20/9 Hilo Hawaii

Wednesday 20^th Hilo Hawaii

And C’s father’s birthday. Finally a chance to go ashore. J had her second session in the spa while C took the shuttle bus to Walmart and caught up with the internet. We had lunch aboard and went back to have a look at some local tourist shops. J went round Maceys and Sears and we roused Steph with a phone call and had a poor quality skyp session with her and Lissa. Will pick up again same time tomorrow.

We cleaned up afternoon trivia and enjoyed the 3 tenors show, which was very good. Javier took the TV  theme music trivia (which we won) – he was quite gobsmacked with my red Island shirt ($3.50 from Mayday) so I gave it to him. We tried to get him to take his off but he said he wasn’t allowed to, which disappointed the girls (and possibly Alan who hasn’t declared his preferences but seems to be gay?). I hit the gym for an hour on the machines while the singers and dancers had a full rehearsal of their new show in the central area.

We had our first real look at the island as we sailed away and later made a point of staying up to watch the sailpast at Kilauea volcano, which is the world’s most active volcano and has been erupting continuously since 1982! In the dark there was a big horizontal area glowing bright orange – very much like the aftermath of a big bushfire with glowing embers. It was hard to say how large the area was or to see whether it ran into the sea. They ran a few laps in both directions for the benefit of those people watching from their balconies, while on deck there was live Hawaiian music, ice sculpture from a 300 lb block and midnight buffet banquets