The Big Island of Hawaii is the eastern-most Hawaiian island (and, therefore, the youngest, which is why it still has an active volcano) and Hilo (Hee-lo) is on its eastern side. The Big Island is a very big island, 93 miles long by 80 miles wide. All of the other seven major Hawaiian islands would fit in the 4028 sq. mile area of the Big Island. For comparison, Tahiti, the largest island in French Polynesia, has an area of 402 sq. miles.
The Big Island is most well known for Mauna Kea, its largest volcano and the tallest mountain on Earth. It is 33506 feet high, including its underwater portion. Mt. Everest is 29028 feet high. Ka Lea point (the Big Island's south point) is the southernmost point in the entire U.S. I remember on our first trip to the Big Island, G and I stayed on both the Kona (western side) of the island and the Hilo side and covered the island over the course of five days with our rental car. One of our stops was Ka Lea point, and it was a most surreal place. There is a huge wind farm on the southern coast, and the woosh-woosh-woosh of the wind turbines can be heard for miles. We were the only people down there when we went, and I'll never forget the sea cliffs and crashing surf and high winds...and that wooshing sound.
Douglas Pearson told us in his lecture that the high and low temperature extremes for the Big Island range from 24 degrees on the summit of Mauna Kea (remember we saw it covered with snow when we were here in January) to 1149 degrees in the lava flow. Hilo is the third wettest town in the U.S., receiving 129 inches of rain annually (which I would find horribly depressing), and, obviously today was one of 'those' days.
I woke naturally at 5am (which was 6am just yesterday and 8am six days ago in Vancouver) and couldn't fall back asleep. I guess I was pretty excited about seeing our first land since leaving Vancouver nearly a week ago. I dressed and left the cabin as quietly as I could just before 6am, and took a minute to capture what was being shown on the ship's log channel (there are two TV displays by the Passenger Services Desk just feet away from our cabin).
I loved this; it reminded me of our Air Tahiti Nui flight to Papeete last October. Though, in this case, I'm pretty certain Captain D was not trying to find stable air.
A nice summary of how far we've traveled from Vancouver and the distances between the Hawaiian islands.
I knew that the Panorama Buffet bar opened at 6am with fresh coffee and so made that my first stop. I stepped out onto the terrace behind the buffet just in time to watch today's sunrise.
Unfortunately, the sun did not last long. :-(
Today it was my turn to be joined by Douglas Pearson while I drank my coffee and he ate breakfast. The man is a wealth of information and has given us a great idea for our day in Honolulu on Wednesday. Douglas was going to head to his usual 'coming into port' position on the front of Deck 11 but it started to rain as we approached Hilo, and so he 'held court' one deck below in the Pacific Lounge. It was there that G caught up with us.
Eventually G and I got hungry and made our way back to the Panorama Buffet. For the first time this year, I ordered my eggbeaters at the omelet station and paired it with mixed fruit. We managed to find a dry table tucked under the overhang on the back terrace and watched the rain drizzle down. Eventually we heard the sound of a tugboat guiding us into our berth and stood in the rain long enough to take a couple of photos.
The skies stayed dark, and we decided to use the morning to catch up with friends and family and check on things at home. The ship held a crew drill beginning at 9:45am (which the crew must have hated because they were all anxious to catch the shuttle to WalMart). G and I were thrilled to be able to use our phones in our cabin to access the Internet, and spent a peaceful couple of hours reconnecting with the world. Around noon, the sky did seem to be getting lighter, so we returned to the Panorama Buffet for a quick, light lunch and then walked off the ship right afterwards.
We only had one goal in mind for today, and that was to get to the Hilo WalMart to stock up on supplies to last us nearly three months. I had made a very detailed list of things we needed (and quantities, since we're gone so long), and I knew this would not be a quick shopping trip. When we walked off the ship (we both commented that it felt a bit unsettling to be on terra firma for the first time in six days), there was still quite a crew line for the WalMart shuttle, especially as the Disney Wonder, with its many more crew members, was in port with us. A taxi was just dropping off passengers and we snagged him to take us to WalMart for $10, freeing up two seats on the bus for crew members.
Hilo on a Sunday is a very quiet place; I think WalMart and the nearby Ross Dress For Less (always a crew favorite) were the most hopping places in town. It was very interesting to compare our impressions of the WalMart today (really, it's not a very well stocked WalMart) to what they were in January when it was our first shopping opportunity after three months in French Polynesia. I guess it all depends on what we're used to, and now we're used to Super Targets and major grocery stores. In January, we were used to...Champion grocery store in Raiatea.
Shopping took us awhile, and if I tell you we spent $223, I guess you'll understand why. Three months of consumables purchased at one time are a lot. And after we bought everything we needed, we had to buy recycled bags to carry our purchases out. They'll come in handy in French Polynesia, which has also outlawed plastic bags.
Thank goodness we didn't have far to go to get to our cabin once we were back on the ship. We had to rush to get things unpacked before it was time to go to dinner.
I was glad to get this over with today, on a rainy Sunday. We really are well stocked now for most of the rest of our South Pacific season.
We had just enough time to get showered and to dinner at 5:30pm. I expected the Club Restaurant to be empty- wrong- as sailaway from Hilo was not until 6pm. It was Italian night, and I enjoyed pasta fagioli soup, a spinach salad and penne arabiatta with chicken accompanied by merlot. For dessert we both chose a quick single scoop of limoncello sorbet before we left to get to the 7pm Cabaret Lounge performance of singer Tony B. Not quite my style (music of Bobby Darin and the Rat Pack, who were a few years before my time), but he was very talented.
We are back in the cabin for a one hour rest before we head back out for tonight's King Kamehameha Festival. It's supposed to be on the open deck, but I suspect will take place in the Pacific Lounge instead. G will be playing the ukulele with his fellow students and other passengers will be dancing the hula. It is obviously this cruise's regional Festival of the World, and is our version of the former Island Night party. I'll fill you in tomorrow on how this goes.