Day 107--In port, Honolulu HI

9 December. In port, Honolulu.

We’re now in the middle of our 6th full day in paradise, “stuck,” you might say, waiting for the giant swells in the North Pacific to settle down before we depart on the last leg of our nearly-4-month voyage. We arrived on time Friday morning, 4 December, just beating the storm, if that’s what it was. And the local newspapers were forecasting the biggest waves in years on the North Shore of Oahu, reputedly one of the best surfing beaches in the world. High surf (forecast in excess of 50-foot walls) are great news for the surfer dudes and dudettes; they’re bad news for a 500-foot ship loaded with desks, chairs, books, students, and irritable faculty. So Captain Jeremy Kingston is keeping us in Honolulu until the swells unswell a little. Latest word is that we'll sail this afternoon.

It’s about 2,500 statute miles from Honolulu to San Diego, and, at top speed, the MV Explorer can do about 30 knots, which is a little under 40 mph. So we could leave here as late as Friday morning and still pull into San Diego on time at 0800 Monday the 14th. But I’m afraid we’ll be on the open water before then. Parking in Honolulu is very expensive. We may be in for a rough few days as we finish up this great adventure.

We arrived in Honolulu while the sun was just starting to rise, pulling into dock 10 at the base of the Aloha Tower at 6am Friday. US Immigration insisted on face-to-face clearance of each passenger, so we all paraded through the faculty lounge to be welcomed back to the US individually. The ship cleared by 9am, and at 9:30, I was leaving with Jim and Shamim to pick up our rental car.

Stepping back onto US soil was exhilarating! Hawaii certainly has its own culture, distinct from almost anywhere else in the country and certainly different than Chicago’s. But I felt like I was home. I could read the signs, I could understand the security guards—and they could understand me—I knew how to use my cash , I knew how to ask for directions, I knew which side of the sidewalk was mine. It’s not the big things that I’ve missed over the past 4 months; it’s all these wonderful little things.

Although the storm was moving in—clouds were building over the Pali cliffs faster than typical—Bob, Jim, and I headed to Luana Hills Country Club on the windward side about 11:30, plenty early to arrive and hit a few balls before our 12:30pm tee time. We hadn’t counted on confusing directions and 3 navigators, however, so, after a 90-minute unscheduled tour back and forth between Diamond Head and Kaneohe, we arrived at Luana Hills—right at the base of the Pali, a place we passed 20 minutes after leaving the ship—at 12:15pm. Fortunately, with weather threatening, the course wasn’t crowded, so we were able to warm up and even get a bite to eat before heading to the first tee.

Luana Hills is a spectacularly beautiful course carved into the base of the Pali cliffs. It’s very hilly, very lush—rain-foresty, in fact—very narrow, and very unforgiving. In addition, because the island had received considerable rain over the previous few days, the course was “cart paths only,” meaning we couldn’t leave the paved paths that lined each fairway. As a result, the round took almost 5 hours to complete despite the fact we were the only ones playing. Worse, the walking up and down slippery hills and ravines wreaked havoc with my right knee—the original equipment. The upshot was that I decided not to play again on Saturday and give the knee a chance to rest before we tackled Mauna Kea on Sunday.

Friday nite, I dropped Jim and Bob off at the ship, and I drove to the Hale Koa Hotel, where I had reserved a room for the night. The Hale Koa sits on Fort DeRussy, located between the Hilton Hawaiian Village and the Outrigger Hotels, and beachfront on Waikiki. It opened in the early ‘70s exclusively for military active and retired members and families, one of the great benefits of those 20 years I spent in the Air Force. While it may not rival a Four Seasons or Ritz, the Hale Koa is a 4-star hotel by any standards. Plus, it houses services one can typically find only on a military base—a base exchange, for instance. And the mai-tais are excellent.

That night I took a short walk down the beach before sitting at a bar for a couple drinks and dinner. I was in my room for the night by 10pm, lying in bed watching the news, and was asleep by 10:30.

Saturday, after taking the car to the golfers, I had breakfast at the Hale Koa then stayed in the room ‘til noon checkout catching up on e-mail and enjoying the fast internet connection. As I said, it’s the little things. At noon, I took a bus back to the ship, dropped off my suitcase, then went to the next-door mall and sat at the bar of the Cantina Bikini, where I watched most of the Florida-Alabama game (#1 vs. #2), and had a couple of Boddingtons. Al Hunt joined me, and we had a great time talking to others, commenting on the game and the fortunes of our teams (his is Texas, so he had far more to talk about), and just enjoying a fall football Saturday, my first and last of the season. If I do this again, it’ll be in the spring. There’s just too much going on in the fall that I enjoy.

When the boys got back from golf, I took the car back to the rental agency after a stop by the Ala Moana mall to pick up some golf balls. Back on the ship by 1800 (6pm), and we sailed for Hilo at 1930.

Hilo is on the northeast side of Hawaii, the Big Island. The Big Island, one of my favorite spots, is a remarkable place. It’s the youngest of the islands, formed by 5 volcanoes, 3 of which—Hualalai, Mauna Loa, and Kilauea—are still active. Kilauea is the one that gets the most press because it’s constantly in eruption, sometimes violently. The resulting lava flows from the volcanoes has formed the island into a series of gently sloping cones rising from sea level all the way up to over 14,000’ at the summit of Mauna Kea. Because of these mountains an valleys, the Big Island is a patchwork of mini climates: tropical on the sunny (south and western) sides at sea level; rainy and jungle on the windward (north and eastern) sides; dry and arid in the saddle between Hulalai and Mauna Kea, where the Parker cattle ranch spreads over thousands of acres; temperate at the intermediate levels between the ocean and 4,000 to 5,000 feet; cold at the summit of the mountains. Besides the US’s highest observatory, the summit of Mauna Kea also has a small ski area.

We arrived at Hilo at 0800 Sunday, and the ship cleared the local authorities by 0830. Jim, Shamim, and I taxied to the Hilo airport to pick up rental cars—Shamim wanted her own so she could explore the Kona side of the island without having to worry about chauffering the golfers around—and we headed to the western, sunny shore. At least, it’s usually sunny. Sunday was an unusually cloudy, drizzly day all over the island. In fact, Mauna Kea resort had had so much rain over the previous 24 hours that the course was closed to carts when we arrived at 1100 for our 1300 (1pm) tee time. The starter told us, though, that if the rains held off, he’d reopen the course by 1. So Jim and I adjourned to the dining room, where I had an excellent mahi mahi sandwich on a ciabatta complemented by a $7 glass if iced tea.

The rains held off, the sun came out for a few minutes, and the course was open for our 1pm tee time. The next 4 ½ hours were alternately wonderful and woeful. The Mauna Kea course is reputedly the best in Hawaii. It sits along the lava-formed coast, with spectacular views, splashing surf, and the obligatory par-3 with a shot over a blue-water cove. The front nine was fun, and my game wasn’t too bad. But as we made the turn, the rains started again—mostly mist but occasional real drops—and by 12, we were soaked and, worse, the course was slippery and slow. Again, maneuvering up and down hills, trying to find my footing, was hell on my knee, and by 16, I wasn’t having fun anymore. My golf was terrible, not a good memory to take away from what, on another day, would surely rank as one of the most beautiful, challenging courses I’ve seen or played. Some day I’ll go back and try again.

Sunday night, the 3 of us stayed at the sister property next to the Mauna Kea: the Hapuna Beach Prince resort. We had the place almost entirely to ourselves (memo to self: the weeks before Xmas are nice and quiet in Hawaii), which helps explain the excellent room rate we got. And the hotel is simply beautiful: several layers of open-air rooms, restaurants, lounges, pools, and lanais stairstepping down to an excellent, very large beach. After a post-golf shower, I went immediately to the open-air lounge overlooking the pool and ocean, ordered a couple of G&Ts, and watched the sun set as I waited for Jim and Shamim to join me for dinner. Life at the high end!

The next morning, Monday, Jim and I left the Hapuna Beach at 0800 and drove to Big Island Country Club, where we met Bob, who had stayed on the ship Sunday performing dean duty. Big Island CC is up the slope of Hualalai about 3,000 feet, so it’s a little cooler and, usually, much windier. But Monday was perfect, a big contrast to the rains at Mauna Kea. The Bug Island CC course was, as Jim said, “rougher” than Mauna Kea’s, partly because the recent rains had prevented them from mowing, rolling, and raking, partly because they don’t have the big-buck backing from Japan that the Mauna Kea has. Still, the course is a nice layout with excellent views along the entire coast, challenging holes, and fair. Again, my golf wasn’t especially good, and my knee was hurting. But the day was fun and the weather couldn’t have been better—an excellent final day of golf for the ’09 season.

We finished the 18 holes by 1:30—again, the course was very uncrowded—and headed back to Hilo, stopping first at a little restaurant in Waimea called “Pau,” where I had a fish sandwich for $6.50 that was better than even the excellent fish sandwich I had paid $18 for at the Mauna Kea on Sunday. When the fish is only a day or two from having been frolicking in the sea, it’s usually pretty good, and this was.

We were back onboard the MV Explorer by 1700 Monday. At 2000 (8pm), the deans called an all-ship meeting to announce that we’d be returning to Honolulu to wait out the big waves. A large cruise ship—the “Pride of America” (owned by Norwegian Caribbean Lines, registered in the Bahamas, sailing with mostly Japanese passengers)—was hold up in Honolulu trying to avoid the swells, and, with passage between Hawaii and Oahu fairly calm, the two ships would trade places. The students went nuts at the news we’d be heading back to Honolulu, especially when they heard they’d be able to get off the ship and not have to return before 9pm Tuesday. The faculty was less than pleased with final exams starting on Wednesday. But, as Bob pointed out, students aren’t locked into their rooms before finals on most other campuses, so they shouldn’t be here. Those who would study anyway, still would; those who wouldn’t, wouldn’t.

So yesterday was a free day in Honolulu. I spent the morning at a nearby Starbucks, drinking coffee, doing online stuff, and watching Honolulu walk by. In the afternoon, I took a bus to Waikiki, where I walked down the beach to the Royal Hawaiian, sat in their Mai Tai Bar enjoying a couple of G&Ts (you have to be in the right mood for a mai tai—a sweet mood), then walked back to the Hale Koa, stopping first along the Fort DeRussey walk to watch the sun set. After dinner at the Hale Koa and 30 minutes of the holiday concert performed by the US Navy Pacific Fleet Band, I taxied back to the ship.

Today was the first day of finals. I listened to one last final speech in my 0800 public speaking course. Since then, I’ve been doing some final grading and, of course, working on this blog. And now, finally, I’m caught up!

Hawaii has been a wonderful transition back to the real world . . . in, I suppose, a very unreal way. It’s felt a little like a hill—not a wall; that would be far too abrupt—separating what will surely feel like the fantasy of the last 3 ½ months from the reality of the coming (very cold!) months. I’m looking forward to getting home and letting this experience soak while sitting on my own couch.

But there’s more to come: 4 days on what I’m guessing will be very rough seas.