Hey everyone its day B4 of classes!
We have 11 days of sailing ahead of us on this incredibly vast Pacific Ocean.
Then we hit Asia!
Well I had an absolutely amazing time in Hawaii.
Our first stop was in Hilo on the Big Island. My parents were there in 1993 with Uncle Jack's N.U. basketball team. The Purple Eagles played in a tournament at Univ. of Hawaii at Hilo. They left me home, I was only 3... go figure. I'll bet the town has not changed much since then.
We had a wake up call at 6am to go through U.S. Customs. (no drug sniffing dog this time) But I woke up at 5:30 to see the ship dock and then make some phone calls. Eli and I didn’t have any plans for the day, so we ate breakfast and went back to the room to take a nap for an hour. This was to let the line to get off the ship to go down a bit. When we finally disembarked we ran into a group of our friends who were going to the "Black Beach". So Oliver, Kyle, Jenny, Sarah, Eli and myself grabbed a taxi to the beach. This beach is black because it is made up entirely of black volcanic sand. We had a lot of fun just goofing off, mostly because the beach was packed with other SAS'ers ! At about 1:00pm we blew out of there for a little lunch. After some exploring around the "downtown" area, we found an amazing restaurant called Café Pesto. I had a Caesar salad, with a Japanese eggplant sandwich . After lunch we ran back to the ship to shower and change for our Hawaiian Luau ! We were pretty excited about this event. Almost a third of the kids on the ship were signed up because of all great things we heard. I was pumped for a pig roast, but that turned out to be a bust. First off we toured the University of Hawaii, Hilo Campus, the tour ended at the university’s farm, yes... I said farm. This is where they staged their fake Luau. We were kind of disappointed that there wasn’t a genuine Pig Roast on the beach scenario but... being the adventurer’s that we are, we made it a good time and learned how to do some crazy Hawaiian dances. I found out later from my Anthropology of Foods professor, that everything was catered and not prepared there, which just didn't seem right.
After the Luau a bunch of us SAS'ers took over a local bar called Shooters and enjoyed the Hawaiian spirit(s).
The next day I woke up pretty early and went on a Volcano National Park tour. It was pretty interesting, but a also a very desolate area!
There is a huge difference between Hilo and Honolulu! It was a fun trip though and I didn’t really know anyone on my trip but I met and hung out with a classmate, Carson from Hilton Head. We talked about HHI and I got a first hand perspective on all the tourism and local stuff. Now I have a friend for the next time I go down there... right Mother ! We were all exhausted when we got back on the ship and the whole SAS community was out cold by 8:00pm that night as we were island hopping over to Honolulu.
The island of Oahu and Honolulu:
Well we got into Honolulu about 6am on Wednesday morning. I was off the boat at about 7:45am. I had a tour of Pearl Harbor that was a fantastic! First we experienced the “Pearl Harbor Avenger, which is a submarine that sank numerous Japanese ships and was turned into a museum. Then I watched a video about what and why December 7,1941 happened. Then we got on a U.S. Navy boat and went out to the Arizona Memorial. It was a very emotional and exciting experience seeing theses massive ships sunk right there in the harbor.
Pearl Harbor is a beautiful place and it is hard to imagine that horrible day taking place there. After the tour I went with my friend Greg who comes from New Jersey and goes to school at Pitt, and we met up with a bunch of SAS'ers on Waikiki Beach! We stayed there from 2:30 until 9:30 at night. It was absolutley beautiful! The beach was perfect, and the sunset was amazing. We started out with a huge group and over time it gradually dwindled down to about 8 of us.
We went back to the ship took a shower and then went out to dinner for some nice Hawaiian Pizza. After dinner we met up with a bunch more SAS'ers and hit up the nightlife. A bunch of people got hotels on the beach because everyone is sick of our tiny hard beds on the ship, but I had a tour the next morning at 7:45 again, so I wasn’t planning on staying over, but when we all started heading in I didn’t feel like taking the taxi back at 2am so I stayed in my buddy Kyle’s room. So I woke up at 6am the next morn to meet up with my snorkeling tour. Snorkeling ended up being on the windward side of the island, and for all of those people who don’t know what that means, including me… it rained the whole time. But it was still fun, we saw some nice fish went on a banana boat and had some excellent Mahi Mahi for brunch.
After that, when we got back to the ship and ate lunch at Hooters with my friends and got on the internet to upload some pics, and also bought some postcards. Every single person made ship time, so no one got penalized with dock time!Which means if your late getting back before departure they hold you up next time were in port.
My friends and I had hoped to hit up the Mac 24-7 Bar + Restaurant, 2500 Kuhio Avenue, Honolulu, HI 96815. This is where Adam from Man vs. Food attempted (and failed) a challenge of eating 3-pizza pie pancakes (14" round). They were loaded with all the toppings! I was very excited that I had met some other MVF fans who were going with Eli and me as well…..so it could have been a fun time, The pancake food challenge won against Adam....but it's surely would have been no match for Nicky T! Unfortunately we couldn't squeeze it in.
Pearl Harbor is a beautiful place and it is hard to imagine that horrible day taking place there. After the tour I went with my friend Greg who comes from New Jersey and goes to school at Pitt, and we met up with a bunch of SAS'ers on Waikiki Beach! We stayed there from 2:30 until 9:30 at night. It was absolutley beautiful! The beach was perfect, and the sunset was amazing. We started out with a huge group and over time it gradually dwindled down to about 8 of us.
We went back to the ship took a shower and then went out to dinner for some nice Hawaiian Pizza. After dinner we met up with a bunch more SAS'ers and hit up the nightlife. A bunch of people got hotels on the beach because everyone is sick of our tiny hard beds on the ship, but I had a tour the next morning at 7:45 again, so I wasn’t planning on staying over, but when we all started heading in I didn’t feel like taking the taxi back at 2am so I stayed in my buddy Kyle’s room. So I woke up at 6am the next morn to meet up with my snorkeling tour. Snorkeling ended up being on the windward side of the island, and for all of those people who don’t know what that means, including me… it rained the whole time. But it was still fun, we saw some nice fish went on a banana boat and had some excellent Mahi Mahi for brunch.
After that, when we got back to the ship and ate lunch at Hooters with my friends and got on the internet to upload some pics, and also bought some postcards. Every single person made ship time, so no one got penalized with dock time!Which means if your late getting back before departure they hold you up next time were in port.
My friends and I had hoped to hit up the Mac 24-7 Bar + Restaurant, 2500 Kuhio Avenue, Honolulu, HI 96815. This is where Adam from Man vs. Food attempted (and failed) a challenge of eating 3-pizza pie pancakes (14" round). They were loaded with all the toppings! I was very excited that I had met some other MVF fans who were going with Eli and me as well…..so it could have been a fun time, The pancake food challenge won against Adam....but it's surely would have been no match for Nicky T! Unfortunately we couldn't squeeze it in.
That pretty much was Hawaii in a nutshell! Check out some of my pics I could only get a few up but I put some of the better ones! We have a long stretch on the ship ahead of us, where there will be a lot of reading for school, club and planning meetings (I have a Sea Olympics and SAS Auction planning meetings tonight), school work, and laying on deck getting the last bit of warm weather before we hit Cold Asia soon and of course a nap or two. It was a well appreciated laundry day for the Red Sea (deck 4 port side) today!
My good friends in Buffalo (I won't publicly name any of them) and I had a fun filled Xmas vacation. Here is a link to a video that shows what we were up too. Click on it ... I dare you.
Keep the emails coming, I will try to respond in a timely fashion, but we live a rough life out here so you never know…hahaha. All I can say to my friends who are sitting in class right now in the freezing north eastern United States is, you should have come on SAS with me, I am having the time of my life and the weather here... LOL
Take care, stay safe, and of course stay warm!
Take care, stay safe, and of course stay warm!
Average Water Consumption
Ensenada to Hawaii was 302 liters per person
Reminders
• Vegetarian and vegan options are available in both dining rooms... who cares! (This is for you Aunt Sue)
• Please do not put foreign objects in toilets -- only toilet tissue. Hahaha... Ben...oops!
• Semester at Sea will be posting a "Week in Photos" slideshow on the SAS website each week. They are looking for community submissions that highlight life on the MV Explorer! To submit photos for possible consideration, please add them to the Week in Photos folder in the public folder on the Intranet. – of course I will !
S10 Calendar Update
Wednesday, February 3 is the lost day when we cross the International Date Line. No Class Day is February 2.
Time change
Set your clocks back one hour (1/29).
Laundry Service
(1/30): Deck 4 Port Side – "Red Sea"
Position Update:
22' 9min North
168' 9 min West of the Prime Meridian
Distance traveled since Hawaii: 577 Nautical Miles
Distance to Japan: 2932 Nautical Miles
Sea Depth: 10,000 Ft
Temp: 73
“The greatest ship is friendship.”
- C.Y. Tung, Founder of the Institute for Shipboard Education
Nicholas Alan Tomkins
Semester at Sea Spring 2010
1/17/2010 - 5/5/2010
Check out our current position or other info about my voyage:
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