We left the wet side of Fiji where we had no rain and sailed to the dry side of Fiji where we had heavy showers in the early morning. Today we took an excursion to a small island that had a lot of coral.

It didn’t take long for the rain to end. Danita and I decided that a glass bottom boat is more our speed than snorkeling. The main thing I learned is that while you can see some amazing things in a glass bottom boat, it’s a lousy place to try to get good pictures. But we did get a couple of pics. Here you see some blue coral. We are told the blue zone indicates coral growth.

Here you see a blue starfish. In this case, the blue color indicates we are looking at a blue star fish. I didn’t know there was such a thing, but we saw several of them today.

Other activities were planned, but nobody wanted to play volleyball. People were snorkeling, swimming, or just relaxing. We had a nice lunch, then returned to our home ship.

Tomorrow is a sea day. Our next port of call is Mystery Island. What an intriguing name.

This is what it’s all about. This little bottle is huge. Fiji water actually comes from a Fiji Aquaphor, and it’s 24% of Fiji’s exports. The next largest export item is only 6%. Ironically, over 10% of Fiji’s residents don’t have access to safe clean drinking water.

My understanding of Fiji history is extremely incomplete. Fiji natives used to practice cannibalism. Later they became a British colony. Britan decided to plant sugar plantations, and brought Indians over to work on the plantations. Today many Indians display a red flag on their house as a sign of pride. Many Fijians still live in small villages managed and ruled by a chief. Also, Fijians never, ever, eat tourists these days.

We docked in Suva, the capital city. We went on an excursion. We took a very long bus ride with no A/C to a river, then switched to long boats to take us to a remote area.

The building you see here was built to be a cathedral. The priest that built it wanted it to be the center of French Catholicism. (Who knew there was such a thing?) But there were a bunch of disagreements, and the priest switched to Roman Catholicism, and he burnt a bunch of French Catholicism books and also a bunch of Protestant books and sorry for your trouble, Father, but a building in the middle of a remote area just isn’t going to make it as a cathedral. But it still serves as a place of worship. (I might have missed some details.)

We got back on the long boats and went to a remote village. This village has about 900 houses. Not long ago, they got electricity and flush toilets. I saw some very poor shanties, but everyplace I saw seemed to have electricity. Unsurprisingly, smart phones are incredibly popular. Even young kids know all about them.

We started with a Kava ceremony. Kava is a root plant. They dig it up, break it into pieces, put it in a rag, add water, and squish the rag around. Presto! Kava. Both Danita and I agree with our ship’s entertainment director, who said Kava tastes like dirty water. We did some dancing, which was a lot of fun in spite of the hot, humid weather. Then we goofed around with some of the kids and took a very long bus ride back to the ship.

If you don’t feel grateful that I took a shower before writing this, you should. We were incredibly sweaty and stinky. I hope this finds everybody doing well.

I don’t normally write on a sea day because they are – shall we say relaxing. Yesterday somewhat more exciting. We were in our cabin waiting for dinner service to begin when we heard an emergency signal followed by an unknown voice, who I will call the Commander, call the emergency fire crew to activate. A quick check of our balcony showed black smoke, apparently coming from one of the stacks.

Throughout dinner, messages from the commander interleaved with messages from the captain. The commander’s messages were orders to emergency responders. They were short, professional, and completely clear. That was reassuring. It was obvious the captain was waiting to confirm the situation before using the same ship-wide system to update the passengers. That was also quite reassuring. The captain continuously said there was no action required of the passengers, the situation was well in hand. But the emergency evacuation lights were on. They were a quite attractive shade of green. When the captain said the black smoke was entirely normal, I began to wonder. The emergency exit lights were still on. We decided to go to the evening show, but we brought our tote bags with medicine and a jacket, just in case.

The evening show went on as scheduled. The emergency lights eventually turned off. We went back to our cabin and unpacked the tote bags. We’re still sailing on the Pacific, still headed for Fiji. We should arrive about 8:00 AM local time.

Today we had a program seeing the ship through the eyes of cadets studying to earn officer’s positions. As everybody knew, somebody would ask about the incident. We learned there was a fire in the number 2 generator. The ship has 5 generators. It uses two or three at any one time. There are also two emergency backup generators. We are assured the cruise will continue as scheduled.

We sailed from American Samoa to Samoa. Samoa is on the other side of the date line. Thursday night we skipped “tomorrow” and went directly to Saturday. Samoa is quite similar to American Samoa politically. The families, chiefs, and land management are all quite similar. The major difference is that Samoa is not a protectorate. It is an independent country. A second important difference is that Samoa is much more focused on the East. Their major trading partner is Australia. They even switched from right hand drive to left hand drive to follow what Australia does. A third difference is that it was a colony of Germany. Surprisingly, other than a few families with German surnames and some buildings the Germans built, there is little that can be considered German in Samoa. The languages are Samoan and English. German is not spoken.

We took an excursion in Samoa. We had comfortable, air conditioned busses, which were a gift from Japan. While touring, out guide pointed out several major buildings, two of which were gifts from China. One of the China-built buildings is now abandoned because it needs major repairs.

One can’t visit a Polynesian country without visiting the market. The Samoa market is large, crowded, and colorful. I’m not comfortable in crowds. I took a quick tour. One stand had some kid of fresh bread. They continuously waved cloth flags to keep the bugs off. Saturday is the biggest day for shopping, but the market is open 6 days a week. The only thing open Sunday is the supermarket, which is open from 6 AM to 9 AM. Church service starts at 10. Everybody has to go to Church on Sunday. Nobody works. So said our guide. In response to a question, she said the younger generation accepts the practice.

We stopped to see the new cathedral. The original was destroyed by a storm. The new was opened in 2014. It nice, but one wonders at the wisdom of spending $14 Million on a building for a country where the average wage is $1.50 per hour. The church imported special wood, stained glass windows, and even an Italian architect. The inside is beautiful, but one doesn’t have to look very hard to see areas that are badly in need of repair. They will be paying the mortgage for a very long time.

The main attraction in Samoa is Robert Lewis Stevenson’s house. Stevenson is a big name in Samoa because he was a leader in the “Free Samoa” movement. Stevenson was very ill most of his life. But he was wealthy enough to buy a very large plot of land and put an amazing house right in the middle of it. The grounds and the house are immaculately maintained. Here’s a pic of the tropical plants, along with a hint of the rain that makes these plants possible.

Stevenson imported California redwood to build the house. This picture that shows how he used siapo on the walls of the dining area.

We ended the day with a Polynesian dance and concert. It was a wonderful tour. I hope this finds everybody doing well.

I feel like this was our first real stop. There isn’t a ton of stuff, but what there is, is breathtaking.

Back around 1900, the Samoa was organized into families or villages. Each had a chief. Each chief wanted to be the big chief. Being typical people, they settled their differences with ongoing war. Samoa was an important stop for sailing ships trading with the East. With inhabitants already divided, conquering was pretty easy. (It sounds to me like the best description for political organization back then would be not families but clans.) The US took Eastern Samoa, the Germans Western. From there the history is atypical. Both countries maintained their Polynesian culture. Almost all Samoan residents speak Samoan fluently. In American Samoa, villages or families manage their part of the island, especially when to fish and how many to take. American Soma has a large tuna cannery. They are a US protectorate which allows them to export canned tuna without paying duties. They have their own constitution and laws. In the on-board presentation, the presenter used the description “island quality, mainland prices”.

As we approached American Samoa, I saw two things. Samoa is a beautiful verdant green, as shown by the first picture. The main mountain blocks rain clouds, dumping rain on the windward side. While it didn’t rain while we were in town, you can clearly see how the effect works in the second picture.

We left the ship early to beat the heat. (Mid 80s and extremely high humidity, even early in the day.) In the disembarkation area, the local tour guides were quite aggressive, nearly blocking my exit with large cardboard signs. We only wanted to see three things, all a short walk from the pier, so we resisted the island tours. As you will see, we’re glad we did. It was impossible to take a picture in the disembarkation area, but I did get a pic of the tour busses used for the second wave of tourists. When we got back to the ship, all these busses were filled with tourists.

We stopped at a few places and didn’t see much of interest until we got to the National Park Visitor Center. They have a movie that shows how they make Siapo cloth. It was a long movie, maybe 20 minutes. We enjoyed the entire movie. One busload of people came in near the beginning of the movie, and had to leave before it got to the most impressive part. Making Siapo is an amazing process, requiring untold woman-hours of effort. Making a Siapo requires many steps. Each step requires care, talent, and even strength. After we watched the movie, we saw an excellent and impressive example you see below.

The main attraction turned out to be a private museum which was a total bust except for one exhibit — a museum quality example of Siapo cloth you see below. It blew us away. “Island Quality” is probably an accurate description of the cheap tourist shops that line the street, but this Siapo is simply amazing.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.

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