Aloha from the Big Island

Hawaii so far has been amazing, the local yacht clubs - Waikiki and Hawaii have been incredibly welcoming and of course a special mention should go to the Magic Island Fuel Pontoon who hosted the ladies night last Friday, which was great fun.

We're making the most of our time here in paradise - after all, don't think I'll ever make it out this way again, which is a shame as it's an amazing place. We've been up to North Shore to chill for a couple of days. The area is so different to Waikiki which is a big of a concrete jungle, in contrast North Shore is very quiet with masses of fantastic beaches and of course for you surfing fans it's home to the Banzai Pipeline, which is an awesome sight ... there was certainly no way we were going swimming in that! Instead we opted for Stand Up Paddle lessons in Hale'iwa (cheers Adam!) which was great fun ... pictures to follow when I can pinch someones laptop and don't have to rely on internet cafes. We also visited Waimea Falls - where episodes of Lost have been filmed apparently - for an early morning swim. Thursday we went to a Luau which was hosted by Glenn Medeiros (remember him from the 80's!) and the Clipper girls even managed to get our photo taken with him - very cheesy. Friday Neil had organised a diving trip - I didn't quite manage to do the dive proper, couldn't really get my head round breathing underwater, it just seemed all wrong. That was disappointing as having had a brief glimpse underwater it looked fantastic. Fortunately it hasn't put me off, but rather convinced me that I need to practice the breathing in a swimming pool first before jumping into the ocean!

Today we flew to the Big Island and are busy exploring in our hire car - currently we're in Pahoa. Tomorrow we've got a helicopter ride over the volcano, so I'm rather excited about that.

Comments

[Barbara]

Hi Janet,

Checked the clipper site the news page says that the others went off as planned but Durban still has some maintaince to do before setting off. Hopefully it won't be too long before you are racing them to Santa Cruz

Sounds like you have had a great time in Hawaii can't wait to hear all about it when you get back

Barbara

[Melanie Guthrie]

Got Radio 2 on here at work, Ken Bruce's Popmaster quiz has just had a Glen Medeiros song on, contestant had to say when it was in charts here.  Got it wrong ..........