After 6 days at sea we finally came to the big island in Hawaii. The town of Kailua on Kona. The ship was unable to dock so the 2000 or so passengers had to be tendered ashore. It took 3 hours or so to complete this task with 4 large tenders capable of carrying 120 passengers each. A quick calculation suggested around 9 tons of people per boat load!
The weather was magnificent - around 26 degrees with a substantial cloud cover. We were booked for a dolphin cruise on a catamaran with lunch and snorkeling. Since we did cold water snorkeling in Alaska now we were to enter 24 degree water in the tropics. Beautiful! The crew were friendly, efficient and competent. Lots of lava flows were evident in the water and on the land. The Island of Kona is the youngest of all the Hawaiian Islands and its volcano is still active. Large numbers of angel fish, parrot fish and many other colorful species swam around us. There were some hard and soft corals but they were not in abundance. From what I have seen in my travels it is still hard to beat the Barrier Reef in Queensland for shear abundance of coral species and fish. Still the day was great and very enjoyable - especially after all the cool weather in Canada.
We then walked the village for a couple of hours and ended up sitting in Starbucks so we could access the Internet after 6 days of no access.
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| The local lads fishing |
The day ended with a pleasant meal on ship when the head waiter presented me with a creme caramel desert decorated with a happy birthday flag and a candle! The whole of the Australian contingent crowded around and sang happy birthday. I was very happy - and so ended the day after watching a show of energetic dance and song in the theatre. All in all a pleasant way to spend my birthday.
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| Lava flows |
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