Hilo, Hawaii

Photos.

Well, I spent the first part of the day wishing I could have stayed in bed and, from early evening on, waiting to go to bed. I coughed and sneezed all day so any excursion, even going the short distance into Hilo, was out of the question. Nevertheless, the day was pleasant and my husband didn’t push me overboard, as I must have been tempted to do under similar circumstances.

Nippon Maru

We went to the 12^th deck to watch the Nippon Maru, a former Japanese training vessel now a museum, is visiting the islands to celebrate 150 years of Japanese presence in Hawaii. So, a baby born in 1868 would have been about 73 by the time of the attack on Pearl Harbor, and yet these people – and, I guess, their children and grandchildren – were interned during WWII. It's all so sad.

We skipped lunch and took a break in our stateroom, where the bed seemed less inviting in the midday sunshine. We sat on the balcony and watched the work in this busy port. We saw several dozen new trucks being driven away by men who arrived by the vanful and immediately boarded one of the trucks. We also enjoyed the activity around the sailing ship Martin Sheen. The actor is a supporter of many environmental causes, including this one, and the ship is named after him. I imagined (for a short time) that Martin Sheen was in the dinghy going to shore, but quickly saw that the older man in the boat was not he.

By late afternoon, we found ourselves once again in the pleasant space on the 11^th deck, outside the Aloha Café. Instead of afternoon tea, which I really needed, I had  Johnnie Walker Black, and the cold symptoms subsided for several hours. The Beaupre Aerial hat with the Skyjack logo on the side was, not for the first time, a good conversation starter. We met Ron and Tracy from Fergus, Ontario, not too far from Stratford, which we know well.  Very pleasant company.

We left port in the early evening. The ship rocked gently all night. I woke up Wednesday morning anchored off the port of Kona, feeling a letter better.