Not only are we Shellbacks, we are golden shellbacks. To earn the “golden”, one must cross the equator and the international date line at the same time. The captain announced we did that at 8:07 AM local time today.

There was much silliness about King Neptune. Several of the staff volunteered to be put on trial to see if they were worthy of being shellbacks. For some strange reason, they didn’t allow any of the passengers to be put on trial. We just watched the staff. And we drank gallons of booze. (Not “we” as in passengers, not as Danita and I.) They were selling drinks as fast as the waiters could deliver the drinks.

If you like silliness, there are pictures on the web site. I hope this finds everybody doing well.

We were scheduled to visit Fanning Island today. HA (Holland America) made all the arrangements with the local government. Unfortunately, two days before visiting, the local government informed us that it is impossible for the customs officials to travel to Fanning Island and consequently, we would not be able to visit. I personally found this amazing because I had just learned that Polynesians could easily travel between islands with nothing more than an outrigger canoe and their knowledge of the sky. It makes no difference. Impossible is impossible and I’m sure there’s an excellent reason (not). Anyway, it’s all part of the adventure.

So HA made arrangements to visit Christmas Island. This island is rarely visited by cruise ships. In fact our specific ship, the Volendam, has never visited Easter Island. Christmas Island is only a few tens of feet above sea level. One town has been deserted. But the islanders were welcoming our visit. They even went so far as to set up a market aboard our ship. As you can see, the market is wildly popular.

Conditions for tendering are not very good. We have 6 foot swells. You can’t see it from the picture, but the tender boats are bouncing around in the most lively way. Safely transiting from the ship to the shore is a 30 minute ride. Danita and I aren’t beach people. We quickly decided not to visit. Our decision was reinforced by a couple that had visited the island while on another cruise. As the husband so elegantly put it, “There’s nothing there.” Nevertheless, many brave people wanted to visit the island. The captain had to get on the PA and ask passengers for their patience several times.

As the day wore on, conditions continued to deteriorate. The tide was going out. The tenders were in danger of running aground even with only 20 passengers on board. About 1:00, the captain announced he was canceling the visitation and focusing on getting passengers already on the island back to the ship. Tendering started about Noon. Danita and I watched a couple of tenders load up from our balcony. There have to be at least 100 people on the island. I don’t envy the crew’s job of rounding up everybody on the island.

We had a rather interesting sidelight. You may remember the hullaballoo in 2000 about being on the spot where the sunrise was earliest, hence being the first to usher in the new century. (I’ll skip over the point that the century actually began on 1/1/2001.) Easter Island invented an impossible time zone of GMT – 14. This put them on the other side of the international date line and made Christmas Island the point where the new century started. The captain decided to ignore the date line crossing. As a result, people on the island are experiencing the day as Monday, while on board ship, it is still Sunday. You could say that the islanders who came aboard to sell their wares stepped back one day into the past.

There’s only a couple of pics. You can find them on the website. I hope all are well.

We went on a walking tour / food tasting in Honolulu’s Chinatown. We arrived a little early and admired some rope dragons. The picture doesn’t do them justice. Somebody put a lot of time into making these. As often happens, that person’s children didn’t want them. So they ended up in the museum.

One of the things that impressed me was a statue of Kuan Yin (there are many spellings). This is the goddess of compassion. Somebody spent a lot of time, made an elaborate robe, and draped it over the statue. Sometime in the future, someone else will create another robe for her. The people never get the robes back. They burn old robes once a year. It demonstrates a deep sense of veneration.

The more we are different, the more we are the same. The pics aren’t great, but you can see them on the website. Tomorrow we go to Hilo.

We made it to Hawaii. We left the boat early. I planned to call the financial institution to get my account unlocked while we were waiting for the museum to open. As it happened, the grounds crew were making a terrific racket with their gas powered lawn tools. After we got inside, I got the account unlocked and all was well.

We decided to visit the Bishop’s Museum. They have the world’s largest collection of Polynesian artifacts. It was an impressive place to see. They wanted to build a new outrigger canoe with authentic materials. The problem is they didn’t have a large enough tree of the correct type. No problem, they teamed up with Native Americans in Alaska. Voila! New authenticate canoe.

For the first time ever, I attended a planetarium show and stayed awake for the entire show. They showed how to navigate with no modern navigation aids. A group called the Polynesian Voyaging Society built a dual canoe and sailed it from Hawaii to Tahiti and back using only traditional navigation techniques. They plan to sail around the world.

My favorite exhibit was the feather cape owned by King Kalani’opu’u. This was not a duplicate. It was the original cape, from the 1779.The king gave this cape to Captain Cook. In return, Cook made such an ass of himself that the Hawaiians killed him. You can read the story here. Death of James Cook. (No, they never thought James Cook was a god.)

Another fav was Kaneikokala. When the museum was renovated recently, the workmen couldn’t move the statue. They decided this god enjoyed being where he was. They carefully covered him and did the restoration around him.

I round up my top three with an ancient double canoe, which was restored. They pointed out that the lashings are considered sacred. That makes sense. The lashings are what holds everything together. Wood is strong, but the person doing the lashings better know what he is doing.

As usual, I will put a couple of pics in the web site. I hope all are doing well.

We had another day of very good weather. We thought that with the holiday over, Balboa Park wouldn’t be very crowded. How wrong we were. Not only is school still out, butthe first Tuesday of the month is free day. Every family within 100 miles with kids went to Balboa Park today. We spent out time at the Natural History museum. We broke early for lunch and managed to have a very short wait for some pretty decent food.

From the famous people files: You saw James Bond in the pool by himself (Skyfall – Shanghai). You saw Paul Newman in the pool by himself (The Color of Money). Now you can see Danita in the pool by herself (taken from our balcony). Pretty cool, huh?

One thing we don’t often get while on a cruise is good Tex-Mex food. So it’s tacos for us tonight. Tomorrow it’s supposed to rain. We’ll be boarding the ship around 11:00. Then it’s five days at sea to get to Hawaii.

I’ll add two more pics on the website. I hope this finds everybody doing well.

A shot of Balboa Park

A somewhat unnatural dinosaur at the Natural History Museum

We had a wonderful flight to San Diego. It was only 60% full. Danita took the isle, I took the window, and we had an empty seat between us. The only problem was, it was one of the first flights of the day. We set our alarm to 3:30 Eastern time and stayed awake until 8:00 Pacific time. The hotel was generous, offering us free breakfast before we could check in. It helped that most of their guests were hung over from whatever they did on New Year’s Eve, keeping their breakfast open unusually late.

We spent much of the day at Balboa park, visiting the car museum and the aerospace museum. It’s not far from our hotel as the crow flies, but we had to pick up to pedestrian bridges over I-5. WE walked about 3.5 miles, not counting the walking we did inside the museums.

For dinner, we had a Domino’s Pizza, located across across the street. I’ll put a few pics on the web site.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.

An organ rehearsal entertained a small crowd.

Loui’s car traveled from CA to NY and back to CA without ever stopping. They refueled while traveling. They even changed tires without stopping.

Sitting in a DeLorean was every bit as bad as they say.

The big event of the week occurred Thursday. Danita paid the lawyer and closed Bud’s checking account. There wasn’t any doubt that she would be able to do it, but having done it brought a great sense of relief.

Our microwave died. It’s hard to believe how much we rely on it. Our response was unprecedented. W didn’t check with Consumer Reports. We didn’t read any reviews. We didn’t visit multiple stores. I didn’t try to fix the old one. We simply drove to Bray and Scarf and bought one. They installed the new one Tuesday and took the old one away. Our old microwave was manufactured in 2011. Who could ask more of a microwave? A couple of days later, I couldn’t resist a peak at Consumer Reports. I was disappointed in their report. They listed a half dozen “top” models. There was no detailed information. Several of the top models had a notation that the owners were not satisfied. How can a model with unhappy owners be listed as one of the best? As usual, “they” keep on changing things. What I like the most about our new microwave is that the controls are almost exactly the same as the old one. Our only “must have” feature was a button to “add 30 seconds”.

I hope everybody has a very merry Christmas.

We drove up for an overnighter at JAMMM’s. Guess who had a hard time keeping still while opening presents. Even Maia was active holding her head up and rolling over. Sunday was damp but good enough for some time at the park. We enjoyed a big lunch at Texas Roadhouse before heading back home. I’ll put some pictures on the website.

I hope everybody is enjoying the Christmas season.

Danita is almost through closing Bud’s estate. It’s funny, but what’s holding her back is that the lawyer is not allowed to invoice for his services yet. It will be another couple of weeks. After Danita gets the invoice, she can pay the lawyer and close the last bank account. Whew. Bud’s estate was set up to be very easy to settle. We never believed how much bureaucracy would be involved.

Ed and Lynne came down on Tuesday and took Dee to lunch. (They let me tag along). We had a great time. We went to Seasons 52. It’s a very nice upscale chain. The next day, Dee got sick. She had a headache, digestive issues, and general aches and pains. It lasted two days. Fortunately, she was better by Friday and we were able to go to the neighborhood party.

I was scheduled to count today. After that, I wanted to change a tire on my bike and pack for our cruise. Holland America invited us to use a luggage service that picks up at our door and delivers to our stateroom. That’s a great service, and the best thing is that it is included in our cruise. In other words, FREE!!! They will pick up our suitcases this Thursday. It’s not too early to pack, but it’s also not too late. That’s a good thing because counting took much longer than normal. We were off by one $20 check. We finally gave up. We’ll see what the bank says. Changing the tire was much harder than I expected it to be. I worked on it for well over an hour. It’s a good thing I have more time to pack, because I didn’t get any packing done today. Danita’s brave. She doesn’t plan to pack until Thursday morning.

That’s it for us. I hope this finds everybody doing well.

Danita had wonderful news. She got all of the documents and approvals required too close Bud’s estate. She was ecstatic. It looks realistic that every last “i” will be dotted before we leave for our cruise.

We just got back from spending a weekend with the Reeds. The drive down and back were tiring but uneventful. We started our visit with a half-day family church retreat. We played a simple but fun game. We went to a multiplex that shows classic Christmas movies this time of year and saw “Elf”. It holds up well. It was a lot of fun. Here is a pic of Danita, Jul, and the kids solving a puzzle for their Advent Calendar.