Friday 6/2/2015 – La Haina, Maui. Welcoming, easy going, blissful day out.

This morning after breakfast while we were waiting for the tendering to start we had a coffee on the open deck at the back of deck 9 (AKA Aquarius Pool). I couldn’t believe my eyes when the hump back whales started to pop up out of the water in groups of 7-8, all over the place.  Not close enough to take pictures, but close enough to enjoy enormously. All the better for knowing that when they are courting the males compete with how high they blow water! Of course I might be the only one who is learning about whales for the first time, so apologies if these bit seems unnecessary ;) The bigger the lung capacity, the more attractive the male. There is a lot of water blowing into the air at the moment as it’s that time of year.  Once the whales have paired up, mated and grown a baby, they stay in the warm waters until the baby whales are weaned and become independent. The females lose 40% of their winter weight when they are in these warm waters feeding their young, and don’t bother eating very much until they return to Alaska and start eating lots of fish again.

Tendering is good fun. 30-50 people per boat go ashore and return on the ship’s own little boats when we have to anchor away from the port.  Usually it’s because the ship is too big for the port (today), but sometimes there isn’t enough room (Sydney in a few weeks’ time). Because the boats are so small you feel everything and are very close to the sea.  It feels like you’re riding the back of a dolphin (or how I imagine that would feel). When the sea is rough you move about a lot, and there’s great potential for getting soaked. You are also close to marine life and get the best views.

We walked through the town La Haina and had a really good look around.

Housekeeping activities - Khachik found a supermarket today selling 5 litres or red wine for $20, so he’s very happy. We visited 2 shopping centres, a local café and Starbucks, but most notable a little shack selling Hawaiian food, so we enjoyed a hearty lunch, Khachik the Kahlua pork, and I had a tofu with teriyaki sauce. We caught up with Facebook – very important.

Temperature today has been high 20’s most of the day, just a few clouds, and a little bit windy so we have also spent an hour in the hot tub on the open deck, a few minutes in the sauna, and about 3 laps round the Promenade deck (1 mile that is), a 5 course dinner the main course of which was a juicy Mahi Mahi Fish Steak, followed by an hour of cabaret, and now a quick blog update before bed.

Heading south west towards the Samoas in the South Pacific, starting with Pago Pago (pronounced Pango Pango) where we have booked a tour called “Village Life”.  But that’s after 5 creative and energetic days at sea with daily practising of both our painting and ballroom dancing.  Updates every day of course.  Bye for now.

Day 31 Thursday 5.2.2015 Honolulu

Thursday  5/2/2015 Day 31 – Honolulu, O’ahu. Warm, windy, sunny, beautiful (and shocking)

We were both awake and sitting up in bed drinking coffee at 6 a.m. The clocks had gone back another hour (10 hours behind UK now) and we were both ready to go. At first we were just watching the reflections of the moon on the sea, then the dawn breaking, and then we just got up and walked our first 6 laps of the day before breakfast!

Soon it was time to get off the ship, unfortunately our first impression was shocking.  We started to walk and coming in the opposite direction was a young-ish woman wearing only a bikini, looking very pregnant.  As she got closer we could see that her abdomen was covered in huge abcesses and there was pus flowing out of one of them. She was really angry, and obviously very ill.  She raged at us about class and poverty and then walked away.  We were seriously stunned and had never in our dreams imagined Hawaii to be a place of such inequality, poverty, drug dependence, sickness.  We talked to each other for a while about the NHS, and our other privileges, but there's a lot of unresolved stuff, powerlessness to come to terms with.  

After a little while we headed for our whale watching lunch, which didn’t disappoint (yes we have pictures!),  even though I got a jolly good soaking and had to sit like lady muck drying off in the sun on the boat, wrapped in a fleece blanket.  Afterwards we walked towards the town. Everyone greets us with Aloha!

I have been in the hot tub for a while since we got back, great for my joints. It’s at the back of the open deck, music plays, people sit around the pools and tubs chatting and drinking. There’s a friendly atmosphere there too.  We have just had another 5 courser, but decided to give cabaret and dancing a miss as we are not surprisingly very very tired.  We are instead about to watch the sail away from our balcony. It’s after 10 p.m.

Overnight we are sailing to another Hawaiian island, Maui. We haven’t planned an excursion, so tomorrow will be a mystery, maybe just a wander around the vicinity of the port, that’s once we transfer ashore by tender – I do like tendering. Here’s one for my Ashtanga yoga friends, Maui is the home of David Williams and Nancy Gilgoff and I feel it’s special to be here. It’s a short trip so no time to find them to share an early morning Mysore style class. But I will be thinking about David, especially his and David Swenson’s anecdotes.

Hopefully there will be some free wi-fi tomorrow so we can chat, as there are 5 sea days after tomorrow, and that’s a long time to imagine being without good wi-fi  and personal contact. Whatever happens the creativity will begin again, and we will be perfecting our ballroom dances.

Bye for now, back after the mystery tour x