Saturday February 08, 2025 – At Sea – San Francisco, CA USA to Hawaii, USA
Our last sea day before Hawaii. Tomorrow we arrive in Oahu and berth in downtown Honolulu, a first for both of us. So today was the usual routing of breakfast, lectures, lunch, siesta and Anne to the gym, then dinner and the show. When you are on a long voyage of several months, it is important to establish a routine.
The first lecture was late as there was the mandatory crew drill at 10AM, so we tried playing a new card game – The World – which involves knowing the statistics, flags capitals, continents etc of all the countries and island nations around the world. We soon realized that despite the many countries (115) we have visited, we know so very little of the world!.
The Ambassador Chase Untermeyer spoke very eloquently about “ Is Democracy in Danger?”. He mostly focused on the USA and the history of democracy and the many times during the history of the country when it seemed like it would be destroyed, not just the present time with the current Trump administration, but going back in history to many other eras where things were tough. He also spoke about Britain, Germany under Hitler and other such times in places around the world – South Korea, Japan etc where Democracy has come under attack. A very thoughtful and even handed discussion.
Gary Fuller spoke about “Wai in Waikiki” – Fresh Water and flat arable land make Hawaii the largest in population of all the Polynesia islands. Polynesian Triangle basically is the area with the three corners – Hawaii, Easter Island (Rapanui) and New Zealand. Water enters the porous lava rock and rests underground on top of the sea water, where it can be tapped through aquifers. Thus the ability to have such tremendous amount of tourism, population, lush tropical landscape and crops. At one point it was one of the leading producers of sugar. When Captain Cook arrived some 90% of the population of Polynesia lived on the 6% of the land that is Hawaii. He was a very interesting speaker as he has lived in Hawaii for some 50 years and taught at the University of Hawaii.
The show that evening was a dual act – the funny comedian from New York – Tony Daro and the musician who lived in New York but now lives in Honolulu – Barrie Kealoha. The comedian was very funny and the singer had a great voice, but her banter was irritating and somewhat childish.
Roger & Anne Travels 