I sit at my desk on day 2 of our call, having spent an ‘overnight’ here, we sail at 4 p.m. this afternoon for Majuro on the Marshall Islands.  We arrived early in the morning and berthed under the ‘Aloha’ Tower.  

We are not in the harbour where events of December 7th 1941 took place, rather we are further east.  The memorials and museums are 9.5 miles, or 15 kilometres away; of course many of the guests are taking tours there and for many it is more of a pilgrimage.  For example, we have a gentleman on board, who has travelled with his wife for years with us.  As a young man, he was a ‘Flyboy’, U.S. Marine Corps and flew off carriers.  The Battle of Midway was his first combat flight, he lost half of his classmates that day; he flew throughout the war with the Marines, surviving is a miracle.

I left my last post with the anticipation of a ‘whale watch’ tour.  Perhaps my notion of the behaviour of the Humpbacks here in Hawaii originated from those TV shows, where one sees Humpbacks, lying on their backs, lazily taking in the scenery in the calm seas, wearing sunglasses. 😯   I was to be disappointed,; not so calm and the only whales we saw were at a distance, in my opinion, Alaska is much better.  Of course, after having concluded the tour, all and sundry would tell me that “oh, you should see Maui” or “it’s the wrong time of the year”; lesson learned……..Nevertheless, being off the ship for a few hours was very pleasant.

🙂

The ladies are off ashore, while I write this and pore over numerous emails.  We have just over 4 days at sea and cross the International Date Line, we are sailing into tomorrow, although many of my readers are there already!  😎