Greeting from Hawaii! This is by far the worst place i've ever been in my life...hand downs. Ok, i can't lie...its wonderful here. We arrived yesterday at around 5pm (hawaii time), and first lines went out around 630, tied up at 7pm. The approch to the islands was beautiful. if you look at a map of the islands, we came right through the Makapuu Passage, which is looked to the east side of Oahu. Right between Oahu and another island (forgive me...i forget the name). So islands on either side. stunning. We have actually been working very hard this entire week on our way over, and we (Alex and myself) were nervous that the Chief Mate may not let us off at all.
As we got off the deck and back into the ships office after tie up, we asked the mate if there was anything else we needed to do. His reply? "The only thing you guys need to do is get the fuck off the ship and have some fun tonight." Wonderful!! We met up with the second mate (jake), got a taxi into Waikiki ($30 cab ride!! daaaaaannnnggg!!), and strolled around the strip, going into generic tourist places, and just looking around. We ended up at a place called Dukes, which is a barefoot bar. Located right on the ocean, you are able to walk right off the beach and into the resteraunt. Super cool spot. We pretty much stayed there all night. The shots you will see on my flicker page of the water, shoreline, and surrounding scenery were taken from the beach at Dukes. While Alex and Jake were cruising for girls, i chose to sit on the beach and just stare out and work on my photography skills. I hope you enjoy them.
Let me pull a Tarantino and give you all an idea of what it was like getting to this point:
August 13th:
I've accepted the fact that i will no longer be seeing Jessica, my family, and friends for a while. The stress as well as this unmistakable feeling that i get right before i take chance has subsided, and there is no turning back. There is a line from the In My Eye's cd that i like. The opening to one of the tracks is "Growing up/Not slowing down". That line put me at ease a little bit. I made the decision to do this...here i am...and here we go. We depart at 4am tomorrow morning. I have to share a room with Alex Swies. He is a fellow GLMA cadet, but i imagine sharing a room for 4 months wont be as great as several other thousand things ive done in my life. Oh well. i'll get over it. The chief mate has already put me to work delivering mail and doing other assorted tasks. Already working...yikes. No sooner had my bags hit the floor in my room, he called me down on the intercom. That was an intense conversation, but i expect to work, so, although oddly intimidated by this short man, and his smug demeanor, not to mention his turtle like neck and head (his neck comes from the front of his shoulders instead of on top...it just looks kind of weird, you know?), i've moved on.
August 14th:
Tails of a run in with a typhoon the last trip are going around. some pretty serious shit went down i guess. No one was seriously injured though, just heavy sea's. I hope that doesnt happen again. I was up today at 2am to watch us depart the dock in LB. "this is it...this is it...THIS...is it" just kept going through my head. Sound like a song to anyone? anyways, we had dolphins jumping out of our wake at 7am that morning. A good omen i suppose. Maybe not... as we got further from land, i got progressivley sicker. Maybe it had more to do with my excitement level, like you know how little kids will get SOOOOO excited about something that is going to happen that they end up getting to worked up, and then, sick? Maybe that was it...i'd like to attribute it to the 5-6 swells we had coming in from the North, meaning they were rolling the ship about 8 degrees side to side for 24hours. I threw up 7 times today. Im not going to lie, or act hard about it. My body didnt know how to deal with that kind of sea...Lakes and ocean...way different kind of roll. I fell asleep at 7pm that night and awoke for watch at 3am the following morning, feeling absolutley fine. weird.
fast forward
August 15th:
The cooks on the ship are amazing. The best in the fleet ive been told. Check the pics of our spread for our friday night BBQ! This was a fun event. On every trip, one day out from Hawaii and Guam (either coming to the islands, or leaving them) we have a BBQ on the stearn of the ship. everyone is in Flip Flops, floral print shirts or t-shirts, shorts, and just casual attire in general. Much like a BBQ that someone would have in there backyard, except this is 2000miles + away from ANYONES backyard. pretty cool. the crew has been very friendly and cool to us. After our 48 probationary period, in which the Chief mate threw everything he could throw at us in attempt to rattle us, he has lightened up considerably. We've shown him we are here for the right reasons, and that we are genuinely interested in whats going on. they like that here. So we are in pretty good, in fact, the crew has just as many questions for us about the lakes, as we do for them regarding the ocean. thats kind of a neat thing. The social gathering on the stern was a fun time. To top it off, we even go to see the mythical Green Flash. I say mythical because i feel that it is similar to a unicorn...Often talked about, yet, a rare sighting. I made myself laugh with that analogy. Its not as "Spielberg" as some may think, but it definitley happens. So what a good night. Tomorrow we will arrive in Hawaii....
THERE IT IS! sorry, im long winded, but i think it's more fun to read in retrospect. I hope that between that and the pics, you can have a good idea of what its been like to so far. have a nice night...we leave Honolulu tomorrow at 11am (HI time). Guam in 7 days. Another post w/ pics then. Take care. I miss every single one of you. --jh--
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