes, so rather than shuttle back, we walked and admired all the usual port shops - jewellery, souvenirs, clothing etc.  3/4 of the way back we found a great little coffee place - actually it was advertising ice creams as its main function.  One of the nicest coffees we've had and got a seat looking out over the bay.

As there really wasn't anything else we wanted to do, we caught a tender back to the ship for lunch at the International Cafe  (sounding familiar by now?).  Although the tender trip is only 10 minutes, Vivian was getting anxious by 1.00, so off we went down to the tender pad on Deck 4.  A tender was sitting there with another one arriving behind it.  Very few people going back ashore, so we were all set to take off, when "Whack".  Forgot to mention that there was a pretty big swells out in the bay, but what happened was the Tender crashed into the railing on the ship's landing pad and smashed a hole through the side of the Tender just in front of us!   Clearly the tender will need to be repaired and I would hope it is done so before we sail.

Back to Tender #2 and ashore without any issues.  The trip to view the coral reef & fish was great - it is not actually a submarine, but the viewing cabin is fully below the water with amble windows for excellent viewing.  While it was a little murky when we started out, was pretty crystal clear around the reef and the fish were abundant.  As a bonus, a couple of dolphins swam by as we were motoring out.  We were the oldest people on board,  with the majority having younger children who were excitedly marking off the fish they saw from the brochure we were all given.

We were very lucky to get a Tender back to the ship almost straight away, remembering long queues to get to the QV earlier. Afternoon tea and then back to the cabin to enjoy the sailaway.  We watched the remaining tenders come back - an additional one had to return to shore as there were so many passengers trying to get on board at the last minute.  They tried to get the tender below us into storage position,  but the mechanism jammed and it took almost 2 hours to finally get it stowed.  I think the Captain was a bit annoyed, as he upped anchor and was motoring away from the island at about 2 knots while this was going on. Ummm, what happens if we strike an iceberg and have to evacuate? 😊

Day 60 - 18 August
Sailing into Hilo, our last Hawaiian port was interesting as we could see the volcanic smoke rising in the distance.  The morning was gloriously clear and we sort of rushed down to breakfast to ensure we got cracking early.  No, we had not booked a tour and I was confident that there would be tours available shore side.  Sure enough, just walking out of the terminal, we were approached by another passenger who asked if we wanted to make up a 6 for a taxi.  We jumped at this and although the price rose from USD 50 to 60, we were happy with the trip.

Our first port of call was to the volcanic area, including the very big l1ava tube and a couple of view points of the enormous crater and the active volcano inside.  The volcanoes on Hawaii are quite different to our peaks, as they are formed from a more gentle lava flow, rather than eruptions as we know.  This being said, we drove for just over 30 minutes, mainly on a straight 6 lane freeway without realising that we'd actually climbed almost 4,000 feet to the crater.

Following this we went down to the southeastern part of the island to see the more recent lava flows.  This was intriguing - the older part added 500 acres of new land, while inland we were able to walk through more recent lava from the flow of just 2 years ago, which caused major devastation to many villages.  In the event, the flow stopped just short of the CBD, which had already been deserted.  What I hadn't realised is that the flow took 5 months to reach the town, so they had plenty of time to prepare.  The lava was very slippery with loose material on top, making it hard to walk on.  Another type of lava around the coast was very rough & extremely sharp, named something like "ah ah", the sound one makes walking on such a surface.

The lava is currently flowing and much of the coast road was closed and we could only get onto the older part, where people are in some cases rebuilding - no water, power, sewage of course.  From here we could see the steam above the active lava flow, much of which is underground in lava tubes (as we saw before).  It is well over 10 kilometres from the end of the road to where the lava reaches the sea, so impossible for us to get there.  Enterprising locals apparently bought up all the bicycles from Walmart on special and are expecting to rent them out.  As you are no doubt aware, this lava flow has International attention and it was interesting to read the article on the Herald website, along with great video coverage.

The 5 hour trip ended with the local waterfall, which was somewhat unimpressive,  despite the fact that it had apparently been raining for the preceeded 3 days.  Once again, this island boasts the highest rainfall in the world (don't they all?).  All aboard at 4.30 as we prepared to set sail at 5.00.  Just to prove the rainfall thing, the weather deteriorated with showers and wind, which continued for the rest of the evening.  The Captain advised that we'd be sailing past the active lava flow about 8.30, however we were at dinner and it was still drizzly, but yes, we could see the red/orange flow of lava into the sea, out in the distance, as below.

So that was the end of the Hawaiian Islands as we sail pretty well due South to the other side of the equator and French Polynesia, our last 2 stops before home.

Photos
1-3 Nawiliwili with Bev & Rick
4-8 Honolulu & Pearl Harbour
9-13 Birthday celebration
14-25 Maui
26-32 Hilo, volcanic expedition etc.
33 Rainbow waterfall
34 "Jr" our driver
35 Lava flow