Better Late Than Never - The Hawaiian Islands

Forty-three days have passed since I last posted. The reasons for the delay are threefold:

1) Wifi is very spotty when in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. We're now in the Coral Sea, where the internet is only sorta spotty. 

2) I'm making a conscious effort during this trip-of-a-lifetime to be present and in the moment. Turns out, there are a lot of moments in a day. 

3) The itinerary for the last two months of our cruise has changed dramatically (more on that later), leaving all passengers scrambling to cancel excursions and search out alternatives, while I've been scrambling to find a place in Australia where an American can get an affordable yellow fever vaccine. 

So I will keep my post about our first four ports of call brief. Two years ago, my sister Jess and her husband Jim graciously acted as both hosts and tour guides during our ten day visit to Oahu and the big island, so we didn't officially plan anything for the ports of Kailua-Kona, Hilo and Honolulu. We did, however, get off the ship and explore.

In Kona, we visited the Hulihe'e Palace, once home to High Chief John Adams Kuakini, favored brother-in-law of King Kamehameha.

We also splurged on a Dole whip, a delicious concoction of pineapple and golden honey,  choosing it over a kakiguri, or rainbow shave ice (although I made Gary pose  outside the shop alongside what, upon closer inspection, was a most unfortunate rendering of a frozen treat.)

In Hilo, with the majestic Mauna Kea looming over us, we walked through the surprisingly industrial cruise port, and immediately started snapping photos like the obnoxious tourists we sometimes pretend to be.

We headed for the lovely Queen Lili'okalani Gardens for a revisit, seeing a nene for the first time.

We started off our morning in Honolulu with a hike up Diamondhead Crater Trail. We were fortunate. While we were hiking the skies were overcast, but as soon as we neared the summit, the clouds scattered and our view was unencumbered. Not so fortunate was a woman who fell on the way up, fracturing her ankle. The only way to evacuate her to the hospital was for the paramedics to carry her visa stretcher from the point of her accident up to a helipad near the summit. The helicopter lifted her down into the crater to an awaiting ambulance. (We took a photo of the helicopter landing, but out of respect for the injured woman, I've chosen not to post it.)

We walked from Diamondhead Crater to Diamondhead Memorial Park, stopping to pay our respects to Jess's mother who is interred there. We then made our way back to Waikiki, visiting Kapaemahu, four stones honoring the third-gendered individuals credited with bringing the healing arts to Hawaii from Tahiti.

The one port for which we'd planned an excursion was Nawilili, Kauai.

Consulting with those familiar with the island, it was suggested that the best way to take in as much of Kauai's splendor in the six short hours we had was a helicopter ride. 

When booking the flight, I had a choice between having to shoot pictures through a glass window or having no pesky window to deal with. Having deleted thousands of photos because of shiny streaks or reflections, I chose the latter. 

I expected to be anxious; this would be my first helicopter ride, so I popped a Xanax on the cab ride to the airfield. Upon checking in, we were given straps for our cell phones, the pocket instamatics of the twenty-first century.  A weigh-in was next - we were asked to give our weight at the time of booking and they needed to make sure that we hadn't vainly lopped twenty pounds off.

I found myself relaxing a bit after watching a safety video. I relaxed a bit more when an earlier tour landed, the passengers all smiles as they exited the chopper. Then completely relaxed after meeting our pilot, an obviously capable, confident young woman. Maybe it was the Xanax, but I was ready for this adventure. 

And then we got to the actual helicopter. It wasn't just the side windows that were missing. So were the doors. There wasn't even a lip between the floor of the copter and space. And I needed that little lip because my humongous shoes would not fit under the pilot's seat in front of me. 

That's when the panic set in, along with the realization I hadn't brought near enough Xanax. I became convinced that my getting my feet where they belonged was all that stood between safety and grizzly death. 

Not wanting to risk distracting our pilot with my screaming pleas not to crash, thus raising the likelihood of exactly that, I unbuckled my harness, offered my apologies, told Gary to take good photos,  and made a hasty retreat to the safety of the airfield.

Ashamed that I had one again let my acrophobia get the best of me, and realizing that I'd have no photos to share of my experience, I snapped pics of the following:

Forty-five minutes later, Gary and Justin returned intact, both assuring me that it was every bit as terrifying as I feared. But Gary had managed to unclutch his hands from an overhead bar long enough to take spectacular shots of the splendor of Kauai.

I comforted myself with Duke's version of the hula pie, a behemoth just a millimeter or

two shy of eclipsing my rule to never eat anything larger than my head. 

Next up : Rangiroa, Tahiti, Bora Bora, American Samoa, Samoa and Fiji.

(Please forgive any and all editing mistakes. I've rewritten and retyped this so many times due to internet failure, my first attempt started "It's been thirty whole days since I last posted...")