Fiji

Fiji

We crossed the International Dateline and therefore omitted Sunday, February 12, 2017 from our lives altogether.  Someone said Regent had fleeced us all by selling us on a 128 day cruise when it was really only 127  --  idle minds...

We made 2 ports on the largest Fijian island called something unpronounceable, but don't worry, you probably won't need to come here.  We went our separate ways from Lautoka for different experiences.  Al went off through the 'lush landscape' for sightseeing to Nadi,  I went to Lawaki Village for a Kava ceremony.  Comparing our pictures, we once again feel like neither one of us missed anything.  

Enroute to Nadi, the interior mountains were beautiful and green but too far away to see very well, as was the ocean and coastline.  The nearby surroundings were an unattractive mishmash of houses barely stringing together to be called villages.  Nadi was unremarkable - but he got to shop! His favorite!

Lawaki Village was just on the outskirt of Lautoka, so we arrived quickly and were welcomed by the whole community with very loud singing and drumming and typical costumes, closely related to African in look and sound.  Turns out the first Fijians arrived here from today's Tanzania.  To show respect, no one was allowed to wear a hat or even sunglasses on the head into the Kava ceremony, and we were all told to wear clothes covering knees and shoulders.  The ceremony is a traditional welcome for visitors to a Fijian village.  A cloudy concoction is made by mixing some dried root with water in a large wooden  bowl, then dipped out with a small cup and offered to the visitor, who receives it with a certain clap, drinks it down in one swallow, then smiles and everyone claps 3 times.  Someone said they used different cups for each visitor, but I didn't see more than a couple, and the mixture was stirred with one of the men's hands,  I did not partake but somehow they let me in anyway.  People who tried it said the kava was terrible.  The Fijians tend to drink a lot of it.  It's not alcoholic, but is slightly anesthetizing, so not much goes on after 3 or 4 cupfuls (different strengths are possible). When Fiji was British, the government brought in a lot of  workers from India because they notice the Fijians had trouble getting things done.  One of our guests said his lips felt numb for 3 or 4 minutes after he drank it.   After drinking the kava there was a lot of dancing and more singing and drumming, then we looked around the village.  It consists of a large chief's house, a large church, community hall and some miscellaneous houses and other small buildings around a large expanse of grass in the middle.

Unremarkable drive around Lautoka and then sailed overnight to Suva on the eastern coast.

Chief's House in Lawaki Village

Drive to Nadi

Biggest Hindu Temple in the South Pacific - Nadi

Kava Ceremony

We drove for an hour out of Suva to get to the Arts Village which proposes to be an example of a typical Fijian village but is quite a bit nicer than Lawaki village from the day before.  There's quite nice landscaping all around and a lotus pond in the middle of shops and restaurants.  After looking around we were escorted to an open air seating area across another lotus pond from which rose a beautiful hillside.  Off to the left and high up on the hill was a large thatched chief's house.  Closer to the level bottom section of the hillside was a flat sandy area and then .... some smoking rocks!!

Yes, our main objective of taking the drive and going to the village was to witness firewalking! - or at least hot rock walking!  So, a narrator gave the legend of some blessed islanders who are the only ones capable of such a feat while we watched the barefoot costumed warriors prepare the rock pit to their satisfaction.  The rocks had been heating up in the firepit since early morning and it was now noon and they really were smoking.  After much aligning and positioning, at least 8 men walked on the rocks one at a time and at least twice each.  They didn't stay on them very long but it looked to us like the rocks were at least really really hot.  Afterwards there was a lot of dancing and singing and drumming and raining!  We were under cover but they continued their show without a pause in a drilling downpour.  One of the competitions enacted was a fight over some land and a woman, who was chosen (since no one volunteered) out of the audience, much to her chagrin.  When the victor was just about to claim her, some other dispute came up and he had to go back and settle that with another competition.  So she's probably lucky they got distracted since these Fijians are known cannibals, although she was really skinny and wouldn't have been much more than a bite!

Arts Village

Cool Chief's House

Preparing the rocks

Fire Walking!

Village Entertainment

The Victor!

 Back in Suva, we walked to the huge produce market right on the dock, the largest one we've ever seen anywhere.  Very colorful and crowded.  All the locals were doing their food shopping there, but we were after another exotic flower arrangement for our room and scored a nice big one for $10 US.

                                       

Suva Market

   

In the 'It's a Small World' category, the entertainer on the ship last night, Dan Chopin, was from St. Louis.  During the show, he referenced a wild childhood and blowing up M80s on a rooftop with David McAvoy.  We know a David McAvoy who was a close friend of Al's younger brother, Carl. We spoke to the comedian after the show and in fact, he was talking about the same David McAvoy we know.   Dan knew Carl and David from St. Roch's School and even went with Carl to the family farm in St. Clair and rode horses there. He remembered 'a kind of an orange horse' (probably Pumpkin) pulling  a pony cart and a whip with some carved lettering on the grip, all true.  Al remembered Dan's sister Louise who was in his class at St. Roch's.  We couldn't even believe it!  So they met for coffee once and then we met for a while one afternoon and there were lots of memories and people in common, so it was a happy coincidence.  We'll go to Dan's last show tonight and then he leaves the ship in Wellington, New Zealand.  

  

Nuku Hiva, Marquesas

After four days at sea which, thankfully, got progressively smoother and less 'confused',  we anchored in the same beautiful bay in Nuku Hiva as in 2009.  The ship looked fabulous floating there with the high mountains almost encircling it.  Last time we had a Marquesan Festival on the shore because they didn't have any facilities for tours of the island, but 8 years later we were able to go in 4x4s up over the mountains to a beautiful valley with a river flowing down to the ocean.  This was good for 2 reasons:  no Marquesan Festival meant no chance to get food poisoning like Al did last time, causing him to miss Papeete, and - we got to see the interior of Nuku Hiva.   Luscious tropical greenery covered the hillsides, similar to Hawaiian islands, and we had gorgeous views of many more lovely bays around the island.  It's very tiny, so we might have seen them all!  It was very oppressively hot and humid down in the town but cooler and breezy where we went.  Afterward we walked around a bit and saw the open air rustic catholic 'cathedral' and a few other tiki-type stone carvings along the shoreline of the bay, and that was about it!   It's really just a stop for the ships after the 4 long days from Hawaii (or 8 days from LA, which was what we did in 2009).  But it's really beautiful and whets the appetite for the main course - French Polynesia.

So on to the Society Islands where we stopped first at Rangiroa, a new port for us.  Turns out it's just an enormous atoll, so vast it has its own horizon and even its own weather within it.  But atolls are perfectly flat so there is no beauty about it, and the port where we anchored is just a few trinket shops, a couple of restaurants and small houses, with a few locals selling hand made crafts.  It also has a lot of heat!  That was today's weather in Rangiroa Atoll for sure!   But the reasons for the stop there is so people can visit a pearl farm and/or snorkel.  Rangiroa has some of the best of both those activities anywhere, so it is claimed. Evidently there was a recent TV documentary about the quantity and quality of Rangiroan pearls, so that seems confirmed.  Many people participated in that tour, but we have already seen a pearl farm and weren't shopping for any, so we walked around and saw everything ashore in about 10 minutes, and then  went snorkeling.  Haven't snorkeled a bunch, but those on the boat who had been a lot said it was maybe the best they'd ever seen.  It was really beautiful to me: many, many, many colorful fish, many, many, many sharks (I was very brave), needle fish, eels, corals of all colors and types, and so on.  We were starting to experience that incomparable turquoise water of the Polynesian Islands and of course it felt really refreshing.  So in a small way, the other claim about Rangiroa was also confirmed.  Should have had an underwater camera.  We will get one before The Great Barrier Reef!

Our Cruise Director was trying out his drone here

These kayakers race the ship's tenders back and forth for practice

Papeete seemed unchanged to us - busy and hot.  We visited the big colorful fish, produce, flower and souvenir market, ate lunch there, and bought a flower arrangement for our suite, but didn't do much else until our trip around the island. We left the city to visit several viewpoints of the coast, black sand beaches, a pretty garden, and Venus Point which is the spot where Captain Cook and his astronomer observed Venus' transit of the sun during his 1769 voyage.  The island is really beautiful but it takes getting out of Papeete to realize it.  We made a complete circuit of the whole island.

That night the pool deck was transformed into a restaurant for everyone on the ship to enjoy a Polynesian Buffet.  It was a gargantuan task for the crew to stow all the lounges and other furnishings and set up tables for 450, as well as buffet tables for all the food, ice sculptures, band and dance floor. It was decorated with tropical foliage and flowers, and beforehand we had an excellent local troupe performing Tahitian traditional dances and music. We sailed away as we dined under the stars of a clear evening.  It was  masterfully and elegantly executed.  When the last tables were being cleared away, the Maitre D' and the Headwaiter took off their jackets and jumped in the pool in celebration of a successful evening!  They did a magnificent job and it was all for our entertainment - this is some crew we have!

Gaugin Restaurant Ladies Room - why wouldn't you decorate the sink!

Flowers for our room! 

Papeete from top deck of our ship

Marche Municipale 

Best for last...Bora Bora.   Completely gorgeous - outrageously so.  Such a small dot of an island, but surrounded by an atoll containing a lagoon with water that is just indescribable and capped by a castle-like mountain that just takes your breath away.   The water shades from blue to light turquoise and the green mountain rules over all. It's just...wow.  This is as good as it gets anywhere, folks, at least in our experience.  

We took an off-road trip that took us all around the island (20 miles) and up some of the steepest, most rugged tracks we've ever done.  It had rained hard the days before we arrived and the ruts were at least knee-deep mud.  Our goal was the view from high on the mountain down over the bays, motus, atoll...and of course, that water.  This is how you see the beautiful color and how it changes from the coastline, through the lagoon all the way to the atoll.  Sooo beautiful!  There are numerous hotels with lovely over-the-water guest bungalows on both the island and the atoll.  We took various tracks , each affording different perspectives, and at the last one saw a couple of big guns from WWII still guarding the island.  We also had a short break at the Bloody Mary's Bar/Restaurant - complete with view, sand floor, and ... Bloody Marys!  It was a spectacular day!  

We ate lunch ashore and I wandered briefly into a couple of pearl shops but went back to the ship after pricing one strand of huge, perfectly matched, aubergine color for $228,000!  It was spectacular, too!

At the sail-away, everyone was on deck watching and listening to 'sail away' music such as 'Bali Hai' from South Pacific, Louie Armstrong 'It's a Beautiful World', Chris Cross 'Sailing' and so on. It was actually emotional!   The captain kept the ship at the perfect angle and slow speed for at least an hour and a half so we could watch Bora Bora fade into the dusky distance.  I couldn't stop watching it, knowing we would most likely never be back.  We know how lucky we are to have experienced this magical place three times, but this last visit was just as perfect and satisfying as the first.  Not many places are that special!

Ok, American Samoa is quite a step down from Bora Bora!  It is surely a beautiful super-green south Pacific island, but there is really nothing of any note to see there.  We went on separate trips - Al went east and I went west but comparing the pictures, neither one of us missed anything significant.  He saw a minor Ocean Center  a pretty beach, and a Camel Rock formation, I saw a Flower Pot Rock, the Tsunami Memorial, a rocky coastline, and a demonstration of local cooking  using an in-ground oven at a small contrived 'typical' village.  In other words, not much.  Some observations:  They bury their dead relatives in the front or back yard (you got the back yard if they didn't really care for you), and since the homes are handed down through the family, some of them have a lot of dead bodies around!  Many of the houses have an open-air roofed 'guest house' (we might call it a pavillion) where the extended family can get together - not including the dead ones😉.   Also, now we understand why the NFL has so many players from American Samoa.  These are big people!  Anyway, don't go out of your way.

Flower Pot Rock

$2 Beach

Future NFL Player

Just an interesting shot

Camel Rock

Grandma?

This is Tom.  He's 102 - booked on 2018 World Cruise

Hawaii

Because of the storm and our detour around it, we arrived in Honolulu about 6 hours later than scheduled.  The sail-in was a spectacular perspective as we slowly cruised by Oahu from the eastern end, perfect for us since our suite is on the starboard side.  We watched from our balcony as we slowly approached Diamond Head and sailed by Waikiki Beach with all the hotels and high-rise condos.  The diminutive all-pink Royal Hawaiian Hotel was easy to pick out from among the bigger buildings.  It was just beautiful seeing it that way.  Every other time we have flown in. Tour departures had to be adjusted and some canceled, including all the trips to Pearl Harbor (many disappointed guests), but luckily we had been to the Memorial on prior trips and our trip just left in the afternoon instead of in the morning.  .

Diamond Head and Honolulu

Diamond Head

Pink Royal Hawaiian Hotel  

We went east from the harbor right down Kalakaua Avenue, the main drive along Waikiki Beach, passing the Zoo and through the expensive residential neighborhood of Kahala where many celebrities have homes.   We also saw the large compound (home and guest house) where Magnum P.I. was filmed.  First stop was in the Diamond Head crater, which is pretty big but mostly just a bowl-shaped valley with a lot of grasses and trees in it, a small military station, and a trail head for hiking up to the top of Diamond Head - a very nice boardwalk - type trail, definitely USA-style as opposed to Nicaraguan take-your-life-in-your-hands style.

In Diamond Head Crater

Next, we stopped at Hanauma Bay, the best snorkeling spot on the island.  When I worked at Maritz Travel I enjoyed some time there, but not this time.  It's a beautiful photo stop, though.

Hanauma Bay

Further on we looked out at a blowhole, but the ocean was quiet (now it's quiet!)and there wasn't much of a 'blow'.  But at that same spot is the beach where the famous kiss at the edge of the surf in From Here to Eternity was filmed.  It's a pretty small cove between some really big lava boulders and cliffs. There were a few people in the water and on the beach, but it just looked downright dangerous to us. And, if you will remember, we've probably had enough of dangerous for quite a while!

This is a game - find the Blow Hole

Entrance to cove of Here to Eternity beach

Here to Eternity Beach

Al at Here to Eternity Beach 

Along our route we visited the archaelogical site of a former temple which is sacred to the Hawaiians. It consists of thousands and thousands of lava rocks of all sizes piled up, ending in flat altar-type top. It's really huge when viewed from the far side of the small valley in which it is situated.  The grounds around it are perfectly kept with beautiful specimens of Hawaiian trees and flowering shrubs.  It was quite beautiful and really seemed serene. We enjoyed it very much.

Front side of Heiau (Altar)

Back of Heiau

Grounds at Heiau

They treat it as very sacred

Grounds of the Heiau

More grounds

We drove through some very small towns in an agricultural valley, then started climbing up into the Koolau Mountains, all fin-shaped and luscious green, to get to the Pali Lookout for views out to the ocean.  Just what you think of when you think of Hawaii.  Well, it's what we think anyway.

Views from Pali Lookout

Valley views

Mountain Views

Unknown meaning of this, but glad it wasn't windy

Hawaiian Velociraptors

Driving down Pali to Honolulu

We anchored off Lahaina on Maui and went for a drive around the western side of the island.  We had a lot of stops for viewpoints of the coastline, beautiful bays and coves, and a much better blow hole than the one we saw on Oahu.  This one was really blowing out a tall fount of water.  There are signs all around telling people not to get close to it, but there were some really silly people standing right next to it and getting swamped each time.  Our driver said people have died doing that because sometimes it blows out even more water and then sucks anything near it back down into the hole. Our view was from a safe distance - yeah, we're no fun, right?  When we rounded the northwest tip of the island, the road narrowed, becoming one lane in places, and began to do tight curves and zigzags.  We climbed and dipped down and saw gorgeous water on one side and mountains on the other.  Not much population out here, but every now and then a small house or a big house.  We had a picnic lunch at a really big house which was also a gallery of Hawaiian crafts - nice stuff but not for us.  We eventually descended and straightened and flattened out in the isthmus which connects the Haleakala Volcano side(eastern) with the western mountains where we had been.  There used to be sugar cane fields here to the far edges of the isthmus, but the last sugar cane factory has closed permanently about a month ago, so there is no more sugar production in the state of Hawaii anymore.  There is some wild cane growing up in the fields but nothing is done with it.  Pineapple is the same - only a few patches here and there, but nothing is grown for exportation anymore.  Last time we were here we still saw both cane and pineapple all over, but not anymore. Kind of sad.

We stopped for a break at the Maui Tropical Plantation which has a few fields showing typical crops growing (fruit trees and probably a few stands of cane and pineapple plants).  There were several attractive shops with some nicer quality goods and some really good coffee (the ship's coffee is terrible, as usual).  The grounds here are beautifully landscaped so we enjoyed this stop before continuing back to Lahaina.  We walked up and down Front Street in Lahaina before tendering back to the ship.

Molokai in the background

Coastline

Bay in the coastline

Now that's a blowhole

Silly people at the blowhole

Another Bay

Lunch at this house

Our visit to Kauai had to be canceled because the seas were too rough for the ship to risk entering the narrow mouth of the port, evidently tricky even in calm seas.  So we missed our helicopter trip there. We were disappointed and felt bad for some guests who have never been.  We think it is the most beautiful of the Hawaiian islands and were looking forward to the visit.  Missing Kauai meant another day at sea to get to the Big Island, and everybody was disappointed about that!

Volcanoes National Park was the pay off on Hawaii. The 11-mile Crater Rim Drive is partly closed because lava has flowed across it in places and they haven't cleared it off yet.  Might not happen for a while since Kilauea is still erupting.  But we walked through a lava tube, visited the crater of a recent explosive event, walked through a lava field (it was flat, thank goodness), and ended at the Jaggar Museum situated near the rim of the Kilauea Caldera.  From there we could see the smaller but extremely active crater which is steaming and actively spurting lava up.  That was really an amazing sight!

We took advantage of a stop at the Mauna Loa Macadamia Nut Factory to pick up several bags of nuts with various coatings, (like we don't have enough to eat on the ship!), and they are so fresh and delicious.  We were able to watch them process the nuts through the automated production line. There were thousands of acres planted with hundreds of macadamia nut trees all along the road to the factory.  At least that's one crop that is surviving in Hawaii!

Lava Tube

Wonder how many they had before this sign went up - a lot I bet!

Lava spurting up

Kilauea Crater within its larger Caldera

Gardens near the ship

Macadamia Nut

So we sailed away pretty much on time but the Captain said he could not take the ship past the lava hose currently pouring into the sea from Kilauea - too far west of our route.  Disappointed!  You all should go online and see it  -  looks spectacular.

Anyway, we are at sea now.  We crossed the equator yesterday (our 8th time on a ship) and there were the usual festivities with King Neptune (His Royal Wetness) and his queen, some mermaids and a judge to prosecute the 'polliwogs' who have never made the crossing.  It was packed on the pool deck as everyone watched them take their punishment for having disturbed His Royal Wetness in his deep ocean kingdom. The polliwogs were insulted and slimed and dunked in the pool, and were then forgiven and declared 'shellbacks'.  The only thing missing was kissing the fish!  We were disappointed they weren't required to do that, as that has been part of all the other crossing parties we've seen!  It was all fun though.

Prosecuting Judge

His Royal Wetness and his Queen

Polliwog (!)

Motley Crew

Last night we were invited by some new acquaintances to a dinner party in their Master suite.   It's quite large, with an entrance foyer, dining room, living room, 2 bathrooms and large bedroom.  Their butler served the dinner and several others were also called up to assist, and our butler was one of them.  It was Indian food and very tasty.  It was a very nice experience  - loved seeing the biggest guest room on the ship!