Auckland and Tauranga

We’re across the Pacific and enjoying New Zealand for a few days. As we expected, weather has cooled, although I doubt our friends and family will feel too sorry for us. We’re experiencing low 70s with a lot of wind.

Our first stop was Auckland and we chose to figure out public buses and go to the Auckland Museum. What a treat! They had some really interesting sections, such as a special exhibit celebrating the 60^th anniversary of Hillary’s conquest of Everest and the sections on WWII, volcanoes and natural history. But they’re best known for their Maori collections.

The Maoris’ arrived in New Zealand as part of the great Polynesian migration, probably from the Cook Islands.  You can imagine their arrival—it’s cold, they don’t have adequate clothing and their seeds don’t grow in a temperate climate. They were a belligerent bunch and promptly murdered several of the first European’s  (Abel Tasman) crew. They were kinder when the ubiquitous Captain James Cook arrived 100 years later. They also warred constantly among themselves and spent a good deal of energy warring with the Brits, who, as you can imagine, did not deal quite fairly with regards to land.

Pictures 1 and 2 show details of a Maori Marae, or meetinghouse. The carvings were spectacular and covered the entire interior of the building. Many carvings show warriors with their tongues out, like the close-ups in Picture 3. We were told they did this to intimidate their enemies. Now we know what Miley Cyrus is doing…. Picture 4 is a not-great picture of a Maori canoe—not great because there was no way we could get a picture of the whole thing. It’s 50 meters long and carried 100 warriors, who rowed on their knees. The canoe is designed to slope to the center, where one non-rower bailed with a bucket!

Picture 5 shows us leaving Auckland—beautiful city, beautiful day!

Our second stop was Tauranga, which is becoming a large shipping port that rivals Auckland. This part of the North Island is known for its geothermal activity. The most famous spot is Rororua, which we have visited before. So we decided to go to Hell’s Gate, which is also known for its geothermal activity and was named by George Bernard Shaw when he visited the Maoris’. The quote is something like “Egads! This looks like the gates of hell!”

Hell’s Gate sits over a magma spike that is only 2.5 km below the surface of the earth—that’s really close! It was held in check by a large lake that covered the area to a depth of about 100 feet. Suddenly the natural dike that held the lake back broke 10,000 years ago and the entire lake flowed into the Pacific Ocean. Without the weight of the water, extensive explosions occurred and opened all these geothermal areas.

Pictures 6 and 7 show views across some of the geothermal pools. Temperatures range from approximately 40-120 degrees Celsius (100 degrees Celsius is the boiling point).  Picture 8 shows a close-up of one of the mud pools, bubbling away. Picture 9 shows a fumarole, which is that black hole in the middle, where steam escapes from below the surface.  The yellow substance on the rocks is sulfur, which escapes through the fumarole as gas and solidifies when it meets the air. We saw one area similar to this that was all black instead of yellow and our guide told us that this was the result of fire. Spontaneous combustion occurs when solid sulfur reaches a temperature of approximately 120 degrees C. Who knew?????

All the geothermal activity creates a lush plant environment near the openings. Picture 10 shows a group of Ponga (fern) trees.

Following our morning hiking through all the geothermal stuff, we retired to a catamaran on nearby Lake Rotoiti for lunch and a sail. It lacked the extreme scenery of the morning, but was lovely, as you can see in Picture 11.

On our way back to the boat we drove through the agricultural heartland of the North Island and saw how kiwis grow, as shown in Picture 12. They grow on vines that are trained up, as shown. When long enough, the vines are laid on trellises and look much like grape vines.

Another great day in the country where there are more sheep and cows than people! By the way, with the declining price of wool, there are more cows than sheep. On to Wellington and Nelson….

Tahiti, Moorea and Bora Bora

Delays in posting…. The joys of being in the Carnival "family" (along with Cunard, Princess and Holland America)…. We have been without Internet and phone for 3+ days. Carnival just selected a "family-wide" satellite provider and it didn't work. 20+ ships lost all communications. Practically a mutiny onboard! But it's now working, although slowly…. Sometimes we wish for dial-up days….

In many ways, Tahiti, Moorea and Bora Bora make you sad: tourism has dwindled, many hotels have closed, unemployment is high and everyone lives for the occasional cruise ship to stop by. I guess there are too many other places to visit that are more accessible—although we understand the Italians flock here from April through the summer.

These 3 islands are breathtakingly beautiful, however. Everywhere you turn you see  mountains, the reef and the beautiful blue water.

Captain James Cook came here twice (he seems to have been everywhere in the south Pacific!).  His journals reflect his concern about the unrestrained sexuality of the islands. Obviously, the crew of HMS Bounty agreed because they mutinied against Captain Bligh when he told them to weigh anchor in 1788. With foreigners came diseases, rats, mosquitoes, etc. But today’s islanders think the worst import was the missionaries. They forbade dancing, singing, tattoos, and nudity—essentially obliterating the culture. Today, the islanders are trying to reclaim that culture by reviving some of the original dances, songs and stories of their ancestors.

Tahiti, like Maui in Hawaii, is shaped like a fish. We spent our time driving around the fish’s “body”. The reef still encircles the western side of the island, but not so much on the east. The beaches are black sand, but not particularly wide. Where there is a reef, however, the shallow water goes clear out to the reef and snorkeling is popular inside the reef.

We had lunch in Le Coco’s Restaurant in Fa’a’a, west of Papeete. The food was spectacular and the view even better. Picture 1 shows the view at lunch with waves breaking across the reef in the distance and the island of Moorea in the far distance.

Picture 2 is a bloom from the Tower Ginger at Vaipahi Gardens. We’ve seen an amazing number of different ginger plants, but we’ve been told that only one is edible and another is used for skin products. All others are toxic.

Picture 3 shows the waterfalls at Fa’auruma’I (by the way, you pronounce every letter—even multiple vowels in a row).  In addition to the main falls shown here, the wall seemed to be “weeping” waterfalls—everywhere.

Picture 4 shows the beach at Venus Point, which is where all of the early explorers landed, including the English and French, who both claimed ownership. At the park at Venus Point you’ll also find a beautiful old lighthouse that is 110 feet tall and was built in 1867 and shown in picture 5.

In Moorea we joggled our way around the island in a 4 X 4. Our first stop was a ride and then a climb to the top of Magic Mountain.  The next three pictures were taken from the top.  Moorea is entirely encircled by a reef, with 13 natural opening. Picture 6 shows one of these natural openings. Picture 7 shows the contrast between inside and outside the reef. Inside the reef, the water is shallow (max 3 meters); outside the reef, the ocean floor immediately drops 1000 meters. Picture 8 shows the hiking path to the top of Magic Mountain and the view toward the interior of the island. 

We then drove part way up Mt. Tohiea to The Belvedere for the great view shown in

Picture 9. The mountain in the middle, Mt. Rotui, is the remains of the original volcano, which formed the island. Originally there was a perfect circle of land around that mountain, but millennia ago the walls of the island toward the sea fell into the sea, leaving the central cone of the volcano and allowing seawater to form 2 beautiful bays on wither side of that cone. To the right is Cooks Bay, where our ship is anchored. To the left is Opunohu Bay. Opunohu means Belly of the Rock Fish and is considered sacred. So even though Captain Cook landed in that bay, they couldn’t change the name of something sacred, so they named the other bay after him.

You might recognize the mountain shown in Picture 10. It’s the mountain on the fictional island, Bali Hai, in the movie South Pacific.

Even though the tourism industry has been hit hard, there are still 4 large resorts on the island, where cottages over the water began. Picture 11 shows the Sofitel Resort with its cottages over the water. In the background you can see the reef and, in the distance, Tahiti.

The third island we visited was Bora Bora and we were able to check an item off the bucket list—we snorkeled in the Bora Bora lagoon. Pictures 12 and 13 show the larger critters we saw: stingrays and black-tipped reef sharks (who are up to 3 feet long and don’t find people tasty). We saw these guys from the boat that took us to the island we snorkeled from. Picture 14 shows our launching spot. The lagoon was significantly damaged a few years ago by a cyclone and the coral is just beginning to recover. We saw a number of smaller fish around the coral that is regenerating and a lovely clam with iridescent filaments around its mouth. Note to self: an underwater camera might be fun….

Bora Bora is one of the older islands. As such the central mountain is sinking into the ocean (and getting worn away be erosion), while the coral reef surrounding the island is rising and is actually developing into islands itself. Picture 15 shows a view of the entire island as we sailed away. And picture 16 shows the spectacular sunset that followed.

Kauai

Just one more beautiful island! Kauai is relatively small and seems to be a condensed version of the other 3. We have visited before and spent significant time exploring, including part of the Napali Coast Trail in the rain and Waimea Canyon in the fog—both still beautiful, in spite of the weather. So this time we focused on the south shore and, in particular,  the McBryde and Allerton Gardens, which are part of the National Tropical Botanical Garden. As the name implies, the gardens contain plants from the tropics—not just Hawaiian, but worldwide.

Picture 1 shows that we appreciated more than the gardens and the southern coastline of Hawaii is as rocky and beautiful as those on the other islands. Like the other islands, Picture 2 shows the blow hole.

Within the gardens, the plants are amazing and our guide excellent (you can visit the McBryde gardens on your own, but the Allerton Gardens require a guide). The Allerton Gardens we started by a pair of brothers with a substantial amount of discretionary funds, who enjoyed creating “rooms” in their huge private garden. Their gardens were willed to the government under 2 conditions: that they remain in a relatively natural state (nothing is closely pruned) and dead plants are replaced by the same type of plant.

The gardens are lovely and a little wild looking, since they’re not pruned. Because of this several movies and TV programs have been produced here: Jurassic Park, Gilligan’s Island, Lost and Pirates of the Caribbean, for example. Morton Bay Trees from Australia are shown in picture 3. A dinosaur egg was found between the roots of the second tree in Jurassic Park.

The remaining pictures were interesting plants we found. Orchids growing wild:

A corpse plant. Once this plant reaches 16 feet in 12-14 years a single, beautiful flower emerges that smells like a corpse.

Vanilla beans. This vine grows up the side of a tree. Those are vanilla bean pods growing on the right side.

Dutchman’s Pipe. This is a large flower, about 12 inches from top to bottom and everyone thinks it looks like meat—I didn’t get that!

We’ve been at sea for 4 days since leaving Hawaii, heading almost straight south to Tahiti. Today we crossed the equator at 10:24 AM. For more cocktail party trivia, the circumference of the earth at LAT 0° 0’ 0” is 24, 905 miles and the diameter is 7927 miles. We had our King Neptune celebration yesterday afternoon, dunked a few pollywogs (1^st timers from the crew) and toasted the good King—anything to bring out a little champagne!

We’ve had wonderful lectures. Paul Eschenfelder is a pilot, sailor, consultant to governments and worldwide traveler and has lectured on Polynesia. Dr. Jeffrey Hoffman is an astronaut, who logged over 1000 hours of flight time aboard the Space Shuttle, has been telling us about life as an astronaut and teaching us about the Hubble Telescope. Hugh Thompson is a British movie producer and has shared several of his films involving travels to really unusual places. It has been such a treat to hear from these men.

Two more days at sea and then Tahiti, Moorea and Bora Bora.

Oahu

When we think of Oahu, we tend to get hung up on the bustle and congestion of Honolulu and Waikiki. So we decided to leave that all behind and spend our two days on Oahu concentrating on the section east of Waikiki and the North Shore. We now have a much better appreciation for the beauty of that island.

I bet we could ask all of our friends what the first picture is and no one would come close. That’s the inside of the Diamond Head Crater. We expected something like what we saw on the Big Island—not so. Diamond Head is not a volcano. There are 2 on Oahu, both extinct. Diamond Head is a tuff cone, where water from the sea met the volcanic stuff coming from the top and it just exploded and formed a secondary crater. The outside of Diamond Head is shown in picture 2. Rick caught that image as we sailed into Honolulu at sunrise. By the way, Diamond Head was named by sailors who thought the calcite crystals found in the crater were diamonds.  Today you can hike to the top of the crater—next time.

The next 2 pictures were taken at Halona Bay, which is further east of Diamond Head. The first picture is Oahu’s Blow Hole. Again it erupts when water forces it’s way into a lava tube. We watched for some time and found we could not predict when it would blow—not just big waves, sometimes small…. The second picture is not the most beautiful beach on Oahu, but may be one of the most famous. It’s Eternity Beach, where the steamy kiss between Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr occurred in From Here to Eternity. May need to watch that movie.

The 5^th picture is the view from the Nuuanu Pali overlook, highlighting the beautiful mountains on Oahu. The overlook is famous because here King Kamehameha I defeated the chief of Oahu, uniting all the Hawaiian Islands under one king. His method of victory was interesting: he pushed the other guys over the edge of the cliff, which is drop of several hundred feet.

Moving toward the North Shore, one sees little islands off Oahu’s east coast. The 6^th picture shows, probably, the most famous of these islands. It’s called Chinaman’s Hat and the picture was taken from Kualoa Beach Park. These little islands are now nature sanctuaries for birds and sea creatures and people are not allowed on them.

Reaching the top of the North Shore, we stopped for lunch at one of the many shrimp shacks.  As picture 7 shows, we had a great lunch! We had coconut shrimp and lemon-pepper shrimp, followed by shaved ice. The many shrimp shacks are here because the King Kamehameha Highway follows a string of shrimp ponds. Our “shack” harvested approximately 500 pounds of shrimp per day from their private pond. They use nets with appropriately-sized holes, so that the growing shrimp are not harvested with the larger ones.

The north shore has two famous surfing beaches: Sunset Beach and Bonzai Pipeline. Picture 8 is Sunset Beach. We were there on a pretty calm day, so there were few surfers.

Pictures 9 & 10 show green sea turtles. These were taken at Haleiwa Beach Park. In the afternoon, these turtles tend to come on shore at low tide or into the shallow water at high tide to sun themselves and take a nap. We were fortunate to spot these guys.

As we headed back to Honolulu, we stopped at the Dole Plantation to see what it was about. Bad idea! It ranks right in there with Gatlinburg and Stratford-on-Avon as some of the world’s great tourist traps! All-in-all, however, Oahu was beautiful.

The final picture is a special one. All on our ship were invited for cocktails on the USS Missouri, which is stationed in Pearl Harbor and can be toured. We were allowed to tour officers’ and crew’s quarters and enjoyed some 40’s-era entertainment. The USS Missouri is the battleship where the official unconditional surrender of the Japanese occurred. There’s a bronze circle on deck indicating where American and Japanese sat and signed the document. What we didn’t know was that the ship was attacked by a Kamakaze pilot shortly before the end of the war. The plane was shot several times, but the pilot still managed to clip the edge of the deck. Also unknown to us, this ship was still in use during Desert Storm, but was de-commissioned shortly after that. Some of the sailors on board, however, informed us that it was still ship-shape and could be re-commissioned if necessary. It was a great evening.

Kauai tomorrow….

Maui

Maui is shaped like a fish. We arrived in Lahaina, which is on the fish’s tail.  Lahaina doesn’t have a pier, so we had to take tenders to shore. Being “parked” in the middle of the bay, we had the advantage of being in the center of humpback whale activity. No matter which way we looked, we saw whales spouting or waving their flippers. Usually they were in pairs—mother and baby.  Like the Gulf of California, whales also give birth in the Hawaiian Islands. Once the babies are born, the mother stays with the baby in relatively shallow water, like that where we were “parked”. In a couple months they will move north to Alaska to their summer home.

We drove around the fish’s “tail” on Maui. The drive took us past some of the most beautiful rocky coast scenery in the world. Waves are much larger on the north side of the island (this is also true in Oahu), so erosion from the waves has created some great rocky cliffs. Picture 1 shows the cliffs and beach at the village of Kahakuloa., which is located on the upper east side of the tail. Picture 2 shows the blowhole at Nakalele Point, which is right on the top of the tail. We saw blowholes on 3 islands. They’re created by water rushing into a lava tube..

Of course big surf brings surfers as shown in picture 3. This picture was taken near Kapalua, near the world-famous golf course. Today’s cocktail party trivia: When was surfing invented? Answer: Don’t know. Captain Cook recorded that he saw natives surfing in his journal, when he visited the island in the 18^th century. Original boards were planks of wood without a rudder. To go right or left you had to drag your foot in the water. So surfing is way older than the Beach Boys in California.

Also on the east side of the fish tail, you find the Iao Valley, a lush green valley, where picture 4 was taken. The needle is called Kuka’emok—a phallic stone of Kanaloa, the God of the ocean.

We didn’t have time to drive through the body of the fish, which is really one large mountain: Haleakala, the volcano, which formed this part of the island.  The fish tail was formed by a smaller, extinct volcano: Puu  Kukui.

The final picture was taken as we sailed toward Oahu, over the island of Lanai.