San Diego - June 16th

 We went to play tennis at the Balboa Park Tennis Club, near the Zoo. This was appropriate as the club advertises that it welcomes “guests from around the world.” We think we qualify.

This is also the site of the San Diego Tennis Hall of Fame. It has one particularly illustrious member

During WWII the battleship Missouri was called the “Mighty Mo.” So when a local public parks baseliner began hitting people off the court with incredible firepower off both sides, she was of course nicknamed “Little Mo.” Maureen Connelly won the US Open at 16, the Grand Slam at 19, and retired at age 20 after a horseback riding accident.

We returned to the harbor, where there is always great stuff to see. A military ship on sail-out with all hands on deck in dress whites

The same ship being turned around by a tug to exit the harbor

A modern square rigger coming in under engine power

Another tall ship docked in front of a submarine

We had lunch on the pier at Anthony’s Fish Grotto. I ate at this restaurant 44 years ago in 1972 at the old La Jolla cliff-side location, while visiting San Diego with Jack, Claire and my parents after we had moved to Phoenix

The beer of choice was Modelo Especial, enjoyed at a waterside table with the Insignia docked behind us

Next up: diving in Cabo San Lucas after a day at sea

Los Angeles - June 15th

The Palos Verdes peninsula is near the San Pedro cruise terminal. It is where Jack Kramer established the Jack Kramer Tennis Club; where Tracy Austin grew up in Rolling Hills; where Lindsey Davenport grew up in Palos Verdes; and where Pete Sampras honed his game as an adolescent, also in Palos Verdes. We hit at the Ernie Howlett Park public courts in Rolling Hills.

After tennis, we got badly needed haircuts before visiting the US Iowa, the most advanced US battleship ever built. Along with her sister ships the Missouri, Wisconsin and New Jersey, she was obsolete as a surface combatant the day she was launched in 1942. Nevertheless, she excelled in roles such as VIP transport, taking FDR to summits with Churchill and Stalin; and shelling shore installations during WWII, Korea and Vietnam.

The Iowa’s 16 inch guns fired 16 inch, 2500 pound projectiles up to 25 miles; not only with great accuracy, but also with the ability to penetrate a 30 inch thick concrete bunker.

Would you believe we saw a demonstration firing? No? Well, would you believe our pictures were taken in front of a green screen and superimposed over the Iowa in action? This is  Hollywood.

Here the Iowa’s aft guns are trained on the Interstate 110 overpass at point blank range. Do not even think about tailgating.

The Iowa is quite impressive; easily three or four time larger than the Oceania Insignia. Although smaller than the new mega-cruise ships like Oasis of the Seas.

Tomorrow: San Diego and more tennis.

Kauai – June 9th

Kauai was our last stop in Hawaii; and we went zip-lining over trees and waterfalls. Mount Waialeale loomed in the background with its upper reaches shrouded by clouds:

Joani has been zip-lining several times now, most recently in the Philippines, and she has become quite comfortable with take-offs and Landings:

After finishing, we saw a Brazilian cardinal; non-native but with quite distinctive coloring:

It was a short, fun and easy day. We left port at 4:00 PM and now have five days at sea before docking in LA, where Joani and I plan a self-guided tour of the tennis clubs of the Palos Verdes Peninsula.

Maui - June 8th

We’re off! Chasing waterfalls and secluded beaches on the road to Hana. Our guide, Kanoelani, must be a Robert Frost fan – we’re rounding the south end of the island to get Hana while everyone else takes the “30 bridges to Hana” northern route.

 The Road not Taken

Sometimes you have to get your feet wet crossing streams to see great waterfalls. Sometimes you have to hug cliff-side paths to reach hidden beaches. Kanoelani grew up here; she knows the stream crossings and cliff sides; we follow her:

The Stream-Crossing Path

The Rainforest Path

 The Bamboo Forest Path

The Cliff-Side Path

The Venus Pools in Hana were spectacular:

Above is Joani, standing on a rock ledge above the pools. Will she jump? Of course not.

Bob and Kanoelani are standing on the ledge. She is 22. Will they jump? Of course they will:

Another hike led us to the secluded Bamboo Forest Waterfalls:

Red Sand Beach was tucked under a cliff side:

Alelele Falls:

And more waterfalls:

And this stone arch near the Waianapanapa Caves:

Some say don't go chasing waterfalls, but after the road to Hana in Maui, we would have to disagree.

Mahalo Kanoelani!

Tomorrow: zip-lining in Kauai.

Honolulu - June 7th

We docked just off Waikiki Beach and went out with our friends Drew and Tanya:

First stop was Diamond Head State Park.

We took the walking trail up to the 750 foot Diamond Head summit:

Where we could see Waikiki in the background down below

And the panoramic view was pretty cool.

 Next stop was Nuuanu Pali Lookout, site of the final battle of King Kamehameha's victory in Oahu, completing his conquest of all the Hawaiian Islands

We enjoyed another spectacular panarama...

... despite the very strong winds

After another poke seafood lunch (I could get used to this), we headed for Pearl Harbor to see the WWII museums and memorials.

 This is one of the Arizona's anchors, recovered from the bottom of Pearl Harbor about 200 feet from where the ship went down.

The Arizona Memorial itself is across Pearl Harbor just off Ford Island.

We really enjoyed the Pearl Harbor self-paced audio tour, which took about an hour.

Then it was back to Waikiki to see the statue of the legendary Duke Kahanamoku, possibly the greatest swimmer of all time. In 1911, Duke broke the world record for the 100 yard freestyle by 2.5 seconds in an outdoor ocean pool. The AAU wouldn’t recognize the record, saying the local timers had obviously screwed up. Duke then swam even faster to win the gold in the 100 free in the 1912 Olympics. He revolutionized the sport by employing mechanics borrowed from paddling a surfboard.

In addition to the above, Duke also excelled at beach volleyball; appeared in 32 Hollywood movies; was elected sheriff of Honolulu 13 times; and is the only person ever inducted into both the swimming and surfing halls of fame. Other than that he didn’t do much. When Hawaii becam a state, he was officially appointed "Ambassador of Aloha."

Given all that, there was no other option except to go to  Duke’s restaurant at the Outrigger Hotel on Waikiki for drinks and dinner. The drink of choice at Duke's is the "Lava Flow," pictured above.

 

And it was in fact quite an enjoyable place to have dinner.

Tomorrow: on to Maui and adventure rainforest - waterfall hiking with our guide Kanoelani. I am picturing that she looks like Laura Croft. It's Hawaii. Why not?

The Island of Hawaii – June 6th

We docked in Hilo, a pleasant city of 60,000. The Big Island is the tallest mountain in the world, rising 32,000 feet from the sea bottom to its twin peaks of Mona Loa and Mona Kea. The caldera is still active and we started the day at Volcano National Park.

Here is Joani at the Kiliawea Volcano, with one of its craters steaming in the background. If it was nighttime, we could see the orange glow of the molten lava in the cracks, but during the day only steam.

We hiked down to the floor of what as late as 1959 was a lava lake of Kiliawea. This one is no longer active so you can walk across it:

You could see where the lava on the lake surfce had cooled into thin flat stone; and then cracked like an old macadam road that heaved after countless spring thaws.

We went inside an old lava tube, a passage in the bedrock through which lava flowed:

Hilo gets over 100 inches of rain a year, creating some spectacular waterfalls as all that water runs off the mountain sides. Our guide took us to see about ten:

Rainbow Falls, below, was pretty cool:

But far and away the best was Akaka Falls, dropping over 400 feet and swollen with water from rain earlier in the day:

Lunch was a treat, a seafood take-out place just off a fishing pier, & featuring ten kinds of poke:

Tomorrow: Honolulu, the Arizona Memorial, a Diamond Head summit hike, and Waikiki.

Nuku Hiva, the Marquesas - June 1st

Nuku Hiva, the largest island in the Marquesas, is green, rustic, undeveloped, and totally unlike the turqoise water and white sand tropical tourist paradises of Bora Bora, Tahiti, Huahine and Rangiroa. This is really off the beaten path.

Here's the ship docked in the harbor, along with a bunch of fishing boats, as seen from the volcanic highlands in the center of the island.

And above is the view from the other side of the ridgeline. From here we drove down into the TaipivaiValley, called by early explorers the Typee Valley and the setting of the Herman Melville novel of the same name.

In the valley, we visited a re-creation of a pre-European Polynesian village, including stone carvings of the gods, dwellings, and ceremonial meeting rooms. The carvings are re-creations because the Christian missionaries destroyed the originals as symbols of “pagan devil worship." They banned the Polynesian practice of tattoos for the same reason. In fact the Polynesians were an oral society and tattoos were how they recorded their personal, family and clan history and traditions. Easy to carry around and never got lost or destroyed. 

Above Joani is in the main ceremonial building playing a Polynesian drum. Luckily there are no Christian missionaries around to castigate her for playing pagan music.

This looks like grapefruit but in fact is ten times sweeter and better and is actually breadfruit, one of the main staples of the local diet.

Despite their best efforts, the Christian missionaries did not succeed in destroying the Polynesian cultural heritage. They did succeed in converting the island to Christianity; it is 80% Catholic today. We visited the main church of the diocese, the beautiful Saint Mary of the Marquesas.

I think a carved wooden pulpit like this one would be perfect for our Associate Pastor Jason Micheli to give a sermon.

In a park near the pier there was another stone idol that Joani liked. She bought a much smaller version to bring home for the condo. Jason is a good guy who greatly appreciates the Mayan cultural heritage and so he will be OK with this.

And then it was time to re-board the ship, anchored out in the harbor. Four sea days until the Big Island of Hawaii. We dock at Hilo and will hike Volcanos National Park,