Hawaii cruise day 7

Aloha kakahiaka,

Land ahoy.....there's Hawaii, the Big Island and the Kona coast over there,all

sparkly and beautiful in the sunshine. The Big Island is the youngest,

meaning formed by the most recent volcano and indeed, it is still growing

and twice as big as all the other Hawaiian Islands combined.

We tendered to shore and the actual boat ride took all of 5minutes, the

preparations to go took oh, about 5 1/2 hours. After doing this tender very

quickly and efficiency for 17 years our turn took forever because someone new

 handling the shore arrival wasn't prepared for the onslaught of a couple

thousand people. It was a pita for a lot of people and a pity for the Carnival Spirit

 on her last run. As our group didn't have shore excursions planned we were

amongst the last ones called to get on the tender and we went on  #20. Took a few

pics then walked and shopped to familiar yet new old places. As tomorrow night

has been designated elegant Hawaiian dinner night the 3 ladies in our group

decided to shop for Hawaiian dresses after the guys each picked up an aloha shirt

in the first Abc store we came to. We ended up back at the dock to get a

shuttle to Hilo Hattie's where we spent some time trying on stuff, all found

their dress but me; the best I could do was a colorful silk screened top in

red and yellow and a puka shell necklace and i'll wear with it and either

white or black pants.

At the till I was surprised to receive another dress completely free! i

LOVE Hawaii! It was Hatties choice in red, orange and yellow cotton

and it had instructions and diagrams of long, lean models

showing how to wear it in 20 different stylish ways..........but on the insde

it said 14 different ways! The models all looked fabulous of course but

once back on the ship and in the privacy of our cabin i attempted to style

myself some way to wear it as shown. Well! Humph! It turned out to be a

skinny scrap of fabric.....a scarf only longer.......and leaner. I laughed

myself silly trying it out as a halter topped long full length dress but it

was only about 10" wide; this would be the width that should go completely

around the lady, cover her back and continue on to overlap at the front

while the two top corners would make a stylish bodice (with all the excess

fabric gracefully folding over on itself, lol) The two ends served as a tie

and a large floppy one at that in the picture softly knotted at the nape of

the neck not like me sucking it in and attempting to tie it in a knot with

the 1/4" ends. Omg it was just way too funny but i suppose a 25 pound 4

foot lady might be able to get it around her and have it be the correct length

at the floor and she would look fabulous darlink. No offence but I don't think

theres a Hawaiian lady alive who would be able to wear that dress.

The aloha shirts the guys bought were in a white and black map pattern and

when we returned to the ship noticed the crew all wore the same shirts. I can

tell dinner tomorrow night is going to be fun......

Dinner was lovely and my choice was a vegetarian lentil dish (passed on the

chance to eat frogs legs from the "didya" menu (did you ever want to try )

while Bob ate spaghetti. A few days ago i passed on the alligator as well,

i'm getting very wimpy these days....i used to try new things....something must

 be wrong with me. Later we went to the bingo and be dammed if I didn't get

down to one number very quickly. I had alreadyanticipated another win

happening cuz i'm on a winning streak and fearing the rath of the other

cruisers  i quickly passed it to Bob and told him to stand up, we needed O-65...

and number after number was called and he was the only one standing

indicating he had one number to go......the caller asked if he was sure;

did he have only one line.....nope, two lines minus one number! Would you

believe O-64 was called then O-66 as well as enough other numbers to fill in

everyone's cards and finally somebody who didn't even stand got a bingo and

$750. But it wasn't one of us, maybe we're waiting for the big snowball prize!

That's the Spirit out there

Some of the above were taken from inside the tender

Tonights towel animal was hanging from the rafters

Aloha auinapo