Lihue, Kaua’i

Only a couple of stops left as we near the end of our cruise! The first was Kaua’i – and some of the fun was watching us approach the dock. A long breakwater protects the harbor, and we needed to make almost a U turn to get around it.

As seen from our verandah, it looked like we were pretty close to the rocky breakwater!

After completing the first U turn, we did another, and slid sideways up to the dock. Fascinating to watch these huge ships maneuver!

We called an Uber to take us to Wailua Falls… They were pretty, but you could only see the one angle. I guess a nicer view would be from a boat, but we didn’t plan that far in advance. The drive to the falls and back had some great scenery too.

After our Falls Drive, we spent a bit of time at the beach and lawn in front of a fancy hotel. Pools, beach and sky were all gorgeous! We even saw a bird we’d thought was too rare to find – a Scaly-breasted Munia. They were tiny! We were expecting far larger than that. The White-rumped Shama is gorgeous, but won’t hold still for photos. [We got better pictures a couple years ago, which you can see here.]

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Kona, Hawaii

The last port of call on our cruise was Kona, on the big island of Hawaii, where we were tendered to shore.

Near the dock are a lot of touristy souvenir shops (Who would have guessed?!)

The highlight of our day was to be a snorkeling excursion in the afternoon. We loaded into a Zodiac – an inflatable boat like we used on our boat (long ago!) but considerably longer! We had about 45 minutes of quite bumpy ride to our snorkeling site. Cherryl and I volunteered to ride in the front, where the action would be a bit more intense. It was! Great fun!

Before we got in the water, we saw some Hawaiian Spinner Dolphins in the distance. We’d been told that was a possibility, but not probable. Spinner dolphins are a bit smaller than other dolphins, and are known for doing incredible acrobatics. We saw them shoot vertically straight out of the water, spinning rapidly till they fell back where they started. They would get their tails a few feet out of the water, and sometimes finish with a back flip. Each show would last a couple of seconds… impossible to shoot with an iPhone!

Shortly after their impressive show, several came over to our little boat and checked us out. So cool!

I have no pictures of all the gorgeous fish we saw, because I brought no underwater cameras on this trip. But it was great fun seeing all the colorful fish!

On our way back to the harbor, we stopped at an interesting geological formation. Created by volcanic action, lava tubes form eyes and mouth of a scary goddess. We ventured pretty close in our boat, but the waves crashing on the rocks were a bigger threat to our inflatable boat than the volcanic goddess.

Another stop on the way back was this popular rock jumping spot. We stayed a few minutes to give the jumpers and audience and some applause.

Soon we passed our ship, heading back to the dock so we could ride the tender back to the ship. Too bad the boat isn’t set up to let us board straight from the Zodiac…

We also passed this cool outrigger… I don’t think they could board our ship from the outrigger either.

Our Zodiac captain and first mate:

From the tender on the way back to our ship.

All too soon we were leaving the big island and gearing up for 6 days at sea…

Sailors talk about seeing a Green Flash when the sun goes down. Some folks say it doesn’t exist… but we saw it from Mt. Lemon in Arizona. But we didn’t see it here! I even took a video to see if that would help me see it… but no green flash. Bummer. See if you can see it!

I will admit having wondered if I’d be bored with multiple days at sea. Nope. There is plenty to do on board, and just looking at the ocean is wonderful. Some days were pretty windy, and the bow wave from our ship would break in the wind in pretty patterns.

Sometimes just the colors of the water swirling around us were captivating.

One of my favorite musical groups was the Classical Trio. They played so beautifully! A “Meet the Trio” session let us get to know them a bit better.

Every evening while at dinner, our cabin crew would make sure everything was beautiful in the room, and leave us goodies on the bed… Always news, usually chocolates, and sometimes towel animals.

One of the most unusual shows on board was David Meyer and his Zylosynth. A computerized xylophone, or a synthesizer shaped like a xylophone – you decide. He can make it sound like most anything, and he’s extremely good a fast pieces. And then he turns on the Lasesynth… laser beams that play notes when interrupted. Amazing stuff. His wife appeared sometimes, with fascinating lights she’d swirl around with as she danced. My pictures don’t do justice to the cool performance… You can find some (not very well done) videos on YouTube of this guy and his shows.

After the 6 short sea days, we arrived at Vancouver… at about 5 something am. It was so hauntingly beautiful I couldn’t go back to bed…

We passed under this nicely lit bridge.

Watched a Princess Cruise liner come into port behind us.

A nice view of the city from our verandah… notice all the seaplanes!

The Princess ship, larger than ours, docked right behind us.

On the other side of the cruise terminal, was another Princess ship – this time, the Grand Princess. By far the biggest of the three here now.

The picture below might be a bit confusing… On the left is a bit of our deck and railing. In the center is the fancy cruise terminal, and beyond it, and dwarfing it, is the Grand Princess.

Another confusing shot… This side of the white railing is our ship, the tents appearing to have been stolen from Denver International Airport are on the cruise terminal, Vancouver is in the background, and the Ruby Princess is directly astern of us, on the right.

I couldn’t stop watching the seaplanes taking off… And that’s a good segue to the next portion of our adventure… Because we went straight from the ship to the airport in Vancouver, and off to Our Next Horizon!