Saturday was a fine day of good weather, although there were some scattered showers.
At 11:28 a.m. the Hilo Pilot came aboard. He came out from shore in a fast little cruiser. By 12:15 noon he had brought us into the harbour and smoothly into
the Hilo dock. The temperature was 25c. We were only in Hilo for a day.
At 8:02 pm we undocked. The pilot was aboard again, of course, and only left the ship when we were well and safely out of port.
I awoke with pain from eating too many foods that weren't on my medical diet of
the time, so I couldn't go on the lava tour with Ben. We lost $40.00 because of
that. But I was glad I didn't go when he came back to tell me how cold it was
at 4,000 feet.
He said this lava tube was big enough for a train engine to pass through. Of course no train does, of course. The floor was rather rough, with sudden puddles,
so it was easy for him to get his feet wet. I think I may have described the lava tube before in my earlier posts, but I will tell you something about it again.
All the lava he saw was old. None of it was hot and red. The lava I saw near the shore in Hawaii in other places is black. Black as pitch. It was originally
foamy when it was liquid. Now it is filled with little holes, like cinders. All the lava Ben saw was also black. He saw huge slabs of it on the ground. It looked to him like the slabs of granite on what is called "The Canadian Shield near the Great Lakes.
Ben and I used to live near the Canadian Shield. The granite of the Shield is among the oldest rock in the world. Granite is a very hard igneous rock, yet theShield bears deep scratches from when glaciers from the last ice age moved over it. The slabs of granite are flat and smooth except for those scratches, and
sometimes there are cracks with plants like blueberries growing in them. The granite rises gently from the land like the muscles do on you upper arm. They aregentle rises and the earth around them is a cm at the very edge, growing deeperas it goes on away from the slab and probably down something of a hill.
In the black cracks of this lava little green plants were just beginning to grow, so I guess it couldn't have been all that old. First some of the stone hasto break down, or some earth must find its way into the cracks, maybe by the action of wind. Then plant seeds have something to nourish them. After that the
breakdown of leaves and so on continues to make more earth. Lava earth is very,
very fertile. That's why people are still willing to live and have their fields near active volcanoes. Sometimes they lose their luck and are buried, as in Pompeii.
We ourselves live on the side of a very ancient volcano that hasn't erupted for
millions and millions of years. There are small lava tubes on our mountain. They are far too small to walk in. I know you have vulcanism in China, so I don'tknow why I'm telling you so much about lava!
The big lava tube Ben walked in had electric lights with an orange glow. They were set into both sides of the black tube and he said they were just bare light
bulbe, nothing fancy. The walls in the tube were very rough. Of course as the
outside of the lava cooled the liquid inner part continued to flow and that's how lava tubes are made. After a long walk through the tube, although the tube continued on there were no more lights, and they left it. Ben wasn't very impressed, but I think it was because he was so cold. When he showed me a coloured photograph of the lava tube he was in that appears in a copy of Lonely Planet he hasabout Hawaii, I thought it looked really spectacular!
Ben was born two months too early and that may be why he hates the cold. Or it
could be because he was just 14 when the war ended and he, his little sisters and mother had to flee in the beginning of a bitter March from the quickly advancing Russian front. His skin is always much hotter than mine, and this evening when it was 80 F. he was chilly, while I was very comfortable. I always stand thecold better than he does, but he stands the heat better than I do. I don't like the weather too hot. It has been too hot for me this past week so I was sluggish, while he was energized. Now it has cooled down a little and I'm myself again.
It also turned out that I was getting quite sick with a throat and chest infection and the extra sleep did me a lot of good. I caught that infection aboard ship. A lot of people had terrible coughs, and I did a lot of dry coughing when I
caught it, and had throat and sinus trouble. One of the reasons we drove down instead of flying was to avoid my catching an infection due to the crowded conditions and poor ventilation on airplanes. I since learned that air from the public areas on the ship is recirculated back into the staterooms, so I imagine that'
s how I caught this, as I was careful to avoid people who were coughing and to wash my hands, and so on. Next time we go won't be when the cold and flu season
has begun.
I wasn't able to go ashore in Hilo, and Ben didn't see much of it. Neither of us like cities. North American cities seem too much alike to me. Hawaii is partof the U.S.A, so it is very North American in the way its business district is
built and a lot of the same kinds of stores as on the mainland and in Canada arefound there. I don't much care for wasting time shopping when I can be on a ship! I'm sorry if you are disappointed not to learn more about Hilo.
The sea was still rough as it had been since San Diego. It becomes a little annoying during the first few days until finally you get used to staggering and learn better ways to walk. I found that short, quick steps gave me more control.
Our room steward told me his legs were sore from bracing himself all the time.
His name is Mat and his home is in Indonesia. Stewards work on contract and have no pensions. He has three children, all girls, and aged 14/ 11/ 6-1/2. They
hope for a boy as Indonesia doesn't have any old age security pensions for retired elders.
That night I watched Pirates of the Carribean on the room tv while my tired husband slept. It was highly recommended by Laura and Don, a couple of our tablemates. Johnny Depp is terrific! I want to see him in more movies. I've heard that he is able to play different kinds of characters and is a very good actor. Some actors seem just to play themselves in films.
We had congenial tablemates. Ben met a retired Roman Catholic priest named Norman and they had an interesting talk together.
We did go ashore in Honolulu. About that in Part A6
