It’s a miracle! I finally got around to uploading the pictures
from my phone to my laptop. And I’m blogging on a day other than Wednesday. How
about that?
The cruise from San Diego to Hawaii and back was absolutely
WONDERFUL. We weren’t sure how we would handle a 14-day cruise (and we have 16-day
and 17-day cruises already booked). Or how we would handle 4 sea days. Well, we
handled them just fine!
In fact, I really loved the long sea days. So relaxing. I’m
so lucky Hubby enjoys cruising. It really is the best vacation.
Anyway, here are some of the pictures I took. Hope they aren’t
too boring for you. And as usual, if you click on the photo, it should enlarge for you to see it better.
We left San Diego around 5pm. This was our view of the port from our room.
Honolulu greeted us with a rainbow!
Hubby and I drove up to the North Shore, hoping to see the surfing competition. It was really windy, and threatening to rain, so not much was going on. But man, the waves were crazy.
On the ship, they brought in some local talent and put on a show for us. The next few pictures are from that show. They were featuring the different peoples in the Pacific. It was very entertaining and I'm glad we were able to see it (since we were still in port!).
Maui also greeted us with a rainbow. We saw lots of rainbows on this cruise.
On Maui we took an excursion to see some waterfalls. Didn't realize how remote most of them were and I couldn't walk down with everyone else. Well, I could have walked down, just wasn't sure I'd be able to walk back up!
Another waterfall I couldn't venture to (or rather, didn't want to wade through the creek to get there). I'll say one thing, Hawaii may not have snakes, but they sure have mosquitoes! I got eaten alive!
Lots of waterfalls, so couldn't complain about that.
Our Maui guide showed us a neat trick on how to take this picture. Put it on panoramic and scan upward instead of across. Turned out really cool, don't you think?
Still in Maui! Scenic shot on our way back to the ship.
Some kite surfers in Maui. There were a lot of them there, too! Pretty neat. They have to learn how to use the kite before they can surf with it, though.
Our third stop was in Kona (on the big island). It's very dry on this side of the island (they only get about 10-12 inches of rain a year, compared to the 300 inches Hilo gets). Lots of lava, though. Hawaii is the youngest and largest of the islands, and it's still growing.
Lava rock on the black and white sand beach.
Our excursion was supposed to take us to a black sand beach, but instead they had to change it to the Cloud Forest (don't know why). Top soil is only about six inches deep, so the roots get more nutrients on top of the soil and in the air (since the mountains are usually in cloud cover).
Hilo greeted us with a rainbow, too!
Our excursion took us to one of the many lava tubes on the island. We were told if you cut the island in half, it would resemble swiss cheese.
Lots of waterfalls in Hawaii. At least I didn't have to hike to this one!
Our guide spotted these turtles from the road (she has some awesome eyesight!). There are three in this shot, sunning themselves. By the time we left the area, seven turtles had perched on the rocks.
I finally got to see a black sand beach in Hilo! I never realized how black sand was created. I thought it was just like how regular sand was created, by the water hitting the rocks. Nope. Lava that flowed down and hit the cold water exploded and created the sand. I found that fascinating.
And here's some of that black sand up close. Couldn't take any with me, though. It's illegal to take any off the island. It's not even bottled (like the pink sand was in Bermuda). Too bad. I would have liked to have some as a souvenir.
So … Have you ever been to Hawaii? I think I could spend a month
there and not get enough.
Happy Monday!
Stacy
