After 6 days at sea we reached Kona, on the big island of Hawaii.  I was hoping that we would see the volcano as we approached in the dark – it would have been stunning.  But alas, Kona is on the west side of the island and the active volcano, Kilauea, is on the east coast of this the largest island in the Hawaiian Archipelago.  We may have a chance to see it when we call on Hilo, which is on the east coast.

At this port, and several others on this cruise, there is not a pier large enough for our ship, so we anchored about a mile off shore and used our life boats as water taxis to take us ashore.

  The small pier that they ferried us to, is in the same cove that is used as the starting point of the swimming portion of the Ironman Triathlon – the women’s portion of which is to be held this coming Saturday.  There were Ironman facilities all over town – official registration, bicycle storage, etc. as well as a proliferation of Ironman promotional material for sale.  I didn’t buy an Ironman shirt – because the hypocrisy was too much to bear.

Once ashore we made a trip to a local grocery store to replenish some supplies and buy some things we had forgotten.  No matter how hard we try, we always forget some things – usually small stuff, not money or passports.  In this case it was nail clippers, which seem to be a common item we forget, resulting in me having dozens of them at home.

Tina advised us that her customer and my dentist, Melissa Christian was here preparing for the Ironman – she is an accomplished triathlete and competes around the world.  We saw her name on the entrants list and exchanged texts, wishing her good luck in Saturday’s race.  I cannot imagine what it takes to do a triathlon – 2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike ride, 26.2 mile run!!!!

We hopped back on the tender and headed back to the ship.

Tomorrow morning Honolulu