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.

First Day in Hawaii: The Big Island

Hilo, HI, Wednesday, March 15, 2017. This was our first port of call in Hawaii. We were up early and sighted land just as the day broke. In fact, we first saw Hawaii from the lights of the towns along the shore. It was an amazing sunrise to the East, as the sun came up and immediately passed behind a cloud.

Telescopes on Mauna Kea

We could see the first rays on the tallest volcano, Mauna Kea. Atop this dormant volcano is located the Keck Telescopes, which take advantage of the (mostly) cloudless 14,000-foot altitude to gain almost as good view of the stars as can be achieved by the Hubble. Some snow can still be seen at the top

Our only tour of the big island (both the island and the state are called Hawaii, so people call the largest island “the big island” to distinguish) was a hike across Kilauea Iki crater. This was about a half-hour drive from the ship in the Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. Kilauea is one of the two active volcanoes on the big island – the other being the much taller Mauna Loa. Kilauea has only craters or “caldera”, and not mountainsides. It’s just a depression in the landscape. The largest caldera has an even deeper depression which has the open lava pool. Because the lava continues to erupt in the crater, Kilauea is classified as the most active volcano in the world.

The smaller or “Iki” caldera is all solidified (it last erupted in 1959), and visitors can hike across it. It’s a 500 foot climb down to the floor, about 1.5 miles across, and another 500 feet of switchbacks to climb out. You can see our path behind the picture with my eyes shaded by the ballcap. The path led along the rim and past the promontory. The picture of Ken & Robbie was taken from that promontory. That’s the 1959 lava flow behind us in the picture. We then moved down the slope at the back of the picture and crossed the caldera floor through the “gap” that you can see. The smoke on the left side comes from the lava pond in the main caldera. The broad peak in the background is Mauna Loa.

Robbie was a trooper on the climb out. The group was mostly younger than us, and decided to do the climb without stopping. I remember when I did this climb back in 2013 I had to stop several times to catch my breath. But, despite my suggestion that we could stop, she just motored on to the top. That’s probably why we don’t have any pictures of us on the way up.

While we crossed the caldera, there were lots of evidence that this is an active volcano. For one thing, the ground was somewhat warmer than one might expect. And there were places where stream would vent from the cracks in the asphalt-like surface.

We also saw some interesting plants that are only native to Hawaii. This flowering bush is, unfortunately, being killed off by a fungus. It is similar to the “sudden oak death” fungus that killed the oak tree in our front yard. There is no known cure, and in future years these attractive flowers may be gone entirely.

After the visit to the Kilauea Iki we crossed the road and walked down to a large “lava tube”.

Lava Tube

These are long caves through which lava would flow on its way to the sea. This one had a floor built in and lighting so that you could walk through it. It was just like walking through a man-made tunnel. We only went through part of it, but there are lava tubes today that extend for over a mile into the ocean. In fact there are pictures (on the internet) of a lava fountain that is flowing into the ocean right now.

Kilauea Crater

After our visit to Hawaiian Volcanoes National Park we went to the Mauna Loa Macadamia Nut Farm. This is an obligatory tourist stop. It was a long drive through the macadamia trees – perhaps a mile long. Macadamia nuts are harvested off the ground when they fall. They are shelled and roasted at the factory here, and prepared with flavors or coating. We also enjoyed some macadamia nut ice cream, just to keep up our energy.

Macadamia Nut Factory

Our last stop on the island of Hawaii was Rainbow Falls. When the sun shines there is (sometimes) a rainbow. Alas, for us, it was cloudy during our visit so we just have a beautiful waterfall.

Rainbow Falls

It was a warm evening as we sailed out of Hilo into the sunset. We sailed for several hours along the north coast of the island, and watched as the towns turned on their lights, and the towns and settlements got smaller and smaller. At the northern tip, there are no roads and, thus, the shore is dark. We sailed through calm seas to Oahu.

Departing Hilo