Aloha ‘Oe - Until We Meet Again

The word Aloha has many meanings in Hawaiian including Hello, Goodbye, Love and Until we meet again. It therefore seemed perfect for the title of the final blog post this holiday.

Today was the last day at sea and the chance after all the ukulele lessons to perform in front of all the passengers (those who turned up at the theatre actually). Together with other voyagers who had been taking hula lessons an Hawaiian show was put together for everyone to enjoy.

After much persuasion from Tiki Dave, our teacher, the crowd went crazy and there were several standing ovations for both dancers and players. Sylvia said it looked and sounded very good.

Throughout the cruise on the sea days we have been taking part in the daily morning trivia. In addition to having daily prizes the scores have been accumulating to give an overall winning team for the cruise. Today was the prize giving and presentation with our team, “The Village People” taking first place. Sylvia and I had teamed up with two fellow cruisers Woody and Donna from Indianapolis and we seemed to have hit a winning formula. Now generally the prizes for the quizzes are pretty poor: a pen, a magnetic clip or lanyard being the norm, but on this occassion they did a lot better. We recieved a bag full of prizes per couple and a….CERTIFICATE!! Here we are with the trivia master - Chad.

Another enjoyable holiday has come to an end with lots of good memories. We look forward to travelling with you again next year from Australia to Singapore.

Back at sea - Homeward Bound.

After the wash out that was Maui, the first day back at sea brought forth the sun and with the ship sailing in a North Eastern direction our balcony this morning was bathed in sunshine.

As always there is plenty to do on the ship on sea days, with the ukelele classes restarting today after a four day lay-off. I spent the morning sorting and saving all the photos that we have taken on this holiday and believe me there are many. It was interesting to see how many different plants that we had pictured on the islands and wondered how many of these you recognise.

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I’m not sure that we know the names of all of them but thought that they looked good.

Maui - The (Very Wet) Valley Island.

Throughout the cruise seasoned travellers have said that Maui is the most beautiful of the Hawaiian Islands, so we were really looking forward to this visit. Unfortunately the weather had other ideas as we were greeted by rain on our balcony when we first looked out.

Due to the ship’s size Lahaina, the main port of Maui, is a tendered stop and with the weather being as it was, we decided to delay our departure from the ship. We watched as the tender boats were launched and could see the clouds, full of rain, tumbling down the valleys.

After a leisurely breakfast we had our customary game of table tennis before attending morning trivia. Surprisingly this was very well attended as many others must have the same idea as us regarding leaving the ship. We managed to win despite the competition and now have two magnetic clips for the grandchildren to fight over.

It was now around 11am and the rain had subsided somewhat so we decided to take the plunge and go ashore. After a bumpy 10 minute crossing we were in the heart of the town and underneath the famous Banyan Tree. The tree was originally planted by a missionary in 1873 and has flourised ever since. Now it measures almost a quarter of a mile in circumference with a height of some 60 feet and covers almost two-thirds of an acre. It therefore attracts a fair number of tourists.

The town of Lahaina was the capital of the islands up until 1845 and subsequently became the centre of the Pacific whaling industry. It had quite a rowdy reputation with many bars and houses of ill repute and the missionaries who built the town found it very hard to keep control. It was therefore necessary to build a prison and this was completed in the 1850s by convicts using lava bricks from the old fort. The prison, known as Hale Pa’ahao (Stuck in Irons House) is now a small museum and botanical garden.

I could think of many worse places to be put behind bars but it didn’t seem to suit this Boris Johnson lookalike who seems to have lost a fair bit of weight.

There is an historical walk around the town that takes in many of the old houses which have been restored. We started making our way around the route first taking in the Baldwin House, a missionary’s home that was built in 1834.

The rain had now returned with a vengeance so we decided to cut our visit short and return to the ship. It seemed that our idea had been shared by half the ship as a large queue had gathered to board the tenders. We waited in the line for some 20 minutes and by the time we got back to our cabin, despite wearing anoraks, we were soaking wet.

As the ship prepared to leave the port this evening the sun burst through the clouds and the rains stopped. At least we got the benefit of a beautiful sunset.

Overall a disappointing day in Maui but you can’t control the weather, we’ll have to come back to see it when it’s fine.