October 16, 2024 Hilo

Koningsdam journeyed overnight going around the northern tip of the Island of Hawai’i. She arrived in Hilo Bay to dock before 7 a.m. She is just in Hilo for the morning. The ship left the port at 1 p.m. for the 5.5 day voyage back to Vancouver. Once the gangways were in place about 7:15 a.m. people could leave the ship. Hawai’i policy is that ships cannot announce to their passengers that the gangway are one until 8 a.m., but Alex, the cruise and travel director, made the comment about the gangway open before 8 a.m. today during last night’s entertainer introduction.

We were up by 7 a.m. to go to the Deck 9 Lido Market for breakfast and walk just over one mile on the Deck 11 Jogging Track. This morning’s temperature was 19°C with a light breeze. The sky was mostly cloudy. The high for the day was predicted to be 26°C. By mid morning there were fewer clouds and periods of sun.

While waiting for the excursion to start we completed the Hawaiian Tourist board two page survey about our stay in Hawaii including how much money we spent at each port.

The Hawaii Tropical Botanical Garden is our shortest tour, just over two hours. The garden is located north of Hilo on the Hamaha coast, just a 25 minute ride. Again today the vehicle was a minibus which took 12 people. Returning to the ship we passed through Hilo’s Old Town.

This garden, located on 17 acres in the Onomea Valley, was founded in 1984 by Dan J. Lutkenhouse and his children have taken over the garden. We had 90 minutes to wander the paths seeing orchids, palms, Heliconias, ginger, ferns, waterfalls and birds. A lot of the plants were labelled. Most of the rest of the group missed the path to Onomea Bay and took less time in the garden. Although we were five minutes early to the meeting place for the return to the ship, the other ten and the driver had been waiting for us already in the minibus. We took many pictures including purple Pinkquill, red Criswick, Begoniaceae with its pink green leaf, the corn like Arecaeae, a red cone shaped flower fern which may be a colourful Heliconia, golden moss on an Aneityyum Palm and a cannonball tree. We walked to Lily Lake where Koi were swimming in the pond. We walked to the viewpoint overlooking Onomea Bay and read about the fishing village that was abandoned in the early 1900s, its ruins found as the new plants were added to the garden. We started the return gentle uphill route back to the Visitor Centre taking the side path into the Anthurium corner. We have never seen so many different colours of Anthurium. On the path to the next side garden there was an interesting flower that looked like a yellow cone and a large red bundle of flowers, maybe a Tahitian Ginger. In the Banyan garden there was a carved four meter high tiki of the Hawaiian God Ku which was carved by a master carver from a fallen Monkey pod tree. The final garden featured a waterfall and stream where you could hear the birds singing.

Once in the minibus we returned a different way to Hilo driving through the older area, which still had houses from the plantation workers, while houses on the other side were 21st century homes with one acre or more lots carved from the former sugar plantation grounds. The average price of unleaded gasoline on Hawai’i was $4.759 US (about 1.69 Can per litre).

The final stop was the park with the statue of Kamehameha the Great, the king of Hawai’i who conquered all the other populated islands, except Kauai, which conceded to him in 1810 which united the archipelago. King Kamehameha was born near Hilo on the day that Halley’s comet streaked across the sky in 1758. The Hawaiians did not use calendars. He died in Kona in 1819. Our driver took a photo of each couple in front of the statute.

We were back at the ship around 11 a.m. and had a light lunch at the Grand Dutch Café, before taking our deck of Five Crown cards with us up to Deck 12 and had coffee in the Explorers Café and played cards. The captain made an announcement at 12:30 p.m. that Koningsdam would be underway around 1 p.m. for the 2,424 nautical mile voyage to Vancouver at average speed of 18.5 knots. The sea should be favourable with gentle swells and some wind.

This evening’s theme is Orange Party. It celebrates Holland America’s connection to the Netherlands and its Royal Family, the House of Orange. Passengers are encouraged to wear something orange in the evening.

We ate dinner with our usual table mates. The others have reservations at Pinnacle Grill and Canaletto restaurants tomorrow, so we advised our waiter that none of us would be coming for dinner tomorrow evening. The evening entertainers for the 6 p.m. and 8 p.m. shows, were the trio, The Birdwatchers. They played to a full house. So far this week’s musicians and comedian are much better than last week’s performers.

At 8:45 p.m., to kickoff the Orange Party fun at B.B.King’s Blues Club, there was 15 minutes of line dancing with Declan on the stage leading almost 40 line dancers squeezed into the 12 foot x 12 foot area. During last week’s lessons Declan was encouraging the morning line dance participants to come and dance this evening. There were lots of smiles. Even a cute energetic 14 month old boy was bouncing to the music and dancing, trying to imitate the adults. It was standing room only in the 200 seat club. As usual, when the musicians are playing, we are dancing with our earplugs inserted for a comfortable level of sound. As the Orange Party in B.B. King’s Blues Club got under way, the Orange Night Bar Hop conga line of more than 60 people, singing to the music, wove its way into the already crammed venue. This was stop number two for the group.

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