Crossing Equator

We have now officially sailed across the Equator.  At approx 1am we crossed the Equator, but King Neptune only came on board this morning with Queen Double D for the ceremony.  All the Pollywogs (us) became Shellbacks.  Glad they only selected a few representative passengers to be grunged!  Didn’t relish being slathered in eggs, spaghetti and other unmentionable globs!

Hawaii

Three stops here.  The Big Island of Hilo, Honolulu and Kauai.  On  Hilo we had a volcano crater tour which was very interesting.  Largest volcano in world is here – the only one that can be seen from outer space so they say.  First time we have come across a bus driver who is also the tour guide.  She did both very well.

Honolulu was our shopping destination for sneakers.  Looking for named brands cheap.  We found them but chose not to buy as our options tended to be pink, bright blue and fluorescent green!  Not our colours!  Glad we had already been to Pearl Harbour as weather too windy for tenders to get out to Arizona memorial.

Third island of Kauai was very scenic.  Many movies have been filmed here including Elvis’ Blue Hawaii.  Went out to their version of the Grand Canyon.  This was quite different from the one in Arizona but still very spectacular.  Again our driver was our tour guide and he was also very good at both.  He was passionate about his island’s history and heritage.  Told us many legends about the islands and the landmarks, in some ways very similar to the oral history of the aborigines.  We had a very nice lunch at a resort hotel, but the last ones in did not fare as well – not a lot left.  Problem was not our little  bus, but the big ones that came after.

Sea days now until Pago Pago, lose a day, then Fiji, New Zealand (2 stops) and Sydney.  Where has the time gone?

 Lava Tube

 Tsunami Warning system - tested each month loudly!

Waimei Canyon

Los Angeles 10^th August

Hard to realize, but it is four weeks since we came on board in Dover.  Quite veterans of the ship now and manage to get to where we want to go without backtracking very often.

In Los Angeles today so caught a taxi to Long Beach, visited the old Queen Mary, (as if we haven’t seen enough of the inside of a ship!).  Would have been a life of luxury for those who travelled in her years ago.  Don’t think however I would have liked to have been one of the 800,000 crammed into her during the period of WW11.  Sure their accommodation was nowhere near as comfortable as pre and post war sailings.

Russian submarine tour was optional extra, but we decided that it wasn’t for us.

Visited two of the USA’s institutions – Walmart and the big M.

 The Queen and the Russian sub

Panama plus

2^nd August

Transit of the Panama Canal today.  This started early in the morning and by the time we had been through three sets of locks, with varying numbers of chambers and steps, it was late afternoon.  I know some readers of this blog attempted to see what was happening, but time difference didn’t make that easy and the bow camera didn’t show sides of ship.

What a magnificent engineering feat this was.  Huge cuts made in the mountains, horrific working conditions and primitive machinery.  The new expansion system will make the canal much more accessible for larger ships and alleviate need to unload some containers one end, train these to the other end and reload.

We only had 25cm clearance each side in one lock, so imagine the panamax ships.

There were quite a few ships waiting in the Gulf of Panama after the transit and they can wait for three days sometimes for their turn to transit.

Made a sign to hand on the balcony for the cameras.  Probably no one spotted it so have included it below.

4^th August

Puntarenas today.  Interesting place with a fine black sand on the beach.  Everyone swimming and playing on the beach looked so dirty, but guess it would be no worse than our white sand to clean off and out of clothes.

Took a bus trip out to Espiritu Santo coffee plantation for a very informative tour and tasting, before going on to Sarchi.  Here they make decorated ox carts for sale.  Up to about 20 years ago these painted carts, which identified their owners by the decoration, were still used in the mountains for carrying goods.  All the equipment in the factory is run by a large water wheel – very clever.   It was quite pleasant temperature up in the mountains, but when we got back to the ship, the heat was very noticeable.  Walked through the little stalls at the port entrance but didn’t part with any money.

Pier is quite long (about 500m) so there is a little train to take people from ship to shore.  Big tidal movement – 12 feet today but up to 16 feet so pier is built out a long way and ships have to run with the tides.

 Coffee growing on hill sides - all work done by hand

 A souvenir painted ox cart