Greetings
from Nawiliwili, Kauai.
We have
finished our crossing to the Hawaiian Islands, a total of 2,359 miles from Los
Angeles and arrived late at 1:00pm on Wednesday, December 11th. We are docked at the port of Nawiliwili on
the southeast coast of Kauai, known as the “Garden Isle” covering an area of
562 square miles, the fourth largest and oldest of the main islands. We are at latitude 21°57.17’ N and longitude
159°21.51’ W.
I
mentioned that we were late. We were
supposed to arrive at 8:00am this morning, but heavy seas caused the Master
(Captain) of the Navigator to make the decision to slow down for the comfort
and safety of the passengers. We reduced
speed from 17 knots to 6 knots. Of
course before that occurred I decided to do my morning walk up on the Deck 11
track and when I pitched left and the ship pitched right, I pulled a groin
muscle and couldn’t even make it back to our cabin without the help of a deck
steward with a wheelchair. Not terribly
serious, but one more example why traveling with me is always an adventure for
Vicki. She has been great about it, as usual.
So our
morning tour on Kauai, which included a Wailua River Cruise and visit to the
famous Fern Grotto, was cancelled and it has given me a chance to rest my leg
and, hopefully, recover enough for our tour tomorrow in our
next port on Oahu. More about that next time.
Kauai is
the wettest place on the planet. It
averages 450” of rain a year. It set a
world record of 636” in 1986. The local “god”,
Lono, is the God of Taro, which is the principal source of protein for the
islanders, Fertility, Rainfall and Peace.
Looks like he has been doing a fabulous job on the rainfall part. Can’t speak to Fertility.
BTW, when Taro is pounded into Poi, eaten
with the fingers, it is said to release the “Spirit of Haloa” and when served
at family gatherings the local rule is that it puts an end to any arguments or
quarrels within the group. Guess we
should have served more Poi at the Smith Family dinners.
Over 70 %
of the island of Kauai was impacted by Hurricane Iniki which slammed full force
into Kauai in 1998. At the time, Vicki
and I were celebrating our 30th Wedding Anniversary on the island of
Maui, a mere 100 miles away. Ask me
about that adventure some time.
One of
the most prominent features of Kauai is the Waimea Canyon. Known as the “Grand Canyon of the Pacific” it
is a spectacular formation which defies description. We took a helicopter tour of it several years
ago and were amazed at the grandeur. The
whirlybirds take off from Nawiliwili ever few minutes, like the one below,
ferrying tourists to this natural wonder.
This
island is the winter home of literally thousands of humpback and gray whales
who journey here every year to birth their calves and nurse them after having gorged themselves all summer up
near the Bering Straits. This is about half the whale population from northern
climes, the other half trek to Cabo San Lucas.
Smart animals.
A female
whale’s milk is about 60% fat which accounts for the calves being able to gain
about 8.5 pounds per day. Just slightly
more than I have averaged so far on this cruise.
I
mentioned in an earlier post about our guest lecturer, Dr. Tom Jones, an
astronaut who helped build the International Space Station (ISS). The ISS covers an area about the size of a
football field traveling about 17,500 MPH about 220 miles above the Earth’s
surface. It weighs, at the moment, about
816,349 pounds, and is still growing thanks to astronauts like Dr. Jones and his
fellow scientists from Russia, China, France, Spain and other space partner
countries. It currently has four
principal laboratories. One is a Cold
Atom Lab, which cools atoms to -370°F or near “absolute zero”. This allow them to bring the atoms to a near
standstill so that they can examine them more closely for scientific reasons
that are above my paygrade. The ISS has
a Veggie Chamber, which is growing all kinds of plants in the weightless
conditions of outer space, and a Robotics Lab, which designs and builds robots
for performing all manner of tasks in space.
There is also what is known as an AMS Dark Matter Lab, which is
attempting to find and measure the gargantuan gravitational forces which
account for over 70 % of the matter in our universe. Look back at a previous blog post of mine for
an alternate theory on what this is all about.
Astronauts sign on for a six month stay on the ISS each time they go up
to join the team which rotates six resident positions, three at a time.
Space
travel is being developed at a fairly rapid pace again. NASA, after retiring the Space Shuttle program is paying Russia $ 1.3 million dollars for each astronaut we send to the ISS,
per trip. Now private firms, run by
corporate billionaires, like Jeff Bezos, who owns Blue Origin, Elon Musk, who runs
Space X(with its highly reliable Falcon 9/Dragon rockets, shown below), and Richard Branson
with Virgin Galactic. All three will be
contracting with NASA to shuttle astronauts back and forth to the ISS in the
near future, saving taxpayers millions of dollars and keeping the revenue and
jobs in the good ole USofA.
These
firms are also putting together tourist space travel programs. For those of you
who are interested, an overnight room at the ISS is only $35,000.00 per
night. I thought that was essentially
reasonable. But, OH, the transportation,
to and from, is extra and is a bit pricier at just under $50 million round trip, give or
take. I just hope after this cruise
they don’t charge by the pound.
Enough for
now. Hope you are enjoying the trip so
far. Give us a shout or a comment or two, if you feel so moved.
Much love to all,
Jud and Vicki.
OMG, be careful for goodness sake! I hope you are ok!
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