Sailing Westward

We're back into the swing of life at sea, which is divided into "A" days and "B" days. College classes are either A or B courses and meet on alternate days while we are at sea, regardless of whether it is the weekend or not. Hawaii to Japan is about 3000 nautical miles, so we are in a long period of school before Japan, China, and Vietnam happen all in a row with only a little break in between each country. Tonight we set our clocks back again an hour, which we have done four times now. That makes us 7 hours behind EST. And in a few days we will cross the International Date Line and "lose" a day. This concept has been explained to me many times, but I still don't quite get it. All I know is that we go to bed on Tuesday night and wake up on Thursday morning.

The kids are doing well. Asher's foot continues to heal and for the rest of us our upper body muscles continue to strengthen as we cart the little guy around. The seas are calmer today...yesterday Charis and I felt a bit seasick from the rolling, but all is well today. We've had bracelet beading, breakdancing (really) and dodgeball today. Life is good!

Back at Sea

We left Honolulu under the light of the full moon and are heading toward Japan. Our ship was docked by one of the older structures on the island, Aloha Tower, which is pictured above.

We all went back to school today except for Asher, who was allowed to get some much-needed extra rest after all of the foot drama of Hawaii. We were all tired, though, including the college students. This tourism is hard work! Still, it was great to be back in class. The students in my voice class had all sorts of interesting observations about the voices of the Hawaiian people. And everyone is comparing notes in the halls and at meals about what they saw and did in Hawaii. We had a surprise birthday party at lunchtime for Margie, one of the dependent child coordinators. The group of younger boys wanted to play their daily soccer game, but it's raining today. So they all headed to one boy's room for an afternoon card game. At 2pm we'll all go to Global Studies, the class that everyone onboard takes. And in the late afternoon some college students are planning activities for the kids while all the parents have a social hour in the faculty staff lounge. Tonight, there is an "all-campus" post-port discussion in the union, which is the main meeting room. We never lack for activities!

Honolulu: our second day

We took a bus tour with students today to see the sights around Honolulu. Our first stop was to head up above the city for the views. Diamondhead Crater is in the background of the 2nd photo.

Another stop was the famous "blowhole" where the surf comes up through a hole formed by lava. The first photo above is the blowhole, but it didn't quite cooperate for us. The second photo is the beach from the film "From Here to Eternity."

We stopped at another park where we had great views of the snorklers....

...but Barek was more fascinated with the wild chickens and roosters that were running around the park amidst the beautiful trees. That's our guide, Shannon, in-between Charis and Barek in photo above. He had a great sense of humor which the kids really enjoyed.

In the afternoon, the boys took a cab to Kmart to buy some last-minute "necessities" before leaving the states: Uno, socks, Twizzlers and toothpaste. Charis and I took the bus back to Wakiki for some shopping. Charis was able to get in some phone calls on my cell before leaving the states.

Back on the ship, we took Asher to our wonderful doctor who unwrapped the bandages. Although it will take a long time for Asher's foot to heal and he needs to stay off of it for a long time to come, the good news is that there is absolutely no infection and that I will not need to do any upper body workouts until Asher becomes mobile!

Asher's teacher back home, Mrs. Jones, did her student teaching in Hawaii and absolutely loves Hawaii. After being here for four days we see why! The islands are beautiful!

We are taking off right now for Japan, a crossing that will take about 10 days. Now that we are back at sea, classes will resume tomorrow for everyone. We all need to switch from tourist-mode back to classroom-mode!

Honolulu

We started the day at Pearl Harbor with a large Semester at Sea group. Barek met some survivors of the attack before we took the boat over to the USS Arizona Memorial. Brave little Asher is in the museum's wheelchair. The doctor doesn't want him to put any wait on his stitched up foot for a long time. So it has been piggy back rides all day for him! Thankfully, he doesn't have any pain--it is just an inconvenience to have the bottom of his foot injured.

Afterwards, we went to the military cemetery in Honolulu, where the main entrance was lined with these trees.

In downtown Honolulu, our tour bus guide showed us the eternal flame in honor of all who died in WWII, the palace, and the statue of the Hawaiian King from the 19th Century.

In the afternoon we took the city bus to Wakkaki Beach. Charis and Barek enjoyed playing in the ocean. Although Asher would have liked to have gone in, he had a great time building a sand shark with Rob, who is on the residence life staff this semester on the ship.

Hilo--2nd Day

We rented a car again today and saw some beautiful views. We stopped for an island specialty, "Shave Ice", which is essentially a snow cone, but so much better. Above you can see how they shave the ice.

We took a beautiful walk to Akaka Falls.

We stopped to look at this beautiful tree. And we stopped at several lava beaches.

We went into Hilo for a bite to eat. The Palace Theatre is an old theatre in downtown Hilo.

After that, we just had to go to one more beach. Unfortunately, the lava rocks under the water were extremely sharp and Asher cut his foot and then Steve cut his feet trying to carry Asher out. Luckily a nurse was at the beach and gave us some medical supplies. Once onboard the ship, the doctor and nurses fixed up Asher and Steve. After a thorough cleaning, Asher got some stitches and Steve some steri-strips. The bummer is Asher needs to stay off his foot for quite awhile. But the good news is tomorrow we are in Honolulu and are spending the first half of the day at Pearl Harbor museum, where we sure to find a wheelchair for the little guy. Meantime, Charis is happy to give him a piggy-back ride wherever he wants to go. And he is feeling just fine, too, so that is good.

Hilo, Hawaii

At Volcano National Park. Our kids--and some Semester at Sea students--enjoy the steam coming up through the earth. In the third photo, the large crater with the active volcano is almost visible

We hiked through a rainforest to a "Lava Tube", a cave made by molten lava a long time ago. The boys hang out on the Lava Flow, which stretched for miles.

The highlight of a rather lengthy luau were the chanters and dancers from Lap and the Somoan singers and dancers. Before the luau, hosted by Univ of Hawaii at Hilo students, we toured the campus. We were glad to finally sample "poi", but won't need to do that again.

Back home on the ship: our balcony is third from the right.

Sleep!

Finally we slept last night. The seas calmed and we were all able to sleep. We've got some more rolling this morning, but nothing like the previous days. Evidently we're going around some of the worst storms on record.
We've set our clocks back twice now and it is really helpful to have those "extra" hours. Traveling westward is really enjoyable in that way!
We arrive in Hilo, Hawaii on Monday!

Fun activities--Rocky Sea

The days continue to be filled with good kid activities: all three of the kids really enjoy the finger-knitting project. And yesterday a group of the children made Hawaiian leis in preparation for our arrival in Hilo in a few days. And even though we are swaying a lot from side to side, the younger set still enjoys playing soccer, sharks and minnows, and dodge ball.

The nights, however, are a different story. Things fly all over the room each night: nothing can be on a shelf area and even when we store things on the floor they still fly all over the place. Each morning it looks like a tornado has hit our rooms, and we sure feel like we've been through a tornado each night. Last night the kids' beds were rolling all over their room so much that they came in with us and Steve eventually went to their room. We were up all night, getting thrown from one side of the bed to the other and trying to secure things as they flew about the room.

One faculty member who has been on six voyages said he had never experienced anything like this before...we're hoping it will stop soon, although most say it will continue to Hawaii and possibly on through Japan. Oh well!