Abigail's Third Birthday Bash

Abigail and Declan play in the kiddie pool.

 Taking a deep breath before blowing out the candle.

Abigail's third birthday party. Presents and a Pinata.

Pictures At Sea

Here are a few shots from us enjoying dress-up at sea.

Robbie did not want to go out on the balcony
in the wind. I am unaffected, of course!

In the dining room before dinner.

With the cruise chart in the background.

Our St. Patrick's Day uniforms

Day Four: Kauai

On our balcony, as the ship docked in Nawiliwili

Kauai, March 18, 2017. This island is the westernmost US territory. Any further west (such as some of the Aleutians) and you are in the eastern hemisphere. 

We landed at the island's only port, a small town with the improbable name of Nawiliwili. It had a small beachfront with two hotels, a little strip mall, and a Walmart at the top of the hill. 

There are several options for tours on this relatively undeveloped island, but we chose one of the least time consuming. We deferred on a trip to Waimea Canyon, which is called the “Grand Canyon of the Pacific”. That’s because the trip across the island would take the whole day and it was likely that there would be clouds at higher altitudes, just as you reached the best picture opportunities.

The plantation railway.

The main part of our tour was the Grove Plantation, a sugar plantation maintained by an early settler family. The most prominent manager of the plantation was a bachelor named George Wilcox. George was educated by tutors on Kauai until he went to Yale to get an engineering degree. He was responsible for the development of most of the island’s infrastructure, including the electricity, telephone, and transportation networks. Our ship docked in a harbor that had a plaque honoring Wilcox for designing and financing the harbor at Nawiliwili.

Grove Plantation

We followed the morning tour with an afternoon ride on the Plantation Railway. This is a tourist train (not an original sugar cane railroad) that passes by all manner of cultivated fruit: avocado trees, orange groves, pineapples, breadfruit, mango, sugar cane, etc. It also moves through pastures with goats, pigs, donkeys, geese, and horses. It made for a pleasant afternoon in a tropical paradise. After a walk along the pier we were ready for another four-day voyage back across the Pacific. 

There were several beautiful views, as Hawaii struck a pose to help us remember her by.

Our arrival, with hula dancers in background.

Cook Pines were planted by Capt. Cook
to supply masts for sailing ships

Rows of pineapple from the train.

The pond is a fish hatchery and the mountains are sacred burial grounds.

Our train stopped to feed the pigs.

As we departed, we could see
water bursting through a blowhole.

The tug did a little dance for us
as we began our journey back across the Pacific.

Day Three: Maui

Maui, HI, March 17, 2017. It was St. Patrick’s Day in Lahaina, the oldest town on Maui, and the home of famous Hawaiian kings Kamehameha and Kamehameha III. I had never been to Maui before, but from looking at the map I thought we would arrive at the largest town, Kahului. (Sorry about all the vowels!)  Instead, the ship anchors on the West Coast of Maui. It’s much more culturally interesting here, and we enjoyed our culture walk in the morning.

Hawaii is quite proud of its time as an independent nation during the 1800s. It sent out ambassadors to Europe, Asia, and the US and arranged for trading treaties. But, by and by, sugar plantations grew up, property was subdivided, and the children of the early missionaries began to institute Christianity and civilization. That meant things like representative government, writing, monogamy, metal working, road building, and roofs.

Still, a lot was done to bury the Hawaiian culture. For example, in the time when Lahaina was the seat of kings, the village was organized around a royal island in the middle of a small pond. After Kamehameha III moved the capital to rapidly growing Honolulu, the king’s huts became derelict and the pond became a swamp. One of the sugar companies decided to turn this ancient royal burial ground into a baseball diamond. It had been used for that purpose for some time until a local cultural movement grew up to return it to its historical configuration.

 

The weather on Maui’s west coast is quite a contrast. The prevailing weather comes to Hawaii from the Northeast – the well-known Trade Winds. This means that the mountains are among the rainiest places on the earth. The coast, however, is a near-desert. Most of the Hawaiian Islands manage water through the use of cisterns.

On the afternoon, we took a submarine ride. The submarine is quite small and its propulsion system is just for maneuvering. They tow it to the dive point in the morning, and tourists take a motorboat from Lahaina. During the dive we saw coral reefs, impressively large schools of fish, a bottom-dwelling shark, and a wreck of a sailing ship. At one point a moray eel peeked out from under a rock.

We dived to 128 feet, at which point the guide said, “This is the deepest any of you have gone!” I told him that we would cruise at this depth for weeks. All jokes aside, however, I was impressed with the level of technology on this submersible. They have some impressive gas management for oxygen, carbon dioxide, and carbon monoxide. They also have a variety of sub-to-surface communication systems. It was a fun experience.