The beach of Kauai!
Six full days at sea. I had been worried that we would get bored. But the opposite is true. There is so much to do that we barely have time to just veg out with a book…
I am blown away by how much water there is in the Pacific! Of course, I knew that. But still - nothing but waves. In six days we spot one container ship. No other marine traffic whatsoever. No wildlife. No birds. Not even airplanes… Just us on the wide open ocean. And the surprising thing is, it doesn’t get boring.
The boys play table tennis and mini golf every day. They even get to assist a magician in one of the evening shows. We see some great movies in the movie theatre. We swim… Life is good.
And then we arrive on our first Hawaiian Island.
It’s nicknamed the Garden Island and the first thing we noticed is how green the island of Kaua’i is. The town of Nawiliwili is perched on the green slope where island meets water.
The cruise ship arrived at a pier that - as expected - docks in a pretty unattractive area, full of propane tanks and industrial docks. It’s one of the few - maybe the only - time where we are docked near another cruise ship, one from Princess Cruise lines that towers above us. And we realize how small our ship is. Perfect.
We call an Uber on our handy little app and in no time at all, we’re in a taxi driving to the car rental place. My pre-cruise research is paying off and we pick up our perfect rental car for the day. With my e-sim card installed we can use Google Maps on my phone and soon we’re driving along gorgeous beaches where white capped waves crash on the sand.
As we drive around the east coast and north in our rental car, we see towering jagged cliffs covered in dense jungle and can easily imagine a dinosaur staggering around the lush green valleys. No wonder then that Jurassic Park was filmed on this island. The trees are amazing…
Another fun surprise is the fact that we soon reach a beautiful bay, a land called Hanelei… Sounds familiar? I’ve been singing ‘Puff the Magic Dragon’ all day and never knew that Hanelei actually was a real place.
Anini Beach turns out to be the perfect snorkeling beach and the boys spend ages floating over coral, spotting fishes in all shapes and colours, sea cucumbers, eels and more.
Next we pick up lunch items and drinks in a supermarket so we can have a picnic on the next beach - which turns out to have great waves for jumping and body surfing.
By the time we stop at our last beach for the day, we’re done with swimming and sand. But Nico climbs a gigantic tree that has tons of large seed pods under it: sea almonds!
We also spot an elderly Hawaiian man, under a sign nailed to a tree: ’Coconuts’. So we stop and he whacks the top off a coconut, hands two straws to the boys who slurp the cool juice straight from the coconut. Then he takes a fresh green coconut, whacks a bit of the skin and cuts two spoons. The boys use these to scoop the soft white coconut meat out of the shell. A perfect, local, organic snack and drink!
At the end of our day on Kaua’i we all agree: we could live here!
After another day and night of sailing, we arrive on the Big Island of Hawaii. It is called… Hawaii, same as the entire state. Rolling green hills greet us as we pull into port in Kona - the coffee capital on the west coast of the island. The green hills are covered in coffee bushes. I’m sure you’ve had Kona coffee at some point. It can only call itself that if most of its beans were grown in Kona.
Kona
The island is famous for its volcanoes. In fact, the entire island was created by volcanoes which erupted on the sea bottom, spitting out lava which grew and grew, eventually producing an island above the water. The Big Island continues to bubble, steam and grow. Volcanoes National Park offers a place to observe volcanic activity. We decided not to go there because it’s being reconstructed after recent eruptions so roads and visitor centre are currently closed. Mouna Loa is a huge shield volcano which we can see from Kona. It is one of the largest volcanoes on earth.
We enjoy strolling along the water front, along quaint colonial looking buildings, many of which are coffee shops. Frangipani and hibiscus line the streets. We walk to a sand beach where the boys can use their newly acquired boogie boards in the waves.
We find some geo caches and enjoy lunch on a patio. We had hoped to visit the spot on this island where Captain Cook’s life came to an end. But the memorial on the spot where he drowned, is only accessible by boat. After distinguishing himself as a considerate human being in a ruthless age of colonization, and charting much of the world’s oceans, Hawaiians were not impressed with the fact that Cook kept some of their women hostage in exchange for their taking of the ship’s precious tools. They came after the Captain and clubbed him. History is not quite agreed on whether his was clubbed to death or ran into the sea and drowned. Like most seafarers of his era, Cook could not swim.
Later, we visited Hilo on Hawaii’s east coast. It was hot and humid as we walked shady streets lined with huge banyan trees. These special towering trees were planted by celebrities in the 1930’s including Babe Ruth and Amelia Earhart. In a small Japanese garden on the waterfront. We spotted Nene geese, a type of goose that only lives in Hawaii. We walked out to Coconut Island, attached by a bridge, and found some geo caches here, one of which alerted us to a huge pole with metal bands. These indicated levels the sea had reached during tsunamis: 8’, 12’, 15’ even over 20’! The street lamps of Hilo have been especially designed by NASA because there is a space training camp on the volcanic slopes above town. To block light, street lamps have special caps that allow the light to shine down but not up, keeping the night sky as dark as possible.
Note the bands on the tree, indicating the different tsunami levels!
Another interesting thing we learned is that there is snow in Hawaii. I never knew that but Hawaii has some of the tallest mountains on earth, measured from the ocean floor. And some of these volcanoes, like Mt. Aikaha, get covered in snow in winter!
Oahu is the island of the state’s capital, Honolulu. We stayed here earlier (link) and pretty much explored the same places, this time with two boys. On our first day we took an Uber to Pearl Harbour. The visitor centre here shows an amazing movie with original footage taken during the Japanese attacks on the harbour which signalled the USA’s entry into WWII.
On our second full day in Honolulu we hiked up to the rim of Diamond Head, the iconic volcano just south of Waikiki. If you ever visit these sites, it’s good to know that tickets are free (or 5.- for Diamond Head) but you need to book a time slot for your visit well ahead of time. I booked more than a month before our visit and without this we would not have been able to visit.
The boys grew a lot, but Kees did not shrink that much!
Another interesting place to visit here is the Kamehameha Royal Palace, the only royal palace in the USA. It had electricity and flush toilets well before the White House did… The boys’ schooling on this two months voyage includes attending lectures on the ship by great speakers, one of whom is professor of Hawaiian history. We learned much about how the Kingdom of Hawaii came to an end and the islands became a US state - all driven by greed to turn sugar cane and pineapples into an American fortune.
That night, a local dance group came on board and performed Hula dances, shared songs and played traditional instruments (drums and ukeles). Dinner included roasted suckling pig, grilled pineapple, fresh papayas, local fish including marlin, rambutans and traditional desserts like haupia.
Finally, we visited Maui, another steep, very green island. This island had made global headlines when the town of Lahaina burned down about a year ago. The Holland America Line ships used to stop there but have now shifted to Kahului while Lahaina is being rebuild. We walked to a small shopping centre, enjoyed wifi and milkshakes but didn’t do much else here. This was our last stop in the North Pacific.
Back on the ship, we were given a traditional lei - a flower garland made by hand for each specific occasion. Leis use flowers and greenery with special meanings and are made for that one occasion only. Later, the greenery is often returned to the place were it was picked. We love learning these local tidbits and can’t wait for our journey to continue…
On to the South Pacific!
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On Kaua’i we rented our car from: Kaua’i Car Rentals
