Thursday February 16, 2023 Heading to San Diego for Embarkation :
Today we start our journey to get on board the Holland America Koningsdam for our 35 day cruise to the Hawaiian Islands, Fanning Island and French Polynesia. We flew from Grant county airport to Phoenix, AZ for the first leg of our trip. We planned to spend the night in Phoenix which was fortunate because at the last moment the early afternoon flight out of Grant County got moved to late afternoon which would have affected any connections later in the day.
Long cruises are still requiring Covid testing within 3 days of embarkation and we had taken ours yesterday and uploaded the results to VeriFLY. Since we had Covid over Christmas, we assumed we would not get it again before (or during) the trip. We plan to use selective masking and be cautious anyway!
Our neighbors drove us to Grant County Airport and here is our plane.
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Barry inside the aircraft. It is a little snug but a pretty cool experience. The plane was a Beech KingAir Turboprop which carries eight passengers.
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Friday February 17,2023 A day in San Diego:
We caught our flight out of Phoenix with no issues and arrived in San Diego around lunch time.
In an attempt to not acquire Covid on our way to the cruise ship, we opted to mask up on our journey there. Here we are in the Phoenix Sky Harbor airport waiting for our flight.
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We arrived in San Diego early afternoon and fortunately we could already check into our hotel which is right across from the cruise terminal. Two ships are berthed, but neither one is ours. After a short nap, we headed for the San Diego Zoo.
We took an Uber to the San Diego Zoo, paid our admission and made a beeline for the hippo area. Here we saw both of the baby hippos sleeping in the sun.
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Nearby there was an alligator showing off his neutral buoyancy skills. In this great photo you can see only his eyes. if you looked underwater the rest of his body was just floating.
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We also saw a family of Silverback gorillas. Here is a juvenile chewing on some twigs. Another adult is sleeping in the back.
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They had a herd of peccaries. Barry got this great shot of one standing off by himself. Isn't he cute! He reminds us of the javelinas we often see in New Mexico.
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This very delicate creature, a Gerenuk was the only inhabitant of his enclosure. He seemed fascinated by the leaves on this tree but wasn't eating them. Instead he was licking them.
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Another African animal, a Blesbok. He looks very stately.
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Next we found the Polar Bear exhibit. They had three of these beautiful animals. This guy jumped into the pool shortly after the photo and started playing in the water.
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This elk seemed to be using the swinging tree to attempt to removie his antlers.
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The zoo had a number of Grevy Zebras. Each one had different stripe patterns.
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Here is a pelican from one of the bird exhibits.
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There was a huge flock of flamingos. The males were a brilliant coral color.
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Too soon it was time to go. Here we are waiting for our Uber ride to take us back to the hotel. It was surprisingly chilly in San Diego, hence the sweaters and sweatshirts.
Dinner tonight is at Ruth's Chris steak place. It has been a very long time since we have gone to a Ruth's Chris. It was spectacular - fantastic food and service.
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Saturday February 18, 2023 Embarkation Day!:
Today we board the ship. We are getting pretty excited since so many things could have gone wrong and didn't!
We awaken to find our ship has docked. Here is the Koningsdam from the end windows of our hotel (17th floor). It is a very large ship compared to our previous sailings and will be our home for a little over a month.
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We went down to the buffet breakfast. There was plenty of food and choices, but no places to sit. So we got our food and went outside and sat on the terrace to enjoy it. It was a little chilly but is was still fun. In the background, to the left is the Zaandam, another HAL ship.
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Our embarkation time was 12:10, so we grabbed a sandwith at the Beach Hut sandwich shop located adjacent to our hotel. When we got back to the hotel to check out, our room key wouldn't work in the elevator. When Barry inquired, we were told check out was at 11. It was currently 11:10. The posted sign on the door in our room said noon. Anyway, they renewed our card, we went up and got our stuff, checked out and walked over to start the embarkation process. We got there about 20 minutes before our called time to utter and complete chaos. No signage, no clear place to drop your bags and 3 unmarked lines.
We asked others in line and finally found our place in the 12:15 line (no 12:10???) and waited. Through the rumors in line we found out the process was over 1 hour behind. Later we learned this was due to medical emergencies among the incoming passengers. Anyway, we stood in this line for over an hour, outside, in the sun. We were fortunate because it wasn't a particularly hot day and at some point the sun passed behind the building and we got some shade.
When we started moving, we moved around the corner into another line to get into the building. Once in the building, passengers were separated into two groups: VeriFLY app and non-Verifly people. VeriFLY got us faster into the baggage and passenger scanning line, but everyone eventually was back in the same line. This one moved relatively fast and we got through in 15-20 minutes. (We never found where to drop our bags so we were schlepping the luggage to the ship ourselves).
Now we were in a new, endless line. This one took almost another hour to get through. Here Club Orange and 4 and 5 star Mariners were skimmed off and got through faster. This line ended with our passports getting read and scanned.
Another, shorter line, and this time we give our passports to HAL to be held for the duration of the cruise. And another line to show our boarding passes. A long walk to the gangway and then we finally walk onto the ship. All told about 2.5 hours. All of the people working to get us on board were very nice, but the process was exhausting for the passengers and the HAL staff seemed overwhelmed.
We found our cabin, which is really nice with a huge veranda, and sat outside recovering for a while. We ate dinner (open seating) in the dining room and had an excellent meal. We finally left port 3 hours late at about 7 pm. I spent some time unpacking and then we fell into bed, early. We knew tomorrow would be a better day as we got into the cruise frame of mind.
Sunday February 19, 2023 First Day at Sea :
We awoke refreshed and feeling much more optimistic and definitely glad to be aboard! The boat has been rocking pretty consistantly as we head across the Pacific. We stepped onto the veranda to a rather chilly day. So we dressed accordingly and went to breakfast on the Lido. The Lido is the casual buffet on Deck 9 aft. It serves breakfast, lunch and, for those not wanting to eat in the dining room, dinner. Elevators were responsive and the morning breakfast crowd wasn't too bad.
After breakfast, Barry got changed for working out and I went up to the Crow's Nest. He joined me after to plan the rest of our day.
There was an intriguing talk at 3 PM we attended called "Navigating the Stars" and to our delight it was actually about astronomy and navigating the constellations. Even more to our surprise, the lecturer Dr. Jim McParland announced there would be observing starting tomorrow night (and every Sea Day) at 9:30 pm on the Sky Deck!
Open seating dinner again at 5 PM and the wait was a little longer tonight as the restaurant was more crowded, the food was excellent and we made it to the main theater for the evening show in plenty of time. We thought it would be the HAL Dance One group but because of the rocking of the boat they switched it to Tyler Bryce - One Man Many Voices who was very entertaining with his impersonations of everyone from George Burns to Mick Jagger to Johnny Carson and more. He said he'd perform again and we are looking forward to it!
At 9:30 we went up to the Sky Deck to check out the observing since it was somewhat clear. To our amazement the lights had been turned out and it was really dark. We took binoculars and saw the Orion nebula among the clouds! Then we went and had pretzels at the pizza cafe.
Monday February 20, 2023 Day at Sea / First Dressy Night :
Well the clocks got set back last night and the Lido Breakfast buffet was complete chaos with the folks who get up early colliding with the folks who normally get up later.
The Crow's Nest
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After breakfast we went to the Crow's Nest and read for a while. The Crow's Nest is a multipurpose room on Deck 12 at the front of the ship. It is a great place to look out and watch the sea and where we are going. There is an area with board games and puzzles, a small library, some computers for passenger use, a bar/coffee shop and various types of seating. It can vary from packed to deserted depending on time of day. This morning it was not too crowded.
Barry had brought supplies to work on an Algebra and Calculus refresher on the cruise. He worked on that this morning. I create the travelogue webpage for our trip during the cruise, adding activites and pictures each day. So I worked on that.
Midmorning we went back to the room and Barry got ready to work out. I went in search of restaurant reservations at the kiosk on deck 2. We met up for lunch and headed back to the Lido. Again chaos and only one side of the buffet line was open.
Dr. Jim McParland on the World Stage.
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At 3 pm we went to another talk by Dr Jim McParland on the natural history of Hawaii. It was about the development of the Hawaiian island chain, the volcanoes and the many spectacular natural sights. It was very informative and entertaining.
On the way to the 3 pm talk, we stopped by the shore excursion desk to cancel the one shore excursion which had been moved and now conflicted with our diner cruise in Honolulu. The line was mercifully short and I got to talk to someone. It turned out they could switch us get back on our original time because they had had a number of cancellations. Excellent news!
After Dr. McParland's talk, it was time to dress for dinner. I wore my Hawaiian mumu, made from fabric Barry brought back from the 2007 AIAA Hawaiian Conference. I made it into a mumu with a pattern I ordered from the internet. We went to dinner - open seating again as I could not get reservations - ugh, but we got there early and got in quickly.
Dinner was terrific - great service and the food was delicious. After dinner we went to the third floor main dining room and threw ourselves on the mercy of Hendrik, the Maitre'D for a fixed dining time table and - WE GOT ONE. So for the rest of the cruise, we have a table at 5 PM and the same waiters every night. This is the old Holland America we are used to. Things are really looking up!!!
After dinner we arrived comfortably early in the theater. First there was the Captain's toast where the audience meets the Captain and the ship's senior officers. All the officers are Dutch except for the sustainability officer who is from England.
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This is followed by a very talented singer - Ms. Maria Campos doing her favorite Broadway tunes.
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After the show, because it was cloudy we went back to our cabin and turned in. No astronomy tonight!
Tuesday February 21, 2023 Staff Meeting/Lunch at the New York Pizza Parlor on Deck 10! :
When we were working we both had staff meeting on Tuesdays. So we have continued that tradition and have "Staff Meeting" at Tuesday lunch. In Deming we try to go to Subway but we decided on the ship we would go have pizza at the New York Deli and Pizza parlor on Deck 10!
When we got up this morning Barry checked to see where we were - about halfway to Hawaii!
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We got to the Pizza Parlor a little before they opened, but they were already taking orders so we ordered 2 pepperoni pizzas and found a table. We got our pizzas about 10 minutes later and they were delicious. Good quality pepperoni, good cheese and the crust was crispy. We will definitely be back.
After staff meeting we went back to our cabin and sat out on the veranda enjoying the sea and working on individual activities. It was a gorgeous day and the temperature is starting to warm up. We skipped the 3 PM talk on recent eruptions in Hawaii since we were sort of volcanoed out.
We dressed and went down to dinner and were taken to our new table. It is a table for two and we really liked our new waiters. This good fortune has defintely added positively to the cruise. The dinner theme was New Orleans since today is Fat Tuesday.
After dinner we went to the World Stage for a presentation of "Planet Earth II" with the Lincoln Stage quartet providing live music. It was fantastic!
On our way back to the cabin, we went up to the Crow's Nest and checked the sky - still cloudy. Then we stopped by a few of the music venues and then off to bed.
When we got back to the room our traveling companions were celebrating Mardi Gras!
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Wednesday February 22, 2023 Day Four at Sea :
We moved the clocks back an hour over night and are now on Honolulu time. It is another sea day and we continue to find new places on the ship to explore. It has also gotten warm outside and intermittantly sunny so being out on deck or on our veranda is very pleasant. We are also hoping for some clear skies tonight for some star gazing.
Barry worked out again. He has been very disciplined about that. He says the workout area has gotten less crowded since the first day. I likened it to fitness centers right after new year. Everyone's resolutions dry up pretty quickly...
While Barry was out and the cabin was relatively clean, I took a few pictures. This is our cabin from entry hall. Cabin 4170.
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This is the view from the veranda side looking back into the room.
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And this is the veranda. We are on deck four aft, which has some of the longest verandas on the ship. They are not obstructed by lifeboats and they have clear glass below the railing. They are also partly covered by the verandas above. Wonderful!
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After lunch we went to the Ocean Bar and did individual activities. Here is Barry working on math.
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I love watching the ever changing surface of the ocean. This is the view out of one of the windows in the Ocean Bar.
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We went to the 3 PM lecture on the Tropic of Cancer with Dr McParland. The informative lecture discussed what it is - the northern line of latitude where the sun can be directly overhead. At this location the sun's rays hit perpendicular to the earth at Summer Solstice. It is currently at 23 degrees 26 minutes and 11.6 sec north. Anywhere north of here the sun's rays are never perpendicular to the earth. Below the equator is a similar line of latitude called the Tropic of Capricorn.
It is also the northern demarkation of the region called the tropics. The word tropics comes from the Greek word "trope" meaning to turn and it is because the sun appears to change direction and go in the opposite direction on the horizon after the summer and winter solstices.
He also started a slideshow of the many places the Tropic of Cancer crosses on the earth. It was amusing, because Dr. McParland had edited the Tropic of Cancer presentation down to allow for time to also do a short presentation on Humpback Whales which frequent Hawaiian waters. In doing so, it appeared the file got corrupted and he had random slides with random nomenclature appearing at unpredictable times. I have to say he handled it well although it must have been both embarrassing and aggravating. The entire audience rolled with it.
The humpback whales presentation was fascinating and we are looking forward to seeing them on our Whale Watching Shore Excursion.
Evening dinner at our new table was terrific and stress free and after we finished up in the dining room, we went to the World Stage to see another performance by Tyler Bryce. He was again entertaining with impersonations of such diverse artists as Kenny Rogers, Bruno Mars, John Ondrasik, Micheal Jackson and Elvis. We thoroughly enjoyed him.
After that we went up and had Strawberry Daquiris (virgin, of course) in the Crow's Nest and then we out on deck to see if the stars were out. They were not!
Thursday February 23, 2023 Day Five at Sea :
Today we decided to have lunch at the Dive In - the burger and shake place by the pool. We got there a little early, struggled to find a table and then Barry saw one and made a beeline for it. He was first in line for placing an order and I guarded the table and ordered Diet Cokes. The temperature was very pleasant and the area was hopping.
After we finished our burgers which ranked up there with some of the best burgers we have ever had, I went and ordered our shakes - Chocolate, no whip cream. The Indonesion man making the shakes had never had a milkshake before because, while it tasted great it was only slightly thicker than milk. We enjoyed it nonetheless.
After another excellent dinner in the dining room, we went to the World Stage for a Step One Dance Company presentation of "Off The Charts". The musical accompaniment was the piano duo from the Billboard Onboard. They worked their way through Billboard hits from the last 40 years. The music was terrific and the dancing entertaining.
When we left there we decided to check out the Movies by the Pool activity where they were showing "Six Days Seven Nights" with Harrison Ford and Ann Heche. We found seats, got some gelato (Italian ice cream) and settled in to watch. We hadn't seen the movie since it first came out and it was fun! Another great day at sea. Tomorrow is our first port of call!
Friday February 24, 2023 Kona, Hawaii :
Today is our first port of call in Kona, Hawaii and our first of many tendering experiences on this cruise. Tendering is done when the port doesn't have a dock large enough to accomodate the cruise ship. In order to get to port, you ride in one of the lifeboats between the ship and the dock. This is less desirable for a few reasons - you are riding in a boat with limited ventilation and few windows, typically with a large group of folks tightly packed. Also getting to shore and getting back is only when the tender runs.
As we sailed into Kona, the sun was rising! This is taken from our veranda.
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It is a cloudy overcast day and the bay is somewhat rough. We hope our Atlantis sub tour is still on. Here is a view of Kona from the ship.
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Another view of Kona.
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While we were waiting on the dock for our tour to be called, we noticed a park across an inlet by the pier. We heard a tourguide explain that this was King Kamehameha's last residence. The park is apparently forbidden to non-native-Hawaiians.
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We tendered ashore, then rode a boat out to the bay to get aboard the submarine. Here is a view of the Atlantis conning tower.
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Almost as soon as we got on the bottom (around 100 ft) we saw this school of fish (lower right hand corner).
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As you go down the seawater washes out the red colors so the coral looks gray (and dead) but it is not. Also the fish lose their colors except for greens and yellows. So the yellow fish really stand out.
We also saw a few green starfish (no pictures) which have more than 5 legs. The green color really stood out. Our guide said they were bad for the coral because they wrap themselves around it, absorb all the nutrients and then the coral dies.
Here is a view of some of the plentiful coral we saw. The tour guide told us they have a very healthy coral bed in Kona. It was damaged by a storm a few years back, got very stressed and much of it turned white. But after the storm it has recovered 90-95%.
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We saw two shipwrecks. The first was a Higgens Boat, built in New Orleans and used on the beaches on D-Day to move the troops ashore. After the war, this one was surplussed and brought to Kona to be used as a diving platform.
It was refurbed and unfortunately sank before it went into service. The guide told us the hinged back door was intact until the latest storm, late last year, ripped it off.
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The second shipwreck was a sailboat, on the left side of the photo, with two large fish in the foreground. Supposedly a man and wife had sailed it here from one of the other islands and he was called back for business, leaving his wife with the boat. One night it exploded. She narrowly escaped but the boat was lost. It was thought to have been a cooking fire.
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The Atlantis Submarine with the Koningsdam.
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On our trip back to shore we passed this dive boat painted like a shark.
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The Koningsdam from the dock in Kona.
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We grabbed lunch on Kona and had some fresh shrimp and a very unusual Pastrami club sandwich.
After tendering back, we had dinner in the main dining room, went to see a show in the Billboard Onboard lounge titled "Never Number 1" - songs that were very popular but never made it to number 1 on the charts. The Billboard Onboard lounge is a bar/ music venue with two back-to-back grand pianos. The same duo - George and Lena play there each night with different themes.
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Saturday February 25, 2023 Maui :
Saturdays are shaping up to be problematic on this cruise. Last week was the embarkation fiasco and this morning we woke up to find the entire island of Maui was without power.(Clear day, no bad weather - not sure why). So we were told there would be a delay in getting approval to disembark.
Maui from our ship. The lush green hills were just as I imagined.
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After breakfast we went up on the aft deck and made a phone call to Kevin then found some deck chairs and did some whale watching. It was exciting to see several pods of whales swim by the ship. Some spouts only and some tails, backs and fins. Eventually the Captain came on and said that the Port Security officer would not approve our disembarkation since he couldn't talk on the phone with the Captain as their cell phones were out. The Captain suggested several other forms of communication which were all rejected. Finally the Security officer suggested the Captain take up his complaints with the Coast Guard. He did and shortly got approval for folks to get off the ship.
We went to the World Stage to wait for our excursion (whale watching) to depart. While we were waiting, several of the other shore excursions got canceled. But ours didn't. We got over to Maui about an hour after the shore excursion was supposed to depart and stood around for a bit while the shore excursion ladies were getting things sorted out. We finally walked over to the point of departure for the Whale Watching tour and our first sign of trouble was the lack of a boat. Apparently they departed at 10:40 as scheduled...wthout us. The HAL representative was livid since she had been ashore with the first tender and was standing nearby. But apparently without cell phone, the guy sending out the boats didn't seem to know he had a large tour group coming. So our excursion got cancelled and we got a refund.
After being dismissed, we found a pizza place for lunch before heading back to the ship. At least we had gotten to see whales earlier in the day from the Koningsdam!
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In the evening we went to the World Stage and saw comedian Mike Delmont who was exceptionally funny.
Sunday February 26, 2023 Honolulu, Oahu :
We have arrived in Honolulu and are at a dock so we can walk ashore with impunity. It is nice after the multiple days of tendering in rough seas. And for the first time we have 5G phone service! Before our shore excursion we had a short talk with Kevin to see how he was doing and see if he had gotten safely back to Atlanta from his trip.
The view of the bay from our veranda.
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We took the Oahu Scenic Shores tour today. After navigating through Waikiki, we went to Diamond Head Crater for a drive-by. This is the single lane tunnel entrance to Diamond Head, an extinct volcano with a huge central plain which was once the caldera.
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We learned from Dr. McParland's talk on the Hawaiian Island formation that each island in the Hawaiian chain forms above the same rupture in the earth's mantle, then over hundreds of thousands of years moves northwesterly and a new island starts forming over the same rupture. As they move they get eroded by winds and weather and slowly start sinking as the Pacific plate moves under the northern tectonic plate. So that is why this volcano has been dormant for so long. As an aside, the Big Island of Hawaii is currently still over the rupture and that is why Kilauea and Mauna Loa are still erupting.
Next stop is the Blowhole and Sand Beach. Barry took the beautiful picture of Sand Beach. For those of you who are old film buffs, you might recognize it from the classic movie "From Here to Eternity" and the passionate beach scene with Burt Lancaster and Debra Kerr.
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After leaving Sand Beach we drove along the shore and heard more of the interesting history of Hawaii from a recent Japanese immigrant who had his own perspective on Hawaii and its inhabitants. We also passed through one of the two Hawaiian towns on the island - Weiamalo Town. These are somewhat akin to native american reservations on the mainland in that you have to have some percent of Hawaiian ancestry to own land in these towns. Our guide indicated that most of the inhabitants didn't have steady jobs, didn't pay taxes and received food aid from the Hawaiian government.
Here we are on the Oahu Scenic Shores tour bus!
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We stopped at a small shopping area on the east side of the island and were treated to freshly made coconut ice cream which was yummy. Then we went to Nu'uanu Pali the site of the last battle, the Battle of Nu'uanu, between King Kamehameha I and the inhabitants of Oahu in the fight to unite all of the islands. What we found out from our guide was two interesting bits of data - the islands were originally settled by one group of Polynesians who lived in peace and harmony for a few hundred years. Then a second group, from Tahiti, arrived and the troubles began. There was a lot of inter-island warfare and bloodshed. Finally Kamehameha I, aided by guns and military strategy from two British sailors, united the islands after several years of even bloodier wars.
Nu'uanu Pali is a cleft in the mountains at elevation which provides a beautiful view of Honolulu and the island. It also has very high winds that channel through the cut (cleft).
Next we started back to the ship, passing by Iolani Palace and a statue of King Kamehameha I, the hero who united all of Hawaii.
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We arrived back at the ship, ate a very late lunch and rested up for our evening activity - a sunset dinner cruise! We were really looking forward to that.
The Star of Honolulu ship used for our dinner cruise, taken from our veranda.
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Our dining area on the sunset cruise. We were on the third deck and got served a meal of salad and various cheeses, crackers and fruits for appetizers, lobster, beef tenderloin and mango mousse. It was very tasty and we enjoyed it. The lobster was particularly challenging and we both had to wash up in the bathroom after that course. Throughout the evening there was entertainment - first a singer who performed Hawaiian classics, then a Blues/Jazz performer with accompaniment. The sax player was awesome! And finally a Hawaiian dance group of 5 ladies and one man who performed several different native dances from various Polynesian islands.
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Honolulu from our dinner cruise.
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Lori wearing her Hawaiian mumu for the dinner cruise.
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Barry looks sharp, too!
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One of the dancers on the sunset cruise. Here he is in his Maori act.
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The female dancers wore several wonderful native outfits and danced at locations around the dining room so everyone could see their dances. This lovely lady was near our table.
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And no sunset cruise would be complete without an epic sunset!
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Monday February 27, 2023 Honolulu, Oahu :
After yesterday's busy day, we had no set itinerary for today. So after breakfast, we sat out on our veranda, enjoyed the breeze and activity in the harbor and generally relaxed.
I was fasciated by this container ship and tugboat because there were times when the tug was pulling for all its worth and the chain/rope attached to the container ship, virtually invisible in this photo, was very taut. It was attached between the aft left corner of the ship and the front of the tug. I wondered what the tensile strength of the rope/chain was.
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The weather has been overcast with short showers and a plethora of rainbows, sometimes multiple ones visible in different parts of the sky.
This is one of the many rainbows we saw which went from horizon to horizon!
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A set of interesting twin skyscrapers in Honolulu.
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We finally decided to go to a fabric store in the Kaimuki district and have lunch nearby. So we walked off the ship, caught an Uber and headed to that area. The first restaurant we stopped at was closed on Mondays so we ate at the Big City Diner in Kaimuki, a Korean-owned diner that had pretty good food.
We then walked to the Kaimuki Dry Goods store and shopped for a while. I found some beautiful yellow and orange sea turtle fabric that wanted to come home with me. Then we stopped in a pharmacy and finally ended up having milkshakes at a McDonalds before catching a ride back to the ship.
We had reservations in Canaletto for dinner because I wanted to have their Osso Bucco. They didn't get delivery of their beef shanks so they couldn't offer that (Monday nights only). So we had lasagna and beef short ribs with potato gnocchi instead and both dishes were excellent!
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After dinner we went to see comedian Mike Denson (from Atlanta!) who was very funny and then stopped by to see George and Lena in Billboard Onboard for their walk through the 1960's.
Tuesday February 28, 2023 Honolulu, Oahu :
Today we were supposed to head toward Kawai'i but yesterday the Captain announced that the weather forecast was such that we would not be able to get into the harbor area in Kawai'i since it is tricky navigation even in good weather. So he decided to stay one more day in Honolulu. We decided to go to the Pearl Harbor Aviation Museum. When we had been here in 2016 we had visited Pearl Harbor Visitors Center including the Arizona Memorial and the Battleship Missouri but we had not gotten to the aviation museum.
Pearl Harbor Tower was not complete on December 7th, 1941 when the Japanese attacked but there were observers in the tower that day. Here is a postcard perfect picture Barry took of the tower, a C47 Skytrain (military version of the DC-3) and a beautiful rainbow. We have a tour later this morning that goes to the top of this tower.
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A Japanese Zero on exhibit in the main museum.
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This camera was used on a number of aircraft for reconaissance during World War II.
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This map describes the different waves of attack on December 7, 1941. The attacking forces came from the north with several waves coming around from the east and west to hit the naval base at Pearl Harbor.
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Imagine my surprise to find this friendship quilt in the middle of the aviation museum!
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This is the FBM Avenger aircraft of the same type flown by President George H. W. Bush during World War II.
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There was an outdoor exhibit of World War II and newer aircraft. Here is a McDonnell Douglas F-15 on display.
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General Dynamics F-16A.
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General Dynamics F-111 Aardvark. With a nose like that, it is easy to see why it is the aardvark.
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This B-17 was crippled and low on fuel over New Guinea when the pilot set it down in a swamp where it promtly sank into 5 feet of water and grasses. After destroying the secret Norden bombsight, the crew hiked six weeks to Port Moresby. The plane lay in the swamp for 50 years where it earned the nickname "the Swamp Ghost" from commercial pilots who flew over.
In 2006, it was raised and eventually ended up in Hawaii at the Pearl Harbor Aviation Museum. It will undergo restoration here.
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It was time for our "Top of the Tower" tour to go up into the control tower to get an overview of the battle on Dec. 7, 1941. This was one of the views from the control tower where photographs were allowed. Since the tower had a panoramic view of the entire Pearl Harbor area the Navy is sensitive about where photos can be taken.
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Barry talking with the docent at the top of the tower. He narrated the entire attack on Pearl Harbor and it was interesting to hear about it and see the different areas of attack.
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We saw a number of these beautiful trees on Oahu. They provide a huge canopy of shade. According to Google Lens they are Banyan Trees.
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This was a very unique bird Barry saw.
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After our tour, we went back to the ship for lunch in the Lido and then had a long conversation with Kevin since we will be unlikely to chat until we arrive in Tahiti on March 9th.
After dinner in the main dining room, we went to a very unusual evening show in the World Stage.
We saw Marcus Winter, The Sand Man from New Zealand. He set up a flat table on stage with an overhead camera projecting.
This was the first sand artwork he created as we watched. It was mezmerizing watching him create these pictures.
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Marcus also did watercolor painting. He created two beach scenes as we watched. This photo shows him in the process of painting the first one. Start to finish took maybe 5 minutes!
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Then Marcus did an around-the-world in sand in which he made sand paintings representing a number of different countries. This was London, England.
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The stage of the World Stage theater is lined with panels that look like gray screens. But the entertainers use them like giant TVs which can show anything they want. In this photo they are orange panels with shading. At first we thought they were projecting the images but we could never find where the projector was.
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Then we looked closer. Here are the pixels that make up these huge screens. Each one has red, green and blue filters. Here is Barry's fingers for scale.
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After the Sand Man we went to the Billboard Onboard to see George and Lena do Country music. These two are very talented musicians and cross genres quite easily.
We have left Hawaii, headed for Fanning Island moving fast in high seas and stiff winds. It is pretty rough tonight.
Wednesday March 1, 2023 Day at Sea :
We tried to go to an 11 AM talk on the International Dateline, but there were problems with the talk in the previous timeslot, they ran over and the theater never emptied out. So no seats were available. Frowny face! We consoled ourselves by going to staff meeting at the Pizza Parlor and having gelato afterwards. It was fun and relaxing.
It was a gorgeous Pacific day. The seas were deep blue, the seafoam was turquoise and the sky was blue with a few scattered clouds. A nice breeze was blowing. You couldn't ask for more!
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Tonight is Dressy night again but there was Astronomy trivia in the Billboard Onboard before dinner. So we got dressed up and headed down to secure our trivia seats. The questions were a mix of astronomy and space exploration. There were two other guys that were contenders but everyone else was struggling. Barry missed one and ended up with a total score of 16...as did the other two guys. So there was a tie breaker - what is the speed of light in miles per second? All three answered 186,000. The moderator said we need more significant digits and Barry nailed it with 186,280 miles per second. The others didn't - Barry was victorious! It was a fun moment!
After dinner in the Main Dining Room, we went to see the show on the World Stage. Tonight is "Night at Frankies" songs of Frankie Vali and Frank Sinatra and the artist, Thomas Armstrong-Robley , is very talented and hit Frankie Vali's high notes with no problem.
After the Main show we went to the Billboard Onboard for George and Lena's 1980's hits. Apparently the '80s are not as popular with this crowd because relative to other performances, this one was pretty empty.
We went up on deck for a little stargazing. It wasn't totally clear but we saw Orion directly overhead, Polaris near the horizon and Canopus at about 45 degrees. We can barely see Canopus in our southern sky at home!
A surprise when we got back to our room - a towel Koala Bear!
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Thursday March 2, 2023 :
This day never happened for us because overnight we crossed the International Dateline and the calendar moved ahead 24 hours to Friday March 3, 2023!
Friday March 3, 2023 At Sea :
Lori greeting the beautiful Pacific sunrise! The seas appear to have calmed overnight.
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Today we treated ourselves to formal breakfast in the main dining room. It was a very nice change from the Lido buffet for breakfast but it made us sleepy and lazy.
After breakfast, we went to the Ocean Bar again and I worked on the webpage, Barry read and did some of his Algebra refresher. I should explain about the bars onboard. They only open after 11 AM and some even later than that for music and drinks. So in the mornings they are a quiet space where you can sit, think, read and people watch as they walk along the pathways through the ship.
Tonight's show in the World Stage was comedian Mike Robinson and his sidekick Terrance. They were a very funny magic and ventriloquist act. And he was very good a projecting his voice. He also did multiple back and forth routines with Terrance and never slipped up. We really enjoyed this talented performer and are looking forward to a future performance.
After the World Stage we went to our favorite bar - the Billboard Onboard and caught the tail end of Piano Rock and the the entire set of Brittish Invasion with Lena and George. They didn't really do much Brittish Invasion but instead focused on Brittish artists in general but we still enjoyed it.
Saturday March 4, 2023 Fanning Island Atoll :
Today we arrived at Fanning Island (Tabuaeron) just as the sun was rising.
We are at 3 degrees, 51 minutes, 47 seconds North; 159 degrees 23 minutes 10 seconds West. We are at our westernmost point in our journey, nearing the equator.
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This is a small Pacific Atoll - population approximately 2000 with no running water, no toilets, power supplied by a couple of solar panels and virtually no infrastructure.
An atoll, according to our geology talk, is an island consisting of a ring of coral with a central lagoon. It is created by a once volcanic island which is surrounded by coral reef. After the volcano goes extinct the central island is eroded and sinks so that the surrounding coral reef is all that is left. The central lagoon forms over the previous island landmass. The coral land is 13 square miles while the interior lagoon is 42 square miles in size!
We were told tendering would begin at 9 AM or therabouts after we sent a crew to the island to inspect the wooden pier and make any necessary repairs. Barry and I opted not to go ashore but about 500 of our fellow passengers did.
We did lunch at the Dive In by the pool and had some really good burgers. We also tried the chocolate shakes again and this time they were thick and creamy!
Barry worked out in the afternoon and then went out with the camera to capture some frigate bird photos and views of the island atoll.
Frigate bird circling above the ship
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A view of the manmade inlet channel to Fanning Island.
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The rich colors of Fanning Island. Deep blue ocean, turquoise lagoon with white sand beaches and the green of coconut trees.
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As we were dressing for dinner, the Captain came on the loudspeaker to announce that there was an uptick in Covid cases (we are three days out of Honolulu - the perfect inncubation period) and that masks are recommended in crowded venues and we should wash our hands frequently. Barry and I had noticed nurses in masks carrying their medical bins visiting various rooms and ships crew washing down railings and commonly touched surfaces during the day. Also while not all staff wore masks throughout the day there were more than had been apparent earlier in the cruise. This had not really occurred before in the cruise.
When we arrived at dinner the entire dining room staff was masked and there was someone reminding everyone to use the hand sanitizer. When we walked to the World Stage after dinner, there were signs at strategic locations reminding guest to wear masks. The Captain and staff are taking this very seriously.
In the World Stage tonight's show was a BBC show "One World, Seven Continents" with the Live from Lincoln Stage quartet playing the score live. It was a wonderful performance and we enjoyed it thoroughly.
In a change of pace, we went back to the room, got on our swimsuits and tried out the hot tub by the Lido Pool. It was a pleasantly warm temperature and very relaxing.
Sunday March 5, 2023 (Round 1) Day at Sea: Crossing the Equator :
Last night before we went to bed we were at:
3 degrees, 51 minutes, 47 seconds North; 159 degrees 23 minutes 10 seconds West.
This morning at 8:24 our location was:
0 degrees, 28 minutes, 54 seconds North; 158 degrees 1 minute 35 seconds West.
And at 10:31 AM we had crossed the equator and were continuing to slowly move east:
- 0 degrees, 0 minutes, 32 seconds South; 157 degrees 50 minutes 5 seconds West.
We had planned to go to the Neptune Ceremony inducting the newbie first time equator crossers into the brotherhood. It was held on the aft deck of the pool but there was a huge crowd and it was hot and sunny so we decided not to go.
Instead we went and sat on our veranda and enjoyed the breezes.
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Tonight the entertainment is the Sand Artist, Marcus WInter but we decided we didn't want to go see him again. So we scrolled through our TV movies and selected a couple that we wanted to watch. Some we knew, some obscure but sounded interesting.
Barry worked out, I read some. I think today was the first day we felt a little bored. Partly because there didn't seem to be much that interested us going on around the ship and partly because we wanted to avoid larger crowds.
It was dressy night so we dressed and ate dinner in the main dining room then went back to our room. We got another towel animal - a swan. It seems we get towel animals only on dressy nights.
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We watched "Standing up Falling Down". This is a recent Billy Crystal movie (2019). It wasn't as upbeat as we had hoped. Billy's character was deeply flawed and he did a good job. We really couldn't get into the protagonist. Not sure we'd recommend it.
After the movie we went to the Billboard Onboard for the "Top 100" show. We finally got a picture of the two pianos with Lena and George.
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Sunday March 5, 2023 (Round 2) Day at Sea: :
During the night we crossed back across the International Dateline. So we get two March 5ths this year!
We had an interesting day. We caught "Coffee with the ship's security officer Phil". He talked about his duties and ship life, how he got into this line of work (retired and got bored after three days of fishing). Then he answered questions. Here is where it got interesting. He talked about a cruise ship (he wasn't on it) that was attacked by Somali pirates and how they used high powered sound weapons on swivels to drive them off. He said one of the security team got shot but went on blasting them with sound and eventually the pirates left.
We also went to a shore talk on Pape'ete Tahiti mostly to learn about the best way to get aroud the island. We had booked a shore excursion to get to Pointe Venus to see the spot where Captain Cook observed the Transit of Venus in 1769. This is also the beach where Captain Cook and, later, the mutineers of the HMS Bounty landed. Unfortunately our shore excursion was cancelled but we still want to go out there. It is less than 10 miles from the ship but given the description of the public transporation options, it might as well be 1000 miles. We'll see.
After that we went to a reprise of the International Dateline talk by Jim McParland. It was pretty interesting. We learned that the need for the International Dateline was recognized after Magellan's around the world voyage in 1519. They kept careful records of the time (over three years) doing a reset of their clocks every day at noon. When they got back to port the time was correct but they were exactly one day behind their home port. No one could figure out why so they took it to the science experts at the vatican (flat earth, earth is the center of the universe, Inquisiion guys...) who did come to Vhe conclusion that by traveling west and setting their clock at noon each day, for the voyagers, a day was actually 25 hours not 24, making them one day short. So this anomaly had to be accounted for and thus was born the idea of the location, somewhere on the globe, where the clocks advanced by 24 hours.
The middle of the Pacific, at a longitude of 180 west, was finally settled on, but it has been modified over time as countries have changed hands. It is now along 180 west in some places. In others it juts out one direction or another.
We did a fancy lunch in the Main Dining Room for a change of pace. I had what was advertised as "buttermilk chicken and waffles with collard greens." I had visions of a "home cooked meal" but I am pretty sure none of the chefs on the cruise have ever set foot in the deep south. While it was good, the chicken had not come anywhere near buttermilk but the funniest part was that the collard greens were actually spinach. Oh and in Atlanta the waffles and chicken would have been swimming in butter and syrup. No butter and the syrup was a very small amount on the bottom of the plate (I think to hold the food artfully in place). I just had to laugh.
Dinner again in the main dining room where we skipped dessert because it didn't appeal and we wanted to do gelato later in the evening. We went to catch Mike Denson in the World Stage for a second show and then went up and got gelato before going back to the Billboard Onboard Show of "Icons".
But the big news is that the skies were mostly clear and after the last show we went up on the Sky Deck for astronomy and found the Southern Cross (Crux) and Omega Centauri. Barry got this photo with a 30 second exposure on the iPhone. The southern Cross is the four stars to the upper right of the mast and Omega Centauri is the faint smudge above and to the left of the mast. It was faint because of the short exposure and the very bright moon that was out. The bright star to the right of the mast is Beta Centauri. Alpha Centauri is in a line below Beta Centauri but behind a cloud.
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Below the equator, early navigators couldn't use Polaris (the north star) for navigation because it was below the horizon. The Southern Cross and Alpha and Beta Centauri were used to point to the South Pole as shown in this picture from Wikipedia.
As an aside,the Southern Cross was known and visible by ancient Greeks and thought to be a part of the Constellation Centaurus, but the precession of the earth slowly moved it below the horizon and it was forgotten by Europeans for centuries.
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Monday March 6, 2023 Day at Sea :
Today was our last day at sea before we start island hopping in French Polynesia.
After breakfast, on sea days, the aft deck of the ship is a fun place to go. It is out of doors, there is usually a cool breeze and it is covered. A very pleasant way to while away the time.
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Mid-morning we went to see a presentation on the natural history of Polynesia. Unfortunately there were no seats in spite of arriving a half hour ahead of time because there was a port talk just prior and people just stay for the next talk. So we went to lunch.
Tonight is formal night and we have reservations in the Canaletto again. Osso Bucco is tonight's special - it can't possibly be as good as I have imagined! Here we are dressed and ready to go!
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After dinner performer Thomas Armstrong-Robley put on a masterful performance in the World Stage. it was called "Timeless" and he performed everyone from Queen to Aerosmith and many in between. He is an exceptionally talented individual.
After his show we went to the Billboard Onboard to see George and Lena perform "Hot Country hits" and then off to bed!
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Tuesday March 7, 2023 Uturoa, Raiatea :
We arrived in Raiatea around sunrise and made a long slow pass of its sister island of Taha'a as we entered the barrier reef that encircles them both. The islands are beautiful and very lush.
It took a very long time to get clearance from the port authorities for disembarkation, but finally it was approved and we left the boat for our tour - "Land and Sea of Taha'a".
A view of Taha'a from the ship. We didn't know it but our snorkeling would be at the small islet in the bay.
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Our tour boat with our Captain.
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We took a boat ride across the waterway that separates the two islands and then boarded 4 wheel drive vehicles. This is our Captain and Tourguide Extrordinaire and YES he is driving the boat fairly fast (no hands on the wheel) while playing the ukelele and singing.
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Barry in the back of our 4-Wheel-Drive vehicle on our way to our first stop - a family owned black pearl farm
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This lovely lady explained the process of culturing black pearls. They take tissue from donor oysters with a desirable inner tissue color and cut it into 2mm x 2mm pieces (tissue graft) and implant that into another oyster along with a small round "bead nucleus" that the mother of pearl grows on and encapsulates. The bead nucleus is made from oyster shell. Then they attach the oysters to a 1x3 foot frame (to the right of the docent in the photo) and place it in the ocean. In 18 months they remove the single pearl from each oyster. Each oyster can be used up to 5 times to grow a pearl. This is a very slow process!
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They had some beautiful pearl jewelry for sale, however it was quite expensive. Given the amount of time to produce a single pearl, this is not surprising.
This fruit reminded us of American horse apples. We found out later these are breadfruit - the starchy staple of native Tahitian and Hawaiian diet.
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One of the "houses" at the pearl farm. Most were at ground level, had openings for doors and windows but with no doors and windows. At best, some had curtains. But this epic tree house also seemed to serve as someone's house. There are many different species of trees here that have these complex trunk/root systems.
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After leaving the pearl farm we climbed in elevation where we stopped for a gorgeous view of the bay and a snack of fresh pineapple, grated coconut and banana supplied by the boat captain's family. The fruit was amazing in its sweetness.
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It was also fascinating to realize many of the tours in this part of the world are not 'corporate' businesses but are family affairs and are put together by an enterprising family trying to make a living.
While our boat captain/guide was giving us some of the history of French Polynesia and its foods we watched the chickens playing (chickens are everywhere), a pretty tabby cat and some bee hives. Honey is no longer imported into Raiatea as it was found to kill the indigeneous bee population.
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Our next stop was a vanilla plantation where we learned about the production of vanilla in Raiatea. Vanilla originated in Mexico where there is a special kind of bee that pollinates the vanilla plants. Those bees have not been imported to French Polynesia so the plants must be pollinated by hand. When the bloom opens, they have until sundown to pollinate. Then the blossom closes. If they are successful, the blossom stays on the tree and a vanilla bean forms. If not, the bloom falls off the next day. Our speaker indicated that in a day a skilled person could pollinate 1000 blossoms.
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We also found out 40% of Raiatea's vanilla exports go to Holland. The Polynesians do not use vanilla. Vanilla is the second most expensive spice in the world, with saffron being the most expensive. He also indicated Madagascar is the largest grower of vanilla.
Our last stop was snorkeling near the barrier reef. Unfortunately it started raining right after this picture of Lori. While we got into the water and started snorkeling, within five minutes the wind and waves picked up and the rain came down pretty hard. We got back in the boat and we were drenched along with everything we brought with us including shoes, towels, and clothes.
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We headed back to the ship and slogged onboard. Except for getting so wet the day had been fun. We took hot showers, hung everything up to dry, and went and had pizza for a very late lunch. Then took a nap and almost slept through dinner.
After dinner, we were tired from the day's adventure and went back to the room to watch "Romancing the Stone" with Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner. Neither of us had seen it since it played in the theaters.
Wednesday March 8, 2023 Uturoa, Raiatea - Kayak the Fa'aroa River:
Today's shore activity is kayaking the Fa'aroa river, the only fresh water river on Raiatea. We were met by our French Polynesian guide near the ship. He explained the plan and we loaded up in two vans to drive upcoast to the river.
It is clear from our drive that this island has a much higher standard of living and development than Taha'a which we visited yesterday. Almost all of the houses have glass windows and actual doors and there are some very nice houses along our route.
This is the road we took on the way to the kayak entry point.
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Our river entry was at the edge of this park. At one time it appears to have had a basketball/tennis/soccer court with fence. The fence is gone and it has been a long time since the basketball goal had any TLC. Also the soccer goal had no nets.
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We all loaded into tandem kayaks except our guide and his assistant who were in solos, crossed over and headed up river. The trip was an out and back along a very lush, scenic river. This is the wide river inlet at the beginning of our journey. Some crews were better at controlling their kayaks than others. In spite of not being used to paddling (since our kayak at home is a peddal-drive with rudder) we did okay.
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Along the way, our guide, Vivian, explained flora, fauna and traditions of Raiatea. He came from France as a child when his mom came to teach school and he stayed as an adult.
The tree in the center is a bread fruit tree. The breadfruit is a staple of Polynesian food. When Captain Bligh came here he was tasked with bringing breadfruit tree seedlings on his ship back to the Caribbean islands. That is partly why he lingered so long in Tahiti that his men grew to love the island (and the women). When the mutiny happened the crew threw all the carefully cultivated plants overboard.
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As an aside, given the harsh conditions on the sailing ships of the day and the hard conditions back in England for a working class person, Barry and I can see why this paradise would have been so appealing to the sailors. Life was easy, the weather very pleasant, food was plentiful and the women beautiful. What suprises us is that more crews didn't mutiny to stay on a south Pacific island.
Here is Barry in the front of our kayak. I was in back.
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We kept seeing vines growing over trees that looked suspiciously like kudzu, which we had a lot of in Georgia. So we asked and, yes, it is kudzu! Vivian lamented the invasive nature of this vine and how it kills both the breadfruit and coconut trees which are needed for food. Barry told them the best solution is goats. I am not sure they have goats in Polynesia.
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Vivian cautioned us not to paddle under the coconut trees with brown nuts as the nuts can fall off and kill you if they hit on the top of your head. Here was a tree really hanging over the river.
Coconuts are the other staple food in Polynesia. They grate the meat and use it for cooking, as well as eating it raw. A favorite treat is to peel one of their indigenous bananas (4-6 inches long) and dip it in shredded coconut. They also squeeze the shredded meat to make coconut water. They drink the milk as a treat, although he cautioned us to not drink too much or it can require frequent bathroom visits! They feed the chickens with the leftover coconut in the shells. They have so many shells they have to burn the hulls.
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This is a view of the tallest mountain on Taha'a, Mt. Ohiri. It is a little over 1940 ft tall.
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Our river guide, Vivian.
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The port of Raiatea.
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The barrier reef outside the island of Raiatea. It was fun to watch the waves rolling up on the edge of the reef.
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After dinner we went out on deck to watch the sail away and saw the entrance to the barrier reef and watched the ship navigate the left turn to exit the protection of the reef. The reef can be seen in the center of this image. The edge of the entrance channel is marked by the dark line in the water on the left side.
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We went to the final show of Mike Robinson on the Main Stage. Here he is with Terrence his Mannequin-American. He is a very funny performer.
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After his show we went ot listen to "Great Standards" in the Billboard Onboard which were some great classics like "New York, New York", "Over the Rainbow", and "Hello Dolly".
Thursday March 9, 2023 Pape'ete, Tahiti :
This morning we arrived in the southernmost stop of our journey - Pape'ete Tahiti. We are 4,411 mines (as the crow flies) from home in Deming, NM. We are at 17.53 degrees 32 minutes 17 seconds south and 149 degrees 34 minutes 10 seconds west.
We are docked next to this gorgeous sailing ship. It is one of Windstar Cruiseline's Ships.
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Our shore excursion to Pointe Venus and several other stops got cancelled before we sailed so we have no plan for today other than to find our way to Pointe Venus, where the 1769 transit of Venus was observed by Captain Cook.
Around 9 AM we walked ashore and went to the taxi stand. There was a driver who wanted to take us on a circle island tour with 6 stops one of which was Pointe Venus. We negotiated a price and set out!
We headed east toward Pointe Venus and I got a few pictures as we drove through Pape'ete.
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I was trying to get a photo of the central mountains of the island. When I looked at this picture later I saw I had gotten a picture of the McDonalds!
The island of Tahiti is volcanic in origin and the central portion of the island is undeveloped and largely uninhabited densely forested mountains. Most of the livable space is within two miles of the coastline. It is circled by a road that runs along the coast.
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After driving through the eastern part of Pape'ete, we arrived at our first stop, Belvedere Tahara in the municipality of Aure. It is a scenic overlook over the Bay of Matavai. The island in the distance is Mo'orea.
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This lighthouse was built on Pointe Venus in 1867 to commemorate 100 years since Captain James Cook observed the June 3, 1769 Transit of Venus along with Naturalist Joseph Banks, Astronomer Charles Green, and Naturalist Daniel Solander at this location. This occured on Cook's first circumnavigation of the world.
It is still a functioning lighthouse as we would observe when we sailed away from Tahiti.
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This is a monument to Captain Cook. It was erected in 1901 by the people of Polynesia.
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This is a monument to the mutineers of the HMS Bounty erected by the descendants of the mutineers on October 27, 2005, 217 years to the day that the mutineers landed back on Tahiti. On the back side is inscribed a list of the mutineers and the Tahitian people who went with them. The faces depicted are Fletcher Christian and his Polynesian wife, Mauatua (also known as Maimiti, Isabella Christian and Mainmast)
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This is the beach and bay where the Europeans first made contact with the Tahitians.
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The next stop is the Fa'arumai Waterfalls in the village of Tiarei. Our driver did not speak much English and really didn't explain where we were going. As we headed down the narrow, dark, somewhat unkempt road with no signage in any language, we were concerned that this was the part where we'd be beaten, robbed and left. Then the road opened on this lovely little car park at the base of the waterfall. As we walked up the short path to the falls, we saw this very unusual plant. It is a Beach Spider Lily.
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The largest of the three waterfalls, Viamahutu. This one cascades 262 feet down the side of the mountain. Each of the three falls drain from different mountain basins but converge near this location.
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The Viamahutu Waterfall inn all its glory!
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A short drive away from the waterfall is stop number 4, the Arahoho Blowhole. It was called the roaring grotto in ancient times. It very violently expells compressed sea air. This area is where the water is forced into the perforated lava tube and causes the air inside to be compressed. If you are standing near the rock wall adjacent to this there is a massive jet engine type roar that happens as the air is expelled.
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Here is the blowhole and you can see the stream of air as the smudge in the center, almost like the spout of a whale
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The Arahoho Blowhole. Every few seconds you can see an air jet spraying left to right above the crashing waves.
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A view down the shoreline from the blowhole. All of the shorelines in Tahiti are beautiful and very unique. On this side of the island, the east coast, it is far less developed than the west coast and there are many pristine areas.
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The next stop (as our guide reminded us - number 5) is the Jardine Botanique Harrison Smith Botanical Garden. It is on the southwest corner of the island, a bit of a drive from the blowhole. Along the way the guide stops at a roadside fruitstand and negotiates with the proprietress to buy Tahitian bananas and what he calls Mapi. The bananas were 4-5 inches long, perfectly ripened on the tree and unbelievably sweet. They were wonderful. The Mapi or Mahi (which I think is breadfruit) was boiled til somewhat soft and had a strange texture and lacked flavor. I worked to eat it. Barry wisely passed on this treat.
As we entered the botanical garden these chickens were feasting on coconut!
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This beautiful flower is called the pagoda flower. It was imported from Malasia.
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This wonderful garden was created by an American, Harrison Willard Smith, starting in the 1920's. He slowly started importing and planting exotic plants from all over the world. The gardens requested protected status in 1964 and 1999. The Tahitian government refused both times. There were some Tahitians who opposed the gardens because of the imported flowers, not recognizing that a botanical garden is a lot like a zoo. People go there to see animals they can't see every day. The garden slowly fell into disrepair. In 2017 the Department of Tourism took over the site and started rehabilitating the gardens and offered it free to the public.
A waterfall in the botanical garden.
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These are roots from a tree we saw all over Tahiti. We never found out what type of tree it was.
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A beautiful bird of paradise blossom. This was adorning the gate, not planted in the garden. Our kayak guide on Raiatea told us these plants, from Mexico, are an invasive species in Polynesia and showed us fields of them.
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We left the botanical garden and started up the west coast to our final stop. These concrete block walls were very common along the road in this part of Tahiti.
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The final stop is at the Grotto de Maara. There are three natural grottos cut into the rocks. Infiltrations of water form small lakes at the bottom of the grotto. This one is call Ana-Vai-Poiri or Dark Water Grotto. It is 260 ft. deep, 100 ft. wide and at the highest point 30 ft. tall. As you stand under the overhang, the temperature is 10-15 degrees cooler than just outside.
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Another street scene on our way back to the ship. It was a fun outing and shaped up to show us far more of the island than we had hoped to see!
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Back at the ship. A view of the harbor and Pape'ete from our Veranda.
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After we arrived back in our room we got cleaned up, had dinner in the main dining room, hung out on the veranda for a while enjoying the cool breeze off the water, and then went to the Billboard Onboard to listen to the pianos of George and Lena.
We had been looking forward to this day - our first real snorkeling expedition. We got up early, ate, got our gear together and headed to the Main Stage for our excursion to be called. The boat was a short walk from the pier where our ship was docked and we boarded.
We had a beautiful run out of the harbor and got to see the containership loading area before we exited the reef. As with other Polynesian islands, Tahiti is surrounded by a reef which provied a break water for the ocean waves. Once outside of the reef the ride got pretty rough. We drove down the west coast for about an hour to what we thought was our snorkel spot. We could see the road we had driven yesterday but now got more of a birds eye view of the whole island as we were far enough out to get a perspective of just how developed this area was, again, only within a few miles of the shore. Beyond that looks like the jungles of Jurrasic Park (literally).
Our boat turned and we went inside the reef again, and started a slow pass up the west coast among the anchored sailboats and in pretty calm waters. We saw some sea kayakers on our trip.
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After another half hour or so we arrived almost back at the exit point of the reef to our snorkeling spot. Since there had been no narration we were unsure of why we had gotten the tour of this part of the island other than to show us Tahiti from the sea.
Here is the view out the back of our catamaran. What look like steps laying horizontal, swing down into the water and allow snorkelers to get down to that level.
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As we stopped and anchored, the guide told us first and foremost that there was a bit of a current. Then he pointed to a spot about 50 yards away toward the reef and said that was where the fish were. He also said that the current will cause you to drift toward the boat when you were done.
The "bit of a current" was an understatement. About half of the folks, including Lori, never made it clear of the boat as you would kick as hard as you could and you were still only 10 feet from the base of the ladder. She gave up pretty quickly and got back on the boat. Others splashed around at the base of the ladder.
Barry made it to the reef and here is a zoomed in photo showing him snorkeling.
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Here is Barry on his triumphant return from the reef. He was one of only five people who made it over there.
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This is a still from one of the videos he made with his GoPro of a parrot fish that almost perfectly blends into the background.
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Another still showing purple and gold coral among some rocks. This area did have a variety of coral, and at least where Barry got to, a few fish. It was a little disappointing given the amount of work to get there.
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Barry's GoPro Video of snorkeling in Pape'ete Tahiti. He edited out the 10 minutes of swimming against the current required to get out to the reef!
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As we rode back to the ship, we saw this interesting house.
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This style of construction was popular along the shoreline for open-air pavillions.
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As we were eating dinner in the Main Dining Room, the Captain made his evening announcement that we would be sailing shortly for Mo'orea which is only 20 miles away across the bay (in fact there is a ferry from Pape'ete to Mo'orea which runs every 45 minutes.) Instead, he told us, we were going to travel 90 miles so that the ship could make fresh water. As we were sailing away we went up on deck and could see, in the distance, the lighthouse at Pointe Venus. As the dusk grew, the light was very visible.
After the sail-away we spent a quiet evening reading in the Crow's Nest.
Saturday March 11, 2023 Mo'orea, French Polynesia - Rain :
This was pretty much how the whole first day in Mo'orea looked. It was pleasant if you were outside under cover but it didn't inspire you to go ashore and check out the port and we had no shore excursions today. So we spent a lazy day in paradise. We sat out on the aft deck of the ship awhile. Barry worked out but he said his heart wasn't in it. We went to lunch at the Dive-In and had burgers and shakes.
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After lunch we texted with Kevin and made a final determination we wouldn't go ashore today. We took a long nap, had dinner and then went to listen to music.
Having Pina Colada smoothies at the Billboard Onboard listening to George and Lena. In between their sets, the Rolling Stone Rock Room sound spills over and they have a pretty good rock band playing 60's, 70's and 80's hits.
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Sunday March 12, 2023 Mo'orea, French Polynesia - Snorkel Safari :
Today we had another snorkeling shore excursion and we were hopeful that it was better than our last one. We met in the Main Stage and then tendered ashore with our group.
We boarded our boat and set out for our first stop.
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Along the way Barry took some photos of the Mo'orea shoreline. This island is really lush and gorgeous. It has limited development and the inhabitants seem very friendly.
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Another view of the shoreline. This is a similar view to the one shown on our rainy day. Today, the sun is out, skies are blue and the water deeper blue. Wow!
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A popular form of transportation appears to be the jet ski. We saw some tours using jet skis but the locals seem to like them also for zipping around the lagoon.
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Lori and Barry on our way out to the first stop - swimming with the sharks and stingrays!
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We arrive at the first stop and I immediately spot 4 sharks from the boat. They are blacktip reef sharks and grow to about 5 feet long. These were about 4 feet long. They are very docile and have a very small range probably no more than the size of this lagoon.
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We also see a number of stingrays from the boat. They appear to be about 4 feet across.
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The guide tells us that both the sharks and rays come out to the boats when they get to this spot and seem to know what time of day the boats will arrive. They seem to like to company of the swimming humans or at least they are curious.
As we get anchored he also informs us there is a fairly strong current today. I know this is code language for don't get in the water. But the sharks and rays are so visible from the boat, I don't feel left out. Barry goes in!
Barry swimming with the sharks and rays. Here you can see two sharks in front of and to his left. Some of the darker areas to the top of the image are coral groups.
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This is a single frame from one of Barry's GoPro videos showing the sharks swimming by. They are really non-agressive.
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Another frame from one of Barry's GoPro videos - a wonderful shot of a stingray!
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Barry's GoPro Video of swimming with the black tip reef sharks and stingrays.
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After a while with all the people in the water the seagulls came to investigate and were flying around. I was lucky with this shot of one diving toward the water to catch a fish.
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Another image from the safety of the boat - pretty target rich opportunity if the sharks wanted to strike! There are three sharks and two rays in the image.
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Soon it was time to move on to our other snorkel area. Unfortunately one lady got swept away by the current and had to be rescued by another boat. She had gone 100 yds beyond our boat. There was a bit of a panic when her husband realized she wasn't with us. But the other boat brought her over then they did a boat-to-boat transfer.
Our second snorkel location, near a small private island. It looked idyllic BUT the plan was you exit the boat, walk down the beach, go in the water and slowly drift toward the boat while snorkeling. They call it drift snorkeling.
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I decided to try this and Barry and I headed down the beach. It was a bit of a chore to get situated to swim out the to coral and get started and all was going pretty well. There were some interesting fish but you had to be careful to avoid the large coral growths.
In not too long we were even with the boat and we were supposed to swing around the back and come in from the opposite side. The wind picked up as did the current and soon we were 25 yards beyond the boat and I was struggling to swim against it. We started toward shore and we could stand, Barry could walk against the current but I felt like I was pushing on a concrete wall. Eventually Barry grabbed my arm and towed me to the ship, which kept repositioning away from us. We finally got onboard and realized there were a number of people still struggling to make it back and the deck hand was frantically trying to help them. Several people said it was the worst experience they had ever had snorkeling. Eventually everyone made it on board and we headed back to the tender dock. Some of the passengers had done the same tour the previous day and said it was totally different. Yesterday had been calm, no current and lots of fish.
The beautiful Koningsdam from our snorkel boat on the way back to the tender dock.
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We ate a late lunch and then took a nap, pretty exhausted from the last snorkel activity.
After dinner in the main dining room we went up to watch the sail away from the island of Mo'orea. It has a very rugged volcanic profile. But it is clearly an old island because the volcanoes have eroded to jagged ridges and vegetation now covers 100% of the mountains. The view was breathtaking!
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As we walked along the upper decks, we noticed the pool's sliding roof was open. Here is a view of the lovely pool area.
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Then we went to see Gravity - three lovely broadway performers who wowed the audience with a variety of songs. We followed that up with gelato and then off to bed!
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Monday March 13, 2023 Day at Sea :
We went to an early morning interesting talk on undersea research by a new speaker, Dr. Jack Hardy, a retired professor from Washington State University. He got on the ship in Tahiti. It was an interesting retrospective of his career and research in marine biology. He has some additional interesting talks coming up.
This was followed by a port talk of our next port - Fakarava, Tuamotu. Another pacific atoll, it has only 900 inhabitants and very little infrastructure. The land part is only a thin strip of 9 square miles around a central lagoon of 429 square miles.
From the veranda - the colors of the Pacific Ocean. The intense blue of the water is amazing and we are traveling at a slow 8-9 knots per hour so the water is calm around us.
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It was another low energy day. We read some and worked on individual activities in the afternoon. We discovered, while sitting on our veranda, that the neighbors to our left have Covid. There is also another nearby veranda that has a Covid patient as we could hear them coughing. We are unsure if it is wise to sit out on the veranda without a mask or at all.
Tonight is dressy night again and we have reservations in the Pinnacle Grill. This is an onboard specialty steakhouse restaurant. Se we got cleaned up and dressed and went down. It was a lovely space with extra-good service and the food was terrific.
After dinner we went to see a new pianist on the World Stage. His name is Elliot Finkle. His resume includes playing at the White House and Carnegie Hall. He was very talented and they projected a top down view of the keyboard so you could watch him play. It was completely mesmerizing. We enjoyed the evening.
Barry often wanders out on the veranda to check the skies during the night. Last night he was rewarded with an upside down big dipper at 11:45 pm. The pointer stars to Polaris point down to the horizon because where we are, Polaris can't be seen. Our location was 16 degrees 18 minutes 57 seconds south and 146 degrees 29 minutes and 18 seconds west.
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Tuesday March 14, 2023 Fakarava, Tuamotu :
As we were getting up we were arriving at Fakarova. Interestingly, they brought the ship inside the atoll. We were surprised the water is deep enough for a cruise ship. There are two openings and we came in the one on the north end through the Garuae Passage.
This is the island's lighthouse. Unfortunately it is now located near the end of the airport's runway and is slated to be torn down. It looks like something you'd see in Mayan Mexico rather than Polynesia. The airport runway is 4500 ft long (relatively short). They receive about 850 flights a year which seems like a surprisingly large number.
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Here is main street of Rotoava located at the port. Not many buildings but we did see a grocery store. In fact one lady from the cruise ship had such a craving for Cheetos she bought a bag for $11.00. I think I could have waited to get back the the U.S.
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Here is Lori at the port shortly after we tendered over. There were a few vendors selling handmade jewelry and imported islandwear. Unfortunately they only took Pacific Island Francs and we didn't have any.
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We followed this road to the beach on the Pacific side. There are no paved roads on the island and I don't think we saw a single car. Electric bikes and motorcycles seem to be popular - we saw maybe a dozen. Otherwise it is travel by foot.
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In the middle of block houses (again mostly with no windows or doors) was a park with a nice soccer field and this covered basketball court. What amazed us was the nicely done concrete floor and steel building. We couldn't understand how the concrete made it here or that they would have the skill to pour a nice floor like this.
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This is the beach on the Pacific side. It is made up of coral chunks broken from the reef further out. You can see the edge of the reef where the waves are breaking. It was maybe 300 yards from the lagoon side port to the Pacific at this location. So that is the width of the land on this island atoll.
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We saw a number of these creatures in the rocks/coral near a tide pool. They were black and about 18 inches long. You saw one end with the fingers come out from under the coral and then the other end which was smooth like a snake came out from under the coral elsewhere. They are black sea cucumbers. Also in the tide pool we saw a number of different tiny fish.
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The black sea cucumber. Isn't he adorable!
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Barry took this great picture of the waves crashing on the reef and the approaching storm. It was moving pretty fast. By the time we had walked back to the port side and boarded the tender it was raining.
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As we walked back to the ship we saw this stand of trees. The one in the middle had an interesting fruit which kind of looked like a pineapple but wasn't. It is a Hala Tree or Screw Pine or Umbrella Tree and the fruit are edible.
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Here is a beautiful tall coconut tree. There were many on this island and all were heavy with coconuts. As we were walking back to the ship we heard a coconut fall and land. It made a pretty lound noise when it hit the ground. You definitely could get hurt by a hard football sized object falling from a 60 ft. tall tree like this one.
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Back at the port and ready to tender back to our ship.
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And, of course, since it is Tuesday we make it to staff meeting at the pizza parlor. The roof was open so we could get a picture of the restaurant from the deck above. Inside we had hot delicious Pepperoni pizza, a cool breeze and an ice cold Diet Coke. A sublime day!
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For dinner we were back in the main dining room. A gentleman who sits at a nearby table was back for the first time in 8 days. He had been in covid quarantine. We are glad he is better. And after dinner we head back to the room for an in-room movie - tonight "Mr. Church" with Eddie Murphy. A 2016 movie which was really good. And Eddie Murphy turned in a terrific dramatic role.
Then we sat out on the veranda. The skies were perfectly clear and we could see Orion in the sky. It was a lovely temperature and the seas were calm.
Wednesday March 15, 2023 Day at Sea :
We are spending another day at sea on our way to our last port of call - Nuku Hiva in the Marquesas, which is still part of French Polynesia. We went to a port talk on our upcoming destination and it was described as the most remote island in the Pacific. It is another tender port and the pier is an old chipped uneven concrete pier with room for only one tender. It also has multiple steps. Our tour director did everything but tell us not to go ashore.
Knowing the remotenesss of the island we were headed to, we decided to see where we were. We are the small round dot in the middle. Talk about being 20 miles from nowhere! The dashed line is the International Date line and the horizontal line is the equator.
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This chicken scuplture is near the main dining room and is a marker for us to remember which deck we are on. We really like this chicken!
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After dinner we went to see a female comedienne on the World Stage - Chris Pendelton and her Funny Fiddle. She was very entertaining both with her jokes and her violin playing which was wonderful. She was from South Carolina and really played up her accent and being from the south.
We went back to the room after this because Barry has developed a cough and isn't feeling well. Tomorrow morning we will test him for Covid and report to the clinic if necessary.
Thursday March 16, 2023 Taiohae, Nuku Hiva, French Polynesia :
This island looks very different than the other French Polynesian Islands in that it gets very little rain and there is no lush vegetation.
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Nuku Hiva is volcanic in origin and very mountainous.
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One of two villages on the island. This is where our tender port is located. One of our tenders, the orange boat, is making a run into shore. Unlike other islands we have visited, this one does not have a road that rings the island. It also doesn't have any beaches as the mountains run right down to the sea.
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Barry tested negative for Covid this morning so he started some antibiotics based on a suspicion that this is a sinus infection. Hopefully he will be better tomorrow. We will test him again tonight for Covid to make sure.
It was a low energy day for Barry. We did go down to the Ocean Bar to read mid-morning so the room could get cleaned. Then he laid down and rested until lunch. Lunch was a short foray out and then we went back to the room for the afternoon. We sat out on the veranda for a while to watch the sail away. We sailed halfway around the island before heading north east to San Diego...eight days away.
Barry didn't feel like going to the dining room so rather then go alone, I went and got us pizza for dinner and we had a picnic in our room. After dinner we tested Barry again for Covid. He was still negative. Then we watched "Legally Blonde" with Reese Witherspoon and went to bed.
Friday March 17, 2023 Day at Sea. :
Happy St. Patrick's Day! We changed the clocks again by a half an hour last night. Now we can't get iPad or iPhones to show the correct time because technically we are in Hawaiian time zone but they have switched to daylight savings and the ship hasn't yet. Fortunately other than onboard activities, it doesn't really matter!
Barry feels a little better today. We went to breakfast and then came back to the cabin. I texted with Kevin a bit and Barry napped. But we had chores today. Between 10 and noon we had to appear on Deck 4 Midships to retrieve our passports. Then between 10:30 and 11:30 we had to appear at our muster station for a safety briefing. When we showed up at each place none of the other passengers were there in spite of being told on the daily schedule and our cruise director making an announcement to the effect at 9 AM. Either people didn't change the time on their clocks or they don't read the daily schedule or they don't listen to the announcements or all three. At 11:15 the Captain came on with his safety briefing and indicated there were still a lot of passengers that needed to report to their muster stations. So that was some excitement!
Barry felt well enough to go to dinner so we did and then returned to our room to watch the sunset. We got a special treat with both Venus (top) and Jupiter (just above the thin dark clouds) visible.
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After that we went to the BillBoard Onboard to get out of the room and listened for a while. On our way back we passed the BB King Lounge where a combination St Patrick's Day - Orange Party was being held. Carnival Cruise lines had nothing on the Koningsdam tonight. People were dressed in outrageous orange and green costumes, liquor was flowing freely, everyone was dancing and the band was loud. Unfortunately I didn't have my camera. It was definitely a sight to behold.
Orange is the color of Holland and has been adopted by Holland America as a signature color. Earlier in the cruise there was a typical Orange Party - lots of orange outfits, wigs, glasses, beads and it was pretty lively. But combine that with St. Patty's Day and - WOW!
Saturday March 18, 2023 Day at Sea. :
Barry was perkier today and we headed up to the Lido for breakfast.
Late in the morning as we were sitting on our veranda, I checked our latitude and we had just passed over the equator to the northern hemisphere. Barry leaped up to see the red dashed line of the equator and is pointing it out to me.
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We had lunch at the pizza parlor but ordered what was advertised as tuna subs with chips - hold the tomato and pickle. When I went to pick them up, the person serving me was arguing with the sandwich person (in Indonesian) that it was hold the "tomato". I told them it was fine, we could remove it. Then I noticed the cheese. Who puts cheese on a tuna sandwich? It was only when I went back to the table with our sandwiches that I realize it was also not on a sub roll but on white bread. Once again, I had to laugh. Anyway after the tomato-and-cheese-ectomy, we throughoughly enjoyed the simplicity of a tuna sandwich with chips!
After dinner we went to assess the skies to see if Polaris might be visible tonight on the horizon. We caught another lovely sunset. Alas, we think it will be too cloudy for stargazing.
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Here is our position on our trip home. We are just above the Equator.
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Sunday March 19, 2023 Day at Sea. :
Barry got up in the middle of the night and the skies had cleared. He so wanted to get a picture of Polaris just peaking over the horizon. He did get a great Big Dipper photo with my iPhone and the pointer stars show the direction to Polaris but, unfortunately there is still too much murk on the horizon and no Polaris. The white at the bottom is the whitecaps on the ocean. We were at almost 1 degree north
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We went back to bed and slept poorly. When we finally got up Barry was dragging again.
After breakfast we lounged on the veranda. We went out for lunch and dinner and came back to the room. Barry's temperature was up again - over 100 degrees F. After dinner, we watched part of the movie "I Am Woman" about the life and career of Helen Reddy. It looked like her life was about to crash and we turned it off. I read to Barry for a while and he went to sleep.
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Monday March 20, 2023 Day at Sea. :
We had another time change overnight. We are now on Anchorage Daylight Savings time. Only one more change and we are back to Pacific Daylight Savings Time. Barry awakened feeling much better. He reported having a fever and sweats during the night and we took his temperature right away. It was finally back to his standard temperature.
We went to breakfast and came back to sit on the veranda. There were lots of flying fish today. Unfortunately by the time you saw them they were back in the water and impossible to photgraph. But they were really eye-catching. They would burst out of the water as a large group - as many as 15-20, fly 20 feet shimmering in the sunlight then disappear into the waves.
We also saw this seagull flying in formation with the ship. This is a still from the video we took.
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We went to an enrichment talk today by Dr. James Hardy about the Voyages of Captain Cook. But it took an interesting twist when Captain Cook himself appeared to tell us about his journeys!
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Dr. Hardy, as Captain Cook, read passages from Cook's journal. They sound quite interesting and might be worth reading firsthand.
Our cruise director, Valerie. Here she is introducing the Indonesion Crew Show.
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The passengers really turned out for the Indonesian Crew Show. There was even an altercation over saved seats - unusual for Holland America Cruises.
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The mostly Indonesian staff and crew put together a talent show of sorts for the passengers. This is usually performed during the final days of the cruise. Here are the first performers, a singing trio, accompanied by an Indonesian band.
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A traditional dance from the Island of Bali.
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One of the band members with traditional headdress from the island of Sumatra.
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Dance of the 1000 Hands. A very clever sychronized hand dance. Men were in red, ladies in green and all wore white gloves.
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The Indonesian Crew Show finale where many of the room stewards and tender crews joined the performers on stage.
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After another wonderful dinner in the dining room, we went to see Chris Pendleton for another comedy show and then went to the Billboard Onboard for the 1970's. Barry had a full day and was still feeling ok.
After we returned to the room, we checked our position. We are making steady progress toward San Diego, CA..
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We are about 12 degrees North. The wind was really blowing and the clouds are obscuring the last star in the tail of the Big Dipper but Barry got this from our veranda. The two pointer stars of the Big Dipper point straight down to Polaris just above the ocean whitecaps. Barry finally got his Polaris picture.
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Tuesday March 21, 2023 Day at Sea. :
It has turned cold. Well not really. But going outside requires a sweater or jacket. We are no longer in the balmy south Pacific! Sitting on our veranda is not as pleasant as a few days ago.
Today was our last staff meeting at the pizza parlor on Deck 10. Next week we will be back at the Subway in Deming. It is hard to believe we have been on-board for almost 5 weeks.
But the really big news of the day...When the Captain came over the ship's speakers for the Daily Navigational and Meteorological Forecast he annouced that due to the diligence of the passengers and medical team, he has been advised that "masks are no longer recommended or required." This news was met with cheers and applause. This is the first time since we left San Diego masks have not been recommended.
Barry and I speculated there have been no new cases, all current cases are in quarentine or recovered and we have had no contact with the outside world since we left Nuku Hiva 5 days ago.
We watched the finals of the World Baseball Classic between Japan and the United States. It was interrupted by dinner but when we got back we watched the ninth inning and Japan won.
We went to music trivia in the BB King Lounge after that and did pretty well. The category was "Music of My Grandmother" which was a walk down memory lane for the trivia host. We haven't attended many trivia sessions and never learned his name, but a lot of folks call him Mr. Trivia. Many people have gotten to know him over the cruise and since he talks about the strong influence his grandmother had in his life, they suggested he do a session of her favorite songs. And at the end he didn't score it, but we got 10 out of 14. Since the songs were all over the place in time and genre we thought that was pretty good.
After that we went up to the Crows Nest and talked and then out on Deck 14 to look at the stars. It was a pretty clear night but the winds were howling and the bright lights were on.
Wednesday March 22, 2023 Day at Sea. :
It is cooler still today and we could only sit outside for a few minutes before it was unpleasant. We are starting to get into a "going home frame of mind." It isn't as upsetting as when we were working because we have lots we are looking forward to. Around lunchtime the weather turned very windy and sea swells got higher. The ship was taking on a pretty nasty rolling motion.
After lunch we went to the Ocean Bar and read for a while then we talked to Guest Services to see where we would go if we wanted to carry our own bags and exit the ship as soon as we are cleared for disembarkation, bypassing the HAL process. The representative directed us to Deck A Forward and said it would be around 7:30 AM. Next we walked down to Deck A Forward to see what that area looked like. We think we will take advantage of this because the embarkation process was so chaotic and we absolutely had to make our flight.
It was our last formal night so we dressed for dinner and went down to the main dining room. All of the hospitality officers and chefs were at the door greeting diners. The menu was terrific - filet and lobster tail. There were other items as well but based on what we saw 90% of the customers had the filet and lobster.
After dinner we went to see Nathan Samuelson and his trumpet on he World Stage. We missed him the first time and there was a much smaller crowd this time. He played without any accompaniment. It was interesting and he was very talented but both Barry and I decided we really don't like trumpet as a standalone instrument.
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After the show we went to the Billboard Onboard, listened to the Rolling Stone Rock Band for a while - they were doing country hits and these are some really talented musicians. They did a good job! Then Lena and George came up and played "Fancy Songs for Fancy People" in honor of dressy night. It included a lot of Sinatra. It was really fun.
At 9:45 the chefs did a "Choclolate Surprise" so we were trying to wait up for that. In the past that has taken different forms. This time it was waiters offering up a large variety of delectable chocolate mini-desserts. While they looked tasty, we didn't have any.
When we arrived back in our room, we were greeted by this cute little creature! It is a cow!
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We had one last time change to get us to Pacific Daylight Savings Time. We set our clocks ahead, set an alarm and then we went to bed.
Thursday March 23, 2023 Day at Sea. :
It was difficult to sleep with the motion of the ship. There was a lot of creaking and scraping. If you sleep on your side, the motion of the ship would roll you off your side and then roll you back. This morning you could see why - there were large waves coming in from one side of the ship, rolling under and then continuing out the other side of the ship.
The view from our veranda. In the distance you can see a Pacific rainbow! It is noticibly colder again today.
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After breakfast we went to Coffee with Third Officer Vincent and the Media Manager Alyson. He is responsible for steering the ship and other duties on the bridge. She creates and publishes the daily activities and all electronic signage. They met at an Orange Party on the Zaandam, just before it was locked down and couldn't find a port during the pandemic. They recently got engaged.
Then Captain James Cook was back for a description of his final voyage. That was very interesting and you discover his death in Hawaii was more finely nuanced than the revised history textbooks indicate. Part of his mission was to look for the elusive Northwest Passage across the Americas. They spent a fair amount of time in and near the arctic circle. His sailors must have been miserably cold! This was such a clever and interesting way to present a somewhat dry topic. It was accompanied by interesting maps, pictures and artwork from the artist of the Resolution, James Cook's ship.
We heard rumors of the towel animals that had taken over the swimming pool area on the Lido. So after a quick stop at the room we went to check what they were up to.
Here is an Orangutan. He seems to be the primate gang leader. There were probably 50 different towel animals scattered all over the Lido. It was adorable.
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Second in command gray monkey
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Here is a cute elephant!
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A conspiracy of dinosaurs!
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This Indonesian shaman seems to have quite a following!
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Here is quite a display of creatures from manta rays to penguins to large lizards - the creativity is pretty awesome!
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These giant ants look pretty fearsome!
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Look at the cute penguins!
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This was an epic creature, elephant with rider!
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A cobra slithering your way!
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There were also lots of bats in the area!
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And...a rare blue octopus
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At lunch during his noon announcements, Captain Fritz announced that since leaving San Diego we had traveled 8,763 nautical miles with 546 nautical miles to go. Wow! Here is our current position, now north of the southern tip of the Yucatan Peninsula.
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We had dinner in the Main Dining Room. Tonight was the chef's competition - each of the chefs from the Culinary Council got to plan one of the entrees for the dinner menu. From my observations of what was served in our part of the dining room, Chef Rudi won with coconut crusted shrimp appetizer, prime rib, and Hazelnut torte.
Friday March 24, 2023 Last Day of Cruise - Day at Sea. :
Another night of rough seas. The Captain said the swells are 4 meters (about 13 feet). Yikes! We set our alarm for 7 AM again to continue practicing getting up early for tomorrow. After showering, we went to the Lido for breakfast.
This morning in the World Stage we attended a multimedia behind-the-scenes look at life on-board the ship called a "City on the Sea." It gave tours of the kitchen, the engine room, the bridge and had interviews with various people from those departments. It was terrific. It was hosted by our cruise director, Valerie, who did a great job and the Captain stopped in. We learned how the toilets work and what HAL does to treat the sewage, make our water, generate electricity, steer the ship, cook our meals and do our laundry.
The most surprising bit of information was that there is an on-board tailor shop which up until recently made all of the uniforms for the crew. Now apparently the uniforms are ready made and the tailor shop is mostly into alterations.
Another tidbit of information we found out is that they use data science, based on the demographics of the passengers and length of cruise to determine what supplies to load and stage at ports. This is used from the types of food to the type and quantity of beer needed.
After the show finished, we had one last lunch in the Dive-In with milkshakes from theGelato. The perfect burger and finish! During his final Meterological and Navigation Briefing, the Captain told us that there was only 227 nautical miles to go and we should be in port at 7 AM tomorrow morning.
We did a final packing session after dinner and then went to Deck 3 to walk it one last time. We attended a presentation in the One World Stage called "Heritage Story". It was a multimedia presentation on the history of Holland America line. This is its 150 anniversary and it was quite interesting to see the twists and turns taken by the company over time.
Saturday March 25, 2023 San Diego and Disembarkation! :
We opted to not have Holland America handle our bags and to walk off carrying our bags. We lined up about 6:45 and got to leave the ship at 7:30 AM, breezed through Customs and were on our way to the airport by 8:00 AM. The flights went well and we were home, after a long layover in Phoenix, by 8 PM.
