A Million Words

...Okay, the pictures might not be worth THAT much, but here are some more anyway!

I stood on the rocky beach to take this picture ... looking out onto the ocean from the coast in Maui.  There's a tender carrying passengers back toward our ship.  Those boats must have made two trillion trips that day, tee hee!

                                                   I snapped a photo of this Coast Guard vessel before it left us to go on our way. I never had this happen on any other cruise...But on this one a Port Police boat and this Coast Guard boat took turns escorting our ship out of the port in L.A. and far into the sea.  Someone came aboard our ship from the Coast Guard before they turned back.  At least we were safe!

Our last port was Ensenada, Mexico (I learned why we had to have a foreign port on our itinerary by law ... I'll explain in another post).  I guess I really liked capturing the view of each pier.  I'm so unaccustomed to ocean travel!

                                                            Ahh, Kauai again! The same property (but different water) where we went tubing; this is a swimming "hole," as our tour guides called it.  Those tiny waterfalls were really warm!  I'm a city girl and thus endlessly fascinated by things such as swimming in non-chlorinated water.

Not sure if you can really tell, but I had to try to get a picture (zoomed as far as possible) of these endangered seals.  They were sunning themselves in a protected area in Mexico.

                                                                This was sad but beautiful; the coast as we left port in Kauai.  I adore that island ... one of those places you find (if you're lucky) in life where you go and just feel at home, no matter whether you know anyone or have ever been there before.

That's our unofficial traveling companion, the Mariner of the Seas, a huge ship in Norwegian Cruise Line's fleet.  I was told that the Mariner is strictly Hawaiian-going, and that their cruises are entirely geared toward the Hawaiian experience, activities, etc.  Don't know for sure, but sounds like fun!  However, I had a dream vacation on our ship as it is!

A Thousand Words

...No, for once, it actually isn't that many words from me!  Pictures instead :)

This first one is when I was in my beloved Kauai, tubing the sugar cane irrigation ditch!  I didn't write much about that yet, did I?  Well, it was my favorite day and my favorite adventure by far!  I'm the one with bad posture (I was squished into my tube!) at the right, lingering last in line because I didn't want to get out!

Docked in Honolulu!  The Hawaiian sky, both in photos and in real life, looks almost fake, it's so unbelievably blue and vibrant! 

There were a thousand beautiful photos to be taken in Hilo's amazing Botanical Gardens & Rain Forest!  This waterfall was really gorgeous.

I learned SO much about the ship and how all this stuff operates at sea ... The sailing life, per se.  This boat boarded our "local pilot," which was something I previously didn't know about.  I loved watching the local sailor, who was taken aboard at each port to help navigate the local waters, come on and off the ship.  

Looking out from the shore in Hilo (botanical gardens); these are the "Twin Rocks," which have a legend attached to them about two lovers who sacrificed themselves to protect their community from seafaring intruders.  My mom adds that "they should put a pink bow on the one that's the girl."  :)

Honolulu as the sun began to set.  












And FINALLY ...

Here is the place of infamy, at least for my dad and me.  It's the area where the man in front of us decided to climb over that fence and sign which told us NOT TO do just that.  Then he proceeded to slip, fall, and half-roll down the hill (the picture does not show how much of an incline it really was) ... after grabbing a rock to save himself, his hands slipped off of that mossy rock, and he rolled even further down the hill before finally being helped to his feet and dragged out by his wife and my dad.  "I'm okay," he said, waving my dad away, but then he ran straight to the resting bench across the path.  There's a reason for fences and warning signs, people!


...Lots more where this came from, so I'll share more soon!  And by the way, if anyone using Blogger knows how to make it so that there aren't such huge spaces in between (I only hit "enter" one time between each, like you would do for a normal line!), please share with me!