Love me tender,love me true...

We were tendered into port today at Maui. Usually it’s a calm 10 minute ride in. Today some shuttles took 45 minutes. We were lucky to only take 15 and a decision was taken just afterwards to suspend transfers. We queued two hours to get a tender back, the weather on this trip is just not working for us.

Still, it’s a holiday and we are trying to make the most of it. We saw a school of humpback whales this morning, and a leatherback turtle popped in to our snorkelling cove this afternoon. Even the snorkelling was terminated due to poor visibility and strong under currents.

Maui, or the town of Lahaina where we were based, was a beautiful place, very similar to the Cayman Islands, Bermuda or Aruba. It was voted the worlds most beautiful island by National Geographic magazine.

With the large whale population it is no surprise that this was a major whaling colony with some right goings on before European missionaries came there and sanitised the place. The main bar and bordello of the time, still stands though and is now a very elegant Best Western hotel.

Back on board it was love boat disco night on the top deck. Bit breezy but good fun. I am still waiting for the Zimmer frame race round the deck though.

Today we are landing at Hilo on what is called the big island. We are off to see some volcano's, one of which is still active. Hopefully an update on that before our second week at sea when we will be offline again.

Book him Dano

 On dry land at last, as we moored up successfully in Honolulu, the capital of Hawaii. It is on the island of Oahu, a mountainous region constructed from erupting volcano’s all of which are now extinct.

This holiday has been planned as a pilgrimage for SWIMBO. She had planned to meet her brother here in Hawaii for his 50^th anniversary party, but he was sadly taken from us a few years ago, so the rendezvous will never happen.

We started the day at the USS Arizona war grave and memorial in Pearl Harbour, a place which has been a pilgrimage for many American and Japanese citizens for over seventy years. We saw the statistics, the names of the fallen, and oil still leaking to the surface after all this time. We visited the memorial to the 50 or so submarines lost in the conflict, and then visited ‘mighty Mo’ the USS Missouri on which the Japanese surrendered.

The below decks tour was fascinating given we are on a pretty large ship ourselves. It makes one understand the conditions some of our crew will be experiencing.

We finally went down to Waikiki for spot or sun bathing, and then brought a Lei in Liverpool colours, which will be placed on Martin’s grave on our return. We toasted his memory in a local bar and are now set fair for tomorrow on Maui.

The ship is quite cosmopolitan and that embraces both crew and passengers. In one bar a Latino band called the Emmanuelle Blanco band is proving popular with the Japanese. Last night they got adventurous and banged out a song by Dire Straits called ‘Butterfly’. Never heard of it said I to SWMBO, when suddenly the riff kicked in……. dada dadadadada dada….. and it tlanflormed into ‘Walk of Life’ silly me !

All at sea

Not  the strap line I was going to use, but the cruising part of the trip has not quite gone to plan. We left San Francisco with the words of captain Nash ringing in our ears. It’s going to be rough he said in his Cornish burr, so he could have added ‘me lovers’ or ‘proper job’ at the end of the sentence.

Well, rough it was, and for three days most of the 3000 passengers were confined to barracks, with the demand for the full English in short supply. SWMBO is not good with motion but she had been a martyr to the cause and we have represented the UK with fortitude. We were rewarded on day 4 with a calmer sea and sunbathing weather which put everybody in a good frame of mind for our first landfall on Wednesday.

Seems something upset Poseidon though as we awoke to the news than the winds were too strong to allow the ship to dock at Nawiliwili on the Hawaiian island of Kuala. Instead we spent the day circling it before starting out for Honolulu. We did see several silverback whales on our travels and are promised many more when we get to Maui on Friday. Up to 10000 come down from Alaska to sporn ever Winter so that should be exciting.

The ship has very little to occupy us as most of its clientele are overweight slothful Americans. We have probably brought the average age down somewhat. Nonetheless we are battling on with a trip to Pearl Harbour on schedule for tomorrow. Then its snorkelling and a volcano tour before we head back with another four days at sea. Our course back is further South so should miss the wind and be set fair to top up our tan.

If not it will be bingo, play your cards right, and ballroom dancing, can’t wait!

E V B

Emily tries but misunderstands, ah ooh
She often inclined to borrow somebody's dreams till tomorrow
There is no other day
Let's try it another way

You'll lose your mind and play
Free games for may
See Emily play
Soon after dark Emily cries, ah ooh.......

Our sixth grandchild has finally got a name, Emily Veronica, and she was immortalised by Pink Floyd all those years ago in 'See Emily Play'. That last line could be very true, although I understand she is a very contented soul at the moment.

Our first night in San Fran was uneventful. We found a very pleasant Irish bar, as you do, and had some Guinness to get in the mood for Sunday. Although we will be at sea, I am hopeful there may be a link up to Fox TV.

We then had an excellent steak in John's Grill, an establishment which has over 100 years of history behind it, including a feature role in The Maltese Falcon. It was produced by John Huston and starred Humphrey Bogart.

We also climbed to the top of Nob Hill which got the heart rate up. We will do it by tram next time!

Later today we jumps on our cruise ship so we will be offline for a week or so. Roll on Hawaii.

Woka woka

We are just packing to move on to San Francisco this morning. We did Penn and Teller, and they were a bit old school. The show was not as slick as they appear on TV, but they had some clever tricks and interspersed the act with their usual humour.
Yesterday we took a helicopter to the Grand Canyon and were surprised when we landed near the bottom for a champagne picnic. I will post some pictures when I find a fast WiFi connection. Our pay as you go is working well but is painfully slow.

I last visited the Canyon with Dodgy after our West coast rugby tour in the late nineties and we drove to the South rim via the Hoover dam. That view gave a better aspect of the size of it all, but being in the gorge showed the power of the water and the scale of the Colorado river compared to the depth of the gorge.

We had a good scoff in the evening, watched the Bellagio water show and caught the Mirage volcanic eruption on the way back.

Only down side was the roulette table bet minimum which was $15 so managed to keep our losses to $30. With the minimum bet it just meant we didn't play too long..... probably no bad thing!

Our newest grandchild arrived Monday just as we were taxiing at Heathrow, so more about her once she has a name, poor thing.

Viva Las Vegas

Actually it should be called Viva Las Vegas,as that's where we are so have changed it!. Day 1 was a ten hour flight and a fairly smooth passage through homeland security. Amusingly IBM have a kick off meeting here this week so there were a couple of ex-colleagues on the flight. They were a bit green when I outlined out travel plans!
I should check in with Ginny Rometty, the CEO, now that IBM has lost the latest court battle concerning the pension closures of the early noughties. It would probably ruin my chances of an invite to Augusta now she is a member.
The hotel has a golf course but I don't really have time to play during this short stay. Today we started with a full on American breakfast, then walked the strip from end to end. Paris won the best design award and the Bellagio won best Chinese New Year décor prize. The IBM crew are staying in the Hard Rock so well away from us.
Tonight is cabaret night with Penn and Teller then off to the Grand Canyon tomorrow.

Latest gambling position, I am $10 up.

Ker ching

They say things go in three's and that seems to be the recent case here in Scouseland. A few days ago SWMBO received notification that she had been successful on the Premium Bonds which will boost her spending account when we go on hols later in the month.

 

I received a call this morning to say that the small claims court action I had instigated against Scottish Power has been settled in my favour. So not only do I get the £200 they have owed me since last May back, but I get the court fee's and an inconvenience payment as well.

 

I moved to one of their tariff's in October 2013, and they managed to transfer the gas supply of a different property in the street. They then instigated a standing order to take funds out of my account to pay this neighbours gas bills!! It did take me a couple of months to notice, but nothing like the time it has taken to get them to understand the problem they have caused, and the reason I was a bit grumpy. I must have talked to them 6 or 8 times and each time I was reassured they would sort it. They didn't and in the end I got so frustrated I went to court.....they now say the cheque is in the post!!!

 

Scottish Power have the worst customer satisfaction rating of any of the big 6 power companies, so as soon as I have the money I am looking to move somewhere else.

 

So that's two bits of good news. The third one has just made all the days I spend trawling through tat and rubbish at auction houses worth the effort.

 

On Wednesday I was at an auction I go to fairly frequently when I saw a very odd shaped putter in a bag of 1930's steel shafted clubs. This putter had a curved face and a hickory shaft. I got the lot for £5.50 including commission, and a bit of research indicated I may well be on a winner. It's on e-bay here.

 

The irony of all this is that yesterday I threw away two old mirror's in the tip, they both smashed. So much for seven years bad luck. I can only think that as they were intact when I let go of them that I was not deemed to have smashed them!!

 

Sorry to be missing the England v Italy Six Nations game tomorrow but I feel confident the boy's will do the business. I will return for the France game which will hopefully be the Grand Slam decider.