Day 80: Hilo

First, I want to wish everyone (not just the Americans...we all have something to be thankful for) a wonderful and safe Thanksgiving holiday. It's not Thanksgiving Day yet where I am, but it's close, and by the time anyone reads this, it will probably be next week. So, Happy Thanksgiving!

Second, this is one of those rare nights when I wonder why the heck I ever started this blog thing. It's late. I'm tired. With the big holiday weekend, no one cares if I let it slip a day or two. But then I remember that tomorrow we're in Honolulu, with a very late on board time (and you know our history in Honolulu...seldom early, never late (but cutting it very, very close)), so I really can't put it off until tomorrow.  

Luckily, we did almost nothing today, so I can be quick. In fact, I'll start at the end, which was definitely the high point, and then backtrack. 

We had the best entertainment of the whole cruise season tonight, a 4-singer group called These Guys. Now, I thought we had seen those guys, These Guys, somewhere in a past cruise life, and, as it turns out, we have. They were an a capella group on Celebrity ships back when we cruised primarily on Celebrity. But then we started cruising Princess and Celebrity eliminated the a capella groups on their ships (because it's all about real estate on ships and four singers need four beds that can't be sold to revenue paying passengers) and those guys, These Guys, started performing on Princess as featured entertainers. They came onboard today in Hilo and will leave in Maui and even then have to share cabins.  There's not enough for them to each have one. To have a four person entertainment group on the Pacific Princess is a real treat. Our orchestra is a four-musician show band; our party bands are duos; they make due with less on this small ship. 

We caught the second half of the first These Guys show, which was for the late diners and started at 6:45pm, sitting in the cheap seats at the very back of the Cabaret Lounge, so all we could do was hear those guys, These Guys, not see them. As soon as the show was over, we moved up to the front row and stayed for their 8:15pm show. They were sensational. The majority of their show was a capella but then they did a Temptations and a Jersey Boys set that had me bouncing in my seat and they received a standing O both shows. And then they mingled in the audience after each one, too, and we'e really friendly and personable. We loved it. 

And then we had the Love Boat Disco Deck party starting at 9:30pm. Picture it (Suzan and Greg)...dancing under a star filled sky and almost full moon and singing and partying with our light up flashing Princess party glasses filled with our drinks of choice (at this point, it's Maalox for me) and enjoying our last Disco Deck party on the Pacific Princess. And G said, we are going to miss the Pacific Princess...and the Pacific Ocean. 

So, that was the end of our day. Now I'll start at the beginning, but let me say this first:  AT&T. Internet. Texting. Phone calls. This year it was me hanging off the Promenade Deck at the wee hours of the morning to turn my phone off Airplane Mode for the first time in over two months and retrieve my cell phone messages, some of them two months old. Honestly, it's like taking a Valium for me to reconnect with my world at home. I also uploaded photos to the blog posts since Moorea a week ago, if you're interested. 

The twins' mom sent me several pics, and one of them is so priceless I have to share it here. During a Ross Dress for Less shopping trip:

Harious. Absolutely harious.  These guys have been making me smile for 12 years. 

And I miss them, just a little. :-(

We had to go through US immigration and were assigned the first group to be processed at 8am, but by 7:25am we were already docked and Passenger Services was making an announcement that we could go immediately. We flew out of our cabin and walked ito the Cabaret Lounge with our passports in hand right behind the three agents who had just boarded. By 7:30am we were the first passengers stepping off the ship onto terra firma. Land. U.S. land!  Wucy, we're home!!

Our excitement sated, we quickly returned to the ship for breakfast. Security was teasing us that we couldn't make it more than 5 minutes on the 'outside'. Hey, it's rough out there! We sat in the Club Restaurant and ate and Interneted and looked over the brochures we had picked up in the terminal building. I made some phone calls for waiter Ricky who had drowned his iPhone 6 in Bora Bora, but, unfortunately, I couldn't find an iPhone repair place that could fix it today. These poor crew members are really hurting because we're in Honolulu (where there is an Apple Store) on Thanksgiving Day, when everything will be closed. 

Our first order of business was to return to our cabin to make some phone calls before offices started to close back home for the holiday. That completed, we walked off again, heading to WalMart. When there was a line of crew members waiting for the free shuttle, we grabbed the first taxi that held six people and had the first four crew members in line join us and we paid for the $12 ride to WalMart, just 10 minutes or so away. 

We didn't need a lot of stuff, just Wet Ones hand wipes and I saw a tropical shirt that I liked and G bought French Vanilla liquid coffee creamer (of course) and Bugles (of course) and a 12-pack of Mountain Dew. The boy likes his Dew, and, though he found one little shop in Papeete that sold expired cans of it, once he'd bought them all he had had to do without. 

We took a free shuttle (actually, a large bus) back to the ship and had lunch in the Panorama Buffet, and then returned to our cabin where we surfed the Net 'till we were tired and had exhausted our batteries. We have missed it!! I can't access the Internet for free on my iPad, so I was downloading People and Sports Illustrated magazines on my iPhone, never an optimum reading experience, but beggars can't be choosers and there won't be a Starbucks or Apple Store with free WiFi open tomorrow in Honolulu. 

I finally reached Mom by phone (she has a busy social schedule and was out the first few times I'd tried to call her today) and we had the longest phone conversation we'd had since I left Hilo in September it was great to talk with her. We had had one decent conversation over Vonage (for free!  Get the app!) when I was in Papeete in October, but mostly we've communicated via blog and email and postcards and those are just not the same. It will be nice when I get home to be able to talk daily!

By 3:45pm, G and I were done with the Internet, but we needed to get showered to be up in the Elite Lounge by 4:30pm to watch sailaway, so we couldn't even get off the ship for a walk. That's all right...we'll walk 10 miles tomorrow in Honolulu. We didn't want to miss the Elite Lounge; it was port wine and Stilton cheese night accompanied by a beautiful sailaway and that really started off our great evening. 

Mom called me right after we sailed while I still had phone service and we talked some more. :-)

Mom, this was my view while we talked (taken through windows)

We went to dinner at 5:15pm, where we watched a beautiful sunset over Mauna Kea right from our table (again through salt-stained windows). We had had a wonderfully sunny day, which was very unexpected, and we had a nice view of the top of the mountain we had been on in September. 

Sunset over Mauna Kea

Look really closely and you'll see the observatories on Mauna Kea's summit

The Pacific Princess in Hawaii combines the best of our home life and our cruising life. I decided today that, in a perfect world, I would be quite happy spending three months a year repeatedly bouncing between the four major Hawaiian islands with a sea day every fifth day. 

Hey, a girl can dream, can't she?

Day 12: Hilo, lo to hi

We had set the alarm for 6:30am this morning. but were already up anyway. Our 'early to bed' last night had paid off, and we were feeling well rested and ready for a big day. We were still in bed when we spotted this gorgeous sunrise on the ship's webcam, and so hurriedly dressed and ran up on Deck 11 to catch it in person. 

While we were waiting for Sabatinis to open for breakfast at 7:30am, G captured these pics of Mauna Kea showing how clear the morning was. 

Look closely on the next one and you'll even see the observatories at the top of the mountain. 

We made breakfast in Sabatinis quick and easy:  fresh squeezed OJ, fruit plates and omelettes. There are so many yummy things to try on the menu, but we needed to have simple, nourishing food today, because we had a big day planned:  a Princess excursion to the summit of Mauna Kea, Hawaii's largest dormant volcano, 13,796 feet above sea level. When the height of Mauna Kea from its base on the ocean floor is considered, Mauna Kea is the world's tallest mountain, 32,696 feet tall. 

Our group of eight passengers met our guide Ikaika, a 30-year old Big Island native. His name in Hawaiian means 'the helmet worn as protective headgear by warriors'.  He was a wonderful tour leader, and was also the driver of our 4WD van.

Our first stop while on our way out of Hilo was Rainbow Falls, created by an 80 foot drop of the Wailuka River and named because of the rainbow that can be seen when the sun shines (so, not too often in rainy Hilo, but, luckily for us, this morning). 

Shortly after leaving Hilo, we started driving across Saddle Road, the trans-island road that bisects the Big Island from east to west. G and I had driven across Saddle Road 20 years ago, on our first visit to the Big Island. Actually, when we had picked up our rental car then, there were a list of places and roads where we were forbidden to take our car under threat of great monetary penalty. Those places became our to-do list of things to see. ;-). Ikaika told us that Saddle Road had been considerably improved in 2008 and rental cars are now allowed to be driven as high as the Mauna Kea Visitors Center at 9200 feet. See, we were just 20 years ahead of our time!

To our south was another of the Big Island's five volcanos, Mauna Loa. Only Kilauea volcano is still active.

By the time we reached the Visitors Center, we were already above the clouds. 

Looking toward the summit from the Visitors Center. 

It is a 10 hour hike to the summit, round trip from the Visitors Center, and there was a familiar trailhead registration box, enabling hikers to be monitored while on the mountain. We have done this sort of insane thing on other mountains in the past.

The Visitors Center has been renamed in honor of astronaut Ellison Onizuka, a Hawaiian who was killed in the Challenger explosion in 1986. 

The Hawaii flag flown upside-down as a symbol of distress

We had read before we left home, and knew to expect, protesters who have been living near the Visitors Center in opposition to a 14th telescope, 18 stories high, that is planned for the summit of Mauna Kea. Hawaiians consider Mauna Kea to be the doorway to heaven, and while they are tolerating the 13 telescopes already in place, feel that no more should be constructed. Also, the proposed new telescope will be excavated two stories into the mountain, the first time the Mauna Kea has been desecrated like that.  We walked over and talked to the protestors to give them our support, and they said that, until last night, they had been allowed to camp there on the mountain but that, effective today, they can only spend daylight hours there. Google TMT Mauna Kea for more extensive information on the dispute. 

We encountered our first rain as we continued on the road to the top of the mountain. The road is paved to the Visitors Center, but quickly and significantly deteriorates after that. In fact, it was really quite rough and I was getting nervous about a surprise G had planned for the top (more on that later). The clouds would quickly move in and then pass by, over and over again. Eventually, the road became paved again, in perfect condition. Ikaika told us this was for two reasons:  first, the rough road discouraged people from trying to drive to the summit in anything less than a 4WD vehicle. And the paved section near the top reduces road dust which would interfere with the telescopes in the observatories. 

Our first view of the observatories at the summit.

Not all the observatories are at the very top; some are located a short distance away. One of these is the Keck observatory we visited next.

Once again, we were immersed in clouds.

This was G's goal for our summit visit:  to pop the cork on a bottle of (ring toss) champagne. He had asked Ikaika for permission and Ikaika loved the idea. He said that he'd seen people drink beer at the top, but never champagne. The champagne had been in my backpack at my feet in the van and as we climbed in altitude and hit that rough road, I was getting nervous that it would blow its cork and take out my leg at the same time. G had brought enough paper cups for everyone and we had a fun time celebrating, quickly, before the bubbly lost its fizz. It wasn't the highest altitude G and I have been to, but it was the first time we've gone from sea level to almost 14000 feet in one day, and it was certainly the first time we've been atop the world's tallest mountain. 

A beautiful mural of a sunrise as seen from the summit of Mauna Kea, displayed in the Keck observatory. 

A panoramic view of the summit from the Keck Observatory. 

One of the passengers had trouble breathing at the top, and Ikaika was well prepared with a small container of oxygen and a mask for him to wear. We had been warned when we signed up for the excursion about the thin air, and heart patients and pregnant women were not allowed on the tour, but it's hard to know how your body will react until you reach that altitude. 

We eventually returned to the Visitors Center where Ikaika served us a simple lunch of a turkey roll sandwich, chips and cookies. We started eating at the picnic tables there, but were quickly chased into the van by a sleet-y rain. And that set the tone for the rest of the afternoon. It rained the entire way back to Hilo, but we didn't care. We had seen what we came for, and had a clear view at the summit of Mauna Kea. 

Once back on the ship, we rested a bit and enjoyed our last hour or so of free internet for awhile (weep!) before we sailed at 4pm. As for photos...they will be few and far between from here on out. I also had one last phone conversation with Mom (more weep). It was tough to put my iPhone in Airplane Mode knowing it will be months before I turn it off, but traveling in French Polynesia is a pretty good trade off. 

Captain D said, in his 'welcome back on board' announcement that Hilo had definitely had more rain than had been forecasted.  Fortunately, the sun came out just in time for our last sail away before five days at sea. Captain D predicted a little bounciness for the next day and half, but nothing significant (his idea of what's significant and ours might differ). I'm also grateful for five days at sea; our days in Hawaii have been busy ones. 

We were feeling so lazy that we skipped the Elite Lounge and went directly to dinner at 5:30pm. I ate fitfully, and dear Henry kept bringing additional dishes hoping something would appeal, so I ate a couple of bites of about six different things. It was all good, but I think our large breakfasts in Sabatinis are simply enough to see me through the entire day.

The sea swell picked up as soon as we left Hilo harbor. Seasick bags are out everywhere but I'm feeling brave enough to go to mentalist Carl Andrew's show tonight. We'll see how long I survive in the Cabaret Lounge in bouncy seas.  

Day 7: Hilo, Hawaii - Land ho!!

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. 

Douglas telling us about his trip to New Zealand this past summer because it began raining so hard we couldn't see the Big Island.

Not an inspiring start to the day.

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. 

At the rear of the ship

A misty Hilo morning

Throughout the morning the rain intensified and abated.

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.

We were grateful to see a waiting bus when we left the store, though it was a struggle to get our purchases up the stairs and to a seat. Luckily, the driver dropped off the Disney crew members first, allowing us plenty of time to get ourselves and our bags off the bus.

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. 

Just part of our purchases (G really misses salty snacks when we cruise, hence the Bugles).

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. 

Day 89: WHALES and WalMart and snow...oh my! (aka Hilo, Hawaii)

When I awoke about 6am, I made a beeline for my iPhone and took it off Airplane Mode for the first time in a very long time. Oh, life is good. I had AT&T!!!  Phone messages, some nearly three months old, started popping up, emails loaded automatically without delay.  Text!  I could text!  Holy hallelujah!!  I was surprised that G wasn't already up and at it too, but discovered later that he had left the cabin at 3am and gone out on the terrace behind the Panorama Buffet and found an AT&T signal that he went nuts with until after 5am. No wonder he was sleeping in. 

Of course, phoning my dear mom was #1 on my list of things to do. OMG, it was so wonderful to talk with her without latency, and without the connection cutting in and out. It was the first significant conversation we've had in three months and it was the BEST!!  Then I started texting and surfing the net and...well, I would have been happy doing that all day long. Even better, we had enough of a signal right in our little porthole cabin to allow me to do just that. But, the realities of immigration requirements and my needs associated with the cold I got yesterday forced us to move on. We had been assigned a 7:30am time to go though US immigration in the Cabaret Lounge, a process that, on this little ship, was a simple walk through. We were officially back in the US!!

After a very quick breakfast, we walked off the ship. Now, though we've been in Hilo (HEE-lo), on the east coast of the Big Island at least five times in the past, it's been awhile, and it always amazes me how things (like the port terminal) bring back memories. Even more amazing was the fact that this was the first time I've ever been in Hilo when the sun has been shining. Considering that Hilo is the third wettest town in the entire US (behind only Ketchikan and Yakutat, Alaska with 130 inches of rain every year), that's not too surprising. But what a gloriously sunny day we had today, about 81F with low humidity. Gorgeous!  I believe that this is the very first time I've ever seen the top of Mauna Kea, the nearly 14000 foot tall dormant volcano  that towers over Hilo, and was thrilled to see the snow near its peak. Actually, when measured from its base far below on the ocean floor, Mauna Kea is the tallest mountain in the world, much taller than Mt. Everest. 

For more information on the interesting geology of the Big Island, see:

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawaii_(island)

Almost as soon as the Pacific Princess was cleared by the local authorities,  USPH and Coast Guard inspections were underway, as this was the first time the Pacific Lounge had been in US waters since very early October. They passed them all (no surprise) and the crew seemed to have had a weight removed from their shoulders tonight. 

We have spent several days on the Big Island since 1995, and have covered the island by rental car including going up to the Mauna Kea Visitors Center and visiting Volcano National Park and the lava fields on the southern part of the island. Therefore, our only goal for today was to take a free shuttle to WalMart and the shopping area near the port. I was not expecting to be chauffeured to the store in a nearly brand new touring motorcoach, the kind that lowers down for boarding. After the more primitive buses in French Polynesia, this one was pure luxury. But nothing compared to walking into WalMart, the best shopping we've had in three months. Brands we recognized and an abundance of everything. It was heady stuff. 

I needed several small things:  Cepacol throat lozenges and guafinisin and gum and razors. G needed a few more things, and then, together we bought Chex Mix and macadamia nuts and Kona coffee. On the way to check out, I saw yoga-type pants and remembered I had brought only one pair of casual pants with me, intending to wear them home on the plane. I hadn't counted on cruising back to Los Angeles and then down to Mexico. Another pair of pants might come in handy. We left WalMart ladened down and waited out front for the return shuttle to the ship. 

The whole experience was fairly surreal. We were surrounded by a store not unlike a WalMart at home, but every other customer was a member of the ship's crew. It was a collision of our life at home and our life on a ship, and felt very, very strange. 

Now, THAT's a shuttle!

So fancy even the steps were covered in hardwood. 

The snow capped peak of Mauna Kea

The day's weather was nothing short of perfect. 81F and low humidity with a light breeze. For the first time in three months, my curls were more relaxed and I didn't have a head covered in cotton candy. 

After we put our purchases away in our cabin, we went up to the Panorama Buffet for lunch. Sitting on the terrace, we saw the first of what would keep us entertained for the rest of the afternoon. Whales!  We saw at least five, spouting and breaching and taking our breaths away. That was as far as we went; we'd intended to go back off the ship, but with that kind of view, couldn't even bring ourselves to leave that terrace. 

We stayed out there for sailaway, and, in addition to whales, saw a beautiful  sunset over Mauna Kea. We went to dinner a bit late, at nearly 6pm, and only because tonight was waiter Jose's last night in the ship. Several crew members disembark tomorrow in Honolulu, Jose among them. We will miss them all!  We enjoyed a scenic cruise along the northeast coast of the Big Island right from our dinner table until we lost the last of the daylight. 

Canoeists (most without outtriggers) just inside the long seawall that protect the harbor at Hilo

Sunset over Mauna Kea

Following dinner and music by duo Chico and Dawn and pianist Jere Ring, we are back in the cabin. Our arrival in Honolulu is early tomorrow, at 7am, and it will be a full day, as the Pacific Princess doesn't sail until 11pm.

It's not home, but it's the closest we've been in a long time and we are loving our time in Hawaii.