Day 22 of 111. Hilo, Hawaii

The Hawaiian Ambassadors did a chant and dance ceremony when we arrived into port at Hilo. Unfortunately for them, this came at 6:30 a.m. It was still fairly dark and cool out on deck. It rained briefly, but the young people were undaunted and they did a great job. Afterwards, everyone had coffee to warm up/wake up. The next item of business was a trip to Walmart. We had several things on our list including some new Hawaiian shirts, earphones, art supplies, and new jeans for Ron (contrary to tradition, he is actually LOSING weight on this cruise… Go Ron!)

Hilo seems to have rainstorms and bright sunshine in quick succession, so we saw several rainbows today. The one that seemed to end on our ship was fun. On the short drive to Walmart, we saw Moana Loa in the distance. It is so high that there is snow which has lasted for two months this year which is unusually long. The Walmart had row after row of Hawaiian fabric (not too surprising), so I took a picture.

Day 21 of 111. Getting close to Hawaii

We finished our marathon walks and saw another dramatic sunrise. We collected our certificates and patted ourselves on the back for setting a goal and completing it. We had a hands=on cooking class today wth recipes from guest chef, Denise Vivaldo. You can see her with three of the dishes on the plate. The white chocolate macadamia nut cookies were still in the oven.

The menu included Pineapple and Golden Raisin Rice Salad, Coconut Shrimp with Mango Salsa, Garlic Snow Peas with Almonds, and Macadamia White Chocolate Chunk Cookies. I took a close-up picture of the plate, but when we sat down in the fancy dining room to eat the dishes after the class, the chef only put tiny dabs of some of the dishes on the plates. What is THAT all about? Luckily, he was generous with the cookies.

Ron worked on the mango salsa and I was on the team that made the snow peas. Ron had to cut up a jalapeño pepper for his salsa so he had to be very careful not to rub his eye. I had two art classes and Ron attended a great lecture about Pearl Harbor. Another great day at sea.

Day 20 of 111. 537 nautical miles from Hilo, HI

Day four of our walking marathon. We are getting close to Hilo, Hawaii. One of the benefits of walking each morning is the changing sunrise views on the port side of the ship. At one point there was a glorious scene with streaming rays of the sun that was hidden behind the cloud. Today was the last tough day of walking. Tomorrow (our fifth sea day in a row) only requires 12 laps by Ron and six laps by me. We get our last little ticket, our Grand Dollars, and some refreshments. I’ve actually made some friends during this marathon walk.

Today’s cooking demonstration was about Australian favorites of our Cooking Host, Jessica Potter who is Australian. The cookie (biscuit) is called an ANZAC Biscuit. The ingredients are those that do not easily spoil (no eggs or milk) so women during WWI were able to send these treats to their men. The other dessert is called a Lamington. These are sponge cake cubes, rolled in a dark chocolate frosting and then rolled in coconut. These both tasted great. ANZAC stands for Australian and New Zealand Army Corps. Jessica also clued us into Vegemite which is some sort of yeast extract and although it is good for you, is an “acquired taste.”

I passed by the fancy dining room (The Pinnacle Grill) which was set up for a James Bond Dinner (whatever that is) and the dinner must feature several types of wines as part of the dinner… look at the number of glasses at each place setting! I stopped for tea again today. I thought it would be a good place to ponder the things I learned in drawing class today. Perspective vs. Byzantine art. Ron listened to a couple of great lectures today about the Natural History of Hawaii and we each took a computer class.

Day 19 of 111. Halfway to Hawaii

Marathon to Hawaii-Day 3
Ron has successfully completed the third day of the marathon (20 laps around the ship). Paul is only doing a half-marathon (10 laps per day). Walking this morning was very interesting because there was some rain off the starboard side, but the sun was shining was on the port side so there was a pretty rainbow off toward the horizon. Unfortunately, my photo did not do the rainbow justice. My latest watercolor project involved a cute little tropical bird. We were practicing our backgrounds and developing the shape of the object with the shape of the feathers.

One interesting aspect of the is trip is the fact that we are changing time zones every couple of days. We drop back an hour each time. This is somewhat troubling with our phones and AppleWatches because we are not connected to the internet. I need to find a city in the desired time zone. Right now I am on Anchorage, Alaska, time. My next change will probably be Honolulu.

Crossing the Pacific has been a little problematic because there are storms to the north of us. The swells of the ocean are significant enough that seasick bags have been hung near the elevators. Also, when you leave the dining room, you can get a small napkin of ginger candy which is supposed to help. Luckily, Ron and I have not been greatly affected. Walking with a plate of food or bowl of soup is somewhat challenging and I tried to take a dance class (the Foxtrot) which proved interesting when the floor kept tilting. Life is full of challenges, isn’t it?

The other photo is what we look like on Gala Nights. We change right after dinner.

Day 18 of 111. Somewhere in the Pacific Ocean

Hi everyone. It’s Ron again.

We just finished day 2 of the Marathon walk to Hawaii this morning. 12 miles down, 14 more to go. We start at 6:30 a.m.and finish about 8:00 a.m. Sunrise is around 7:00 a.m. So it’s really beautiful to watch the sunrise even while walking. Gene, the cruise director, is the smiling fellow in the picture on the deck. His smile really shows his personality.

It’s hard to believe but we’ve traveled over 5,234 nautical Miles (6,000 land miles)! We still have about 1,500 nMs to go before we reach Hilo, HI. We’ll spend 3 days in the Hawaiian islands then another 5 days before we get to Majuro, Marshall Islands. From there it’s on to Guam, Saipan, Japan. Once we get to Japan, things begin to happen pretty fast for a while.

Everyday we have at least two lectures about the history, geology, and peoples of the area we’re sailing to. This week all the lectures are about Hawaii and/or the Polynesian islands. As an example, one of today’s lectures is “Paradise Undiscovered-Polynesia Before Cook” about how for a thousand years before the coming of the Europeans to Polynesia a society existed which was remarkably successful: orderly, prosperous and fun loving.

We even learned a little Hawaiian in this morning’s lecture:
“mauka” means Mountain
“makai” means sea/waterfront
“moana” means Ocean

These lectures are all extremely well attended.

While Paul is off to Watercolor and Drawing classes, I’m off to another cooking class with guest Chef and Caterer to the Stars, Denise Vivaldo. Today’s class was “Shrimp with Corn Salsa and Espresso Tiramisu”.

This evening is another Gala Night. We dress up in our suit and ties before going to dinner. The ladies at our table are always dressed to the nines. There are 15 of these gala nights during the cruise. Always a fun great night.

Finally, tonight’s entertainment is the group UKEBOX. Five guys from Liverpool England (go figure) playing ukuleles. Should be fun??

Day 17 of 111. Pacific Ocean
Hello everyone. This is Ron and I’m putting my two cents into the Blog.
We have five sea days between San Diego and Hawaii. Today we started walking a marathon for the next five days, by then we’ll be at Hilo, HI. We’ll walk six miles each day (20 laps around the ship) for four days and then two miles (seven laps) for the last day for a total of 26 miles. Today’s walk took me about 1 and 1/2 hours.

At the end of the five days, we’ll receive 2,000 Grand dollars which we can use to buy great stuff (almost as good as the Oakridge Bingo door prizes 😄)! With all this money we can buy $10 Amazon gift cards, key chains, memory cards , etc. and if we get a lot more money, we can even buy a Kindle Fire!

We also have several Hawaiian ambassadors on board (we had Mexican ambassadors on board this last week) who will be teaching us how to make leis, play the ukulele, and dance the hula! Should be a lot of fun.

Day 16 of 111. Leaving San Diego

This is the first segment of the Grand Voyage World Tour. About 90 passengers debarked the ship in San Diego and were replaced by a different 90 passengers. They just had THEIR lifeboat drill and are about to have their first dinner. You can see on our map, how far we have come already… so much to come.

Day 16 of 111. San Diego, California

Next to the Midway museum is a huge statue that captures an iconic photo that was on the front of Life magazine after the war. Our trolley guide told us that the statue was called “Unconditional Surrender”. The real name was posted under the statue… “Embracing Peace.”

The pier next to the ship had the aircraft carrier Midway. No time for a visit today. There was also a cool set of bronze statues commemorating Bob Hope’s entertainment of the troops. As you visited the memorial, some of Hope’s jokes were played over a speaker.

The day started out cold, wet and rainy, but the sun came out and we had beautiful weather. This was a great stop and it was nice to have internet again. We have five sea days between San Diego and Hilo, Hawaii, but because of a storm in the Pacific Ocean, the captain has warned us that we will experience swells from 6 to 12 feet. We have been warned to place breakable objects on the floor. I think I might have to get out the seasick patches for this part of the journey. We’ll see. 🙂

Day 16 of 111. San Diego, California
We signed up for the Old Town Trolley Tour in San Diego. I thought it would be kind of dull since I have worked for one week each summer in San Diego for the past four years, but it was really great. We had a special charter trolley and our guide took us to little out-of-the-ordinary spots with great views and fun information. As we passed the beach, we saw sand dunes that were arranged to spell Coronado. The houses along the beach were nice and apparently amazingly expensive.

On the Sea Day, there was a cooking competition between two teams of crew members. Two of these guys were British and two were Norwegian. The judges were the captain (waving), the head chef, and the chief engineer. The two teams had 25 minutes to cook and each came up with creative dishes. The twist was that they HAD to incorporate ice cream cones and octopus into their dishes. The British won out on this round, but everyone seemed to have a great time.