The ship got into port late. The night before, there had been heavy rains in the area and there were several logs and debris in the harbor. Our captain decided to come on in and maneuvered around the logs and stumps to get us onto the dock. Another, larger, cruise ship decided not to try it and canceled their port call. We spent the day on the ship. Later in the afternoon, heavy rain and high winds moved in and lasted all night.
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| Lihue Harbor on Kaua'i |
We were originally supposed to stop at Lahaina, but after the devastating fires last year, they canceled that port of call and doubled the number of days in Honolulu. We pulled into pier 11 in Honolulu in the early morning. On our honeymoon, we had stayed in Honolulu for several days and taken the Pearl Harbor Tour but had missed seeing the Pacific Aviation Museum. So, we picked up a taxi at the port entrance to take us to the Pearl Harbor Visitor Center. Our driver Eric was fun to talk to and we made arrangements with him to pick us up later. We had to put Leslie’s purse into secure storage since only clear bags are allowed into the facility. After getting our tickets we took the shuttle bus to the museum on Ford Island. They had several aircraft, both American and Japanese, for the time of the Pearl Harbor attack. We watched the museum film and toured the aircraft displays. David was surprised to learn there was a couple of things about the attack he did not know before. There was a civilian aircraft flying over the harbor when the first wave attacked. Also, a Japanese plane that was damaged by anti-aircraft fire landed at one of the other Hawaiian Islands where the pilot attacked a native that was helping him resulting in both dying. We then went over to Hanger 57 where they do the restoration work to see the ongoing projects. There are still holes in the windows of the hanger doors from the day of the attack. As we made our way back along the flight line display of modern-day aircraft, it began to rain. So, we headed back to the main building to visit the gift shop before taking the shuttle bus back to the visitor center and called Eric to come pick us up. Turns out he was already out front waiting for us!. We asked Eric to take us to the Punch Bowl, the national cemetery where most of the fatalities of the attack were buried. As we approached the Cemetery, Eric asked if we were there to see a particular grave and we said no. He then explained that he was not allowed to stop in the Cemetery and we were not allowed to walk around the graves unless we were there to see a family members greave and got a pass at the front entrance. Eric drove us around the parameter of the cemetery slowly so we could shoot pictures before heading back to pier 11. After Eric dropped us off, we walked around the pier area, got drinks at an open air bar and then got dinner at “the Old Spaghetti Warehouse”. We enjoyed the dinner since it was actually seasoned well. The ship food is good, but generally bland since they are serving so many different pallets. The second day, after looking at maps on our phones, we decided to walk into town since there was supposed to be a string of restaurants and bars only a half mile away. We were disappointed to find that the walk to this restaurant row was much further and lined with construction projects. We wandered around and eventually found a bar featuring locally brewed beers. It was a bit different since you had a card you used to turn on a tap, then served yourself. By this point, we had walked over four miles. So some refreshments were in order! Leslie spied a shop across the aisle from the bar and found a wonderful outfit to buy. Thus refreshed, we headed out to find a drug store. The maps led us to several wrong locations before we finally found a drugstore in a mall where we stocked up on some things we needed. Since it was almost dinner time, we found a nearby Dim Sum restaurant to try. It also turned out to be good but we ordered more than we could eat in our quest to try several new dishes. We looked at how far the walk was going to be to get back to the pier and decided to go across the street to a hotel and have them call us a cab. In the end, we walked about 6 miles. During the night we pulled out of Honolulu.
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| Aloha Tower Honolulu |
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| Bullet Holes in the Hanger Door Windows from Dec 7, 1941 attack. |
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| Pinch Bowl National Cemetery |
The ship docked a little before 9am in Hilo. Our tour was not until 1:25 in the afternoon. David took the opportunity to walk to a small grocery store just outside the port entrance to pick up some essentials and goodies. We had toured much of the big island on our honeymoon but had not spent any time in Hilo. Our panoramic tour of Hilo was interesting. Hilo had been hit by three different Tsunami’s in the past 70 years. The water front, which had been warehouses which were damaged or destroyed by the Tsunami’s, has been turned into beautiful parks, including one paid for by Japan. We stopped to walk around the parks for a few minutes, then went to the statue of King Kamehameha. Finally, we went up to Rainbow Falls. Unfortunately, it was cloudy, so we did not get to see the rainbow at the base of the falls. But the fall is very pretty. Then back to the ship. It wasn’t much of a tour. We pulled out of harbor later that evening.
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| The Japanese Garden Entrance |
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| Bridge in the Japanese Garden of Hilo |
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| King Kamehameha Statue |
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| Rainbow Falls |
Our first full day at sea we did what cruisers do, ate too much, drank too much, worked on our tans and did nothing! Between the 6th and 7th, around 1:06Am, we crossed into the northern hemisphere. For sailors, your first crossing of the equator is a big deal. Before you cross the equator, you are called a polywog. The more seasoned sailors will hold a Neptune ceremony where the polywogs are inducted into the ranks of the Shellbacks. Typically, this involves some humiliating hazing rituals. We did not get to see the crew go through this ritual. But they held a version for the guests up on the pool deck. King Neptune and his Queen presided over the ritual for guests crazy enough to volunteer (about 25 of them). They had to get on their knees (tough for old folks) and asked King Neptune to accept them as Shellbacks. Then they had to kiss a dead fish before being drenched in cold ice water. I’m sure it was pretty mild compared to what they put the crew through, but it made for fun entertainment. The decks are heaving about 10 feet in the swells and they are predicting it will be worse in the morning. During the day, we collected a piece of card board and some printer paper from the reception desk and made a Pin Hole projector. The Captain announced over the PA that we would be able to see a partial eclipse from our position south of Hawaii shortly after sunrise. The morning of the 8th, we got up just after sunrise and went up to the pool deck. The upper decks (10 and 11) were closed off due to the wind and swells. We stacked out a seat on the pool deck and used our pin hole projector to observe the solar eclipse. There was a bank of clouds at just the right height to obscure the sun most of the time but in the breaks we could see the eclipse. The wind was blowing hard, so David had to use both his hands to hold the carboard steady, and Leslie used both of her hands to hold the screen steady. Result was we could not take a picture of the screen. There were a few other guests and crew trying to watch the eclipse. Some tried sunglasses combined with the tinting of the windows in Horizons, but that was not enough filtering for safe viewing. Others tried to use their phone cameras but we knew that would not work due to the intensity of the sun. There were other folks staking out their pool deck chairs for the day already! Who knew the ship was so busy at dawn? The 9th we worked on our tans some more and read our books. We started a native crafts class during the at sea period. We made necklaces from nuts and shells and started on another shell necklace.
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| King Neptune and his Queen |
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| Polliwogs kissing the dead fish |
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| Materials for our necklaces |
We arrived in the harbor of the island of NuKu Hiva in the morning. The day was bright and sunny with a few clouds. From the bay, there are tall volcanic mountains that go all the way to cliffs at the sea shore. Nuku Hiva is the second largest island in French Polynesia (Tahiti being the largest) but only has a population of 5,000. There is a small village at the head of the bay. We knew there was not a lot to see in the village, but we figured this would be our last chance to walk on dry land for 5 days, so we took the tender to the pier. We arrived as they were cleaning the fish catch of the day. Occasionally they would toss a fish head into the bay and it would be grabbed by a pretty good size shark lurking just off the pier. We wandered toward the town and walked up to a view point above the pier where there were several impressive sculptures. They were put up in 1998 using steel and concrete, so not exactly ancient, but still impressive. We then wandered down into the town. It was very hot and muggy, so we were sweating profusely! There was not much to see in town, so we wandered back to the open air market near the pier and explored the stands. There were many beautiful native crafts, but just not enough room in our luggage to take it home! We made our way back to the pier to catch the stifling tender back to the ship. By the time we got on board, there was not a dry stitch of clothing on either of us! We spent the rest of the day trying to cool off with cold showers and standing under the air conditioner! Later that evening as we headed out to sea, there was a spectacular sunset. It was interesting because the tops of thunderhead were poking up from the horizon, but you could not see the base of the clouds since they were over the horizon.
Another relaxing day at sea. We worked on our tans and enjoyed the ship.
Last night we went to the Captain’s Cocktail Hour. As we walked into the Regatta Lounge, there were three officers with multiple stripes on their jacket arms standing in a line to greet everyone coming in. David asked them “Which of you is the Navigational Officer”? The second in line said “that would be the captain” and which point the first in line said “that would be me”. David then asked the captain if he had plotted out where the ship would be relative to the solar eclipse on the morning of 8 April. The look on the Captains face was priceless. He obviously had not even considered it. Captain said “I can’t believe I did not think about that. I will have to look into it and get back to you”. David had stumped the Captain! We did not hear back until the day before the eclipse, by public announcement, that we would indeed be able to observe, weather permitting, at least a partial eclipse between 6:17AM and 7:55 AM. We would not be in position for the full eclipse. We arrived in the bay near Rangiroa in the morning. We did not have a tour planned for this island since they all required you bring your own snorkeling gear. About the middle of the morning rain and thunderstorms moved in. They ended up canceling the rest of the tours for the day, ended the existing tours early and shut down the tender service due to the lightning and heavy rain. So we relaxed and read our books on the ship.
