Now it can be told!

Yesterday evening we returned from a Hawaiian Cruise celebrating our 25^th anniversary.

No, I don't know how she does it.

My parents joined us; other family members were either not able to change plans, or, in the case of many of Mrs. Drang's family, have bad memories of previous cruises, which typically involved 14 hour days of chipping paint and "hot-bunking" with some guy from Alabama...

Itinerary:

• Board San Francisco
• Four days at sea
• Hawai'i, AKA "The Big Island"/Hilo
• Oahu/Honolulu
• Maui/Lahaina
• Kauai/Nawiliwili
• Four days at sea
• Ensenada*
• One day at sea
• Disembark San Francisco

*Stop in Ensenada mandated by US Government regulations intended to favor US flag carriers, requiring that non-US flagged passenger vessels make at least one stop in a foreign port on any voyage. Other US Government regulations make it prohibitive to flag cruise ships in the US, so there are none. This makes Seattle an attractive port for cruises, since Vancouver and Victoria are so convenient; Ensenada gets the love from Los Angeles and San Francisco. Alas, Alaska is the only cruise destination convenient to Seattle, and that's not a year-round trip like Hawai'i and Mexico/Central America. (There are rumors of Pacific Rim and round-the-world cruises starting in Seattle Any Year Now...)

Right now the consensus is that a 15 day cruise is at least 3 days too long, maybe 5. (How long a vacation is too long? When you get tired of fine dining and having someone else do your housekeeping...)

Maybe if the consecutive days at sea were fewer, and there were more port calls, we would not have felt this way. I don't know. Maybe we need to look into that 19 day L.A. to Ft. Lauderdale cruise, with Panama Canal transit and a stop in Mexico, Central America, and various Caribbean Islands to say for sure.

Anyway, I'll be posting some pics and videos here, although many of the videos need editing.

Here's a taste:

This is a somewhat crappy cell phone video taken on March 17th off Lahaina, Maui, of a humpback whale doing "pedunkle slaps."

Briefly made us wonder why we paid money for a separate whale watching cruise, if I could watch one from the buffet line...

(It was totally worth it, BTW.)

Tyranny in paradise...

CNET News says Hawaii may keep track of all Web sites visited:

The state legislature plans hearing on bill requiring Internet service providers to create dossiers on residents showing all Web sites they visit for two years.

I'm trying to figure out what the purpose is.

There's a link on that article to a follow-up, saying the sponsor is having second thoughts. Good. But WTF is up with these jackasses and their overly broad legislation?

Kauai, Day 6, Part 2

These are mostly pics I took; Mrs. Drang was shooting video for most of this part of the day, and I haven't reviewed and edited as necessary yet. 

The seed pods on this plant were rattling in the wind.
I almost forgot there are no snakes in Hawai'i.

Like I said, a lot like the Southwest.

Pronounced "Why-AH-lay-AH-lay."
Averages 400+ inches of rain a year.
In 1992, thanks to Hurricane Iniki, it was over 700 inches.

Thalassa!  Thalassa!  LOL

Niihau, "The Forbidden Isle."

Edited to correct pronunciation of Mount Wai'Ale'Ale.

Kauai, Day 6, Part 1

Today started off with the aerial tour, an hour, about, and then we drove up Waimea Canyon, "The Grand Canyon of the Pacific", a phrase often attributed (apparently inaccurately) to Sam Clemens.

Between us we took nearly 300 photos or videos.  Part one will be the aerial tour, part two the drive up Waimea Canyon.  I haven't yet reviewed all of the video that Mrs. Drang shot, so I'm not sure if that will be a third post.  (At least, using the camcorder out of the water, it doesn't bob about with the current...)

Mrs. Drang sat on the right hand side of the plane, I on the left.  We were all the way in the back--I had legroom, so that was good.  All the sights were on the right side of the aircraft, so that was bad--I had to shoot past Mrs. Drang.

The brown is live coral.

It rained today. 
It rains nearly every day on Kauai.
The upside is, lots of waterfalls and rainbows!

Waimea Falls from the air.

I believe the pilot said they were growing corn.

The view down into Waimea Canyon.

We have now left the dry portion of the island...

Waimea Canyon reminds me a lot of the American Southwest.

This cliff face reminds me of Minbari.  Mrs. Drang doesn't see it...

Kinda meta:  Taking a picture of Mrs. Drang taking a picture...

Kauai, Day 5, Part I

I'm still going through the video I shot while snorkeling.  I'm using the same Kodak Playsport ZX3 I used last year, which, it occurs to me, I'm not sure I posted any video from that trip besides what Mrs. Drang shot of the sea turtle with the digital camcorder in her dive mask.  I'll get right on that as soon as I finish editing video from today.

Lawai Beach, where we went snorkeling.

The view "mauka", or "towards the mountains." Inland, in other words.  (Towards the ocean is"makai".)

After snorkeling, we stopped off at the Koloa Rum Company's tasting room, at Kilohana Plantation, where we went to the Luau Kalamaku Tuesday night.
This is a small (50 gallon) pot still; The Law says that, in order to have a tasting room, it must be attached to the distillery, so they fire this puppy up just often enough to comply.

They make White, Golden, Dark, and Spice rums, as well as their own Mai Tai mix.

We each got two shot glasses; the one labeled "Kukui Mai Tai" had some mai tai mix in it.  It was suggested we dump any rum we didn't want to simply "toss back" into the shot glass; by the time we were done, we had a nice little mai tai...

Some kind of flower Hibiscus outside the tasting room.

Some kind of flower Another hibiscus outside the tasting room.

Kauai, Day 4

Posting this a day late.  Oh, well.
We took a tour called "Best of Kauai", which combined a guided van tour, a boat cruise up the Wailua river, and an aerial tour (except that, due to mechanical issue, the aerial tour is postponed until tomorrow.)  And I took nearly 100 photos, so I'm going to be picking and choosing...

The Wailua river is one of seven rivers on Kauai, and is said to be the only "navigable" river in the state.

 The Fern Grotto.  I understand there was a wedding scene here in some movie or something...

 The ferns were pretty much wiped out in Hurricane Iniki, on September 11, 1992.  So was pretty much everything else on the island.  200 MPH winds will do that...

 Wailua Falls.  175-odd feet.  I hear there are trails down there, but none I'd want to tackle without technical gear...

 Here we're back at the Kilauea Wildlife Refuge at Kilauea Lighhouse.  This is a nene, the State bird of Hawaii.

 This bird really took a shine to this guy's hat...

 Considering how far down it is to this shelf of rock, this Monk Seal must be HUUUUGE!!!
(110 feet to the water where I was standing, plus another 100 or more feet across the bay.)

 The lighthouse is closed for renovation.

 A Green Sea Turtle.  See statement above regarding Monk Seal's size...

 Looking  north towards Hanalei.

Playin' with Fire

Firedancer sequence from Lu'au Kalamaku.

Luau Kalamaku

OK, so this is the third luau I've been to, and Mrs. Drang lived on Oahu for a couple of years, so she lost count.

Holy cow. 

We may never do another one.

Usually, they're a Vegas-style revue.   The ones I've seen, the host/emcee has been, well, slick.  Smarmy, even.  The show jumps around, sampling stuff from all over Polynesia.  One included a "sarong fashion show."

Luau Kalamaku tells the story of one family sailing from Tahiti to Hawai'i, landing on Kauai.  It is, indeed, a coherent story, told in the round, with costumes, and special effects.  Very well done.  Magnificent, in fact.

I'll keep trying to post video, but it ain't workin' for me today...

Kauai, Day 3

Cacao pods. They grow directly from the tree trunks; the tree "lets" no more than 25 or so to grow to fruition at a time.

Cacao bean, and nibs; these nibs are chocolate covered, which seems redundant.
Each pod is full of beans, and each bean is actually made up of many nibs.

These are papyrus plants!

Stripping the skin off of a papyrus stem...

...to get to the pulpy center, from which papyrus "paper" is made. It feels like slightly waxy packing peanuts.

Yellow Ginger blossoms. They're edible.

Red Ginger. I think.











EDIT: It was late, I was tired, and I didn't even think to include that this was Steelgrass Farm until I saw Dirtcrashrs's comment.  Ooops.

Welcome to Steelgrass, a multidisciplinary educational center for agriculture, music and the arts. On the agriculture side, we're a demonstration farm with extensive plantings of bamboo, cacao (the chocolate tree) and vanilla, working to develop Kauai's future as a center for sustainable, diversified agriculture by providing hands-on training, workshops, and educational tours for residents and visitors.


On the music side, we are home to the island's only state-of-the-art music recording studio, and we’ve created a concert and workshop series, Kauai's The Power of Music.

Plus they have their own timeshare thingy going.

Kauai, Day 2

Happy Birthday, Bearcat!

Neat design for a pool!  We're standing on the "beach" volleyball court, looking at the kids wading pool--sandy bottom--which is separated from the "regular" pool by a "rock wall"; the far end is more rocks, with waterfall!