Rainy Day in Hilo
24 March 2018 | Reeds Bay, Hilo, Hawaii
Helen
Watched a good movie last night called Class Action with Gene Hackman. We had never seen the movie before and thoroughly enjoyed it. Stayed up late, Mark set up our TEP for wifi since there is none in this area. We caught up on all the comments on the blog. Thanks so much to everyone who added comments. Also, got our emails so we spent a few hours doing all that. Today we were up early. We had to get a few accounts to balance. I highly recommend Discover Card as we paid it a little late and they removed late penalties as they know that we are traveling. Kohls on the other hand...we didn't know we had anything owing and we didn't get our mail until Mexico. They charged a horrific extra amount, even taking some of the late fees off...I will not be using their card again. As we were doing our computer updates, Mark noticed the Star Princess coming in very slowly to the dock behind where our boat is anchored. They are in the picture attached to this blog, as are we. Then we got in the dinghy and headed to shore with all of the accumulated trash from out crossing. We both took our rain jackets as it had been raining pretty good all morning. Dinghied to the other end of the beach and were able to pull the dinghy out a short ways and tied our locking cable around a tree root. Then we headed over to the bus stop, but waited a long time and no bus. There were many buses coming from the cruise dock. Lots of tour buses too. So, eventually we flagged down a cab and the lady took us to the mall. Mark visited Home Depot while I checked out Macy's. I did try on some clothes and was very happy that my clothes size shrunk on our long sailing adventures. Yeah!! We stopped at Safe Way which is a huge grocery store. They had a fabulous selection of everything. We are renting a car tomorrow for two days and will do a grocery run before we return the car. The cheapest car on the island is a Ford Mustang Convertible! We enjoyed lunch out with free wifi. It was good to get some updates of software that we needed. Then we walked over to Walmart as they were supposed to have a free shuttle bus back to the cruise ship, which we were going to take. However, the line up was too long. We would have had to wait for 2 buses just to get on. So, we talked about finding a cab. A few people were into a van cab and we asked if they had room for two more. We knew that they were going back to the ship. They were happy to have us join them. One couple was from Siberia and working on the cruise ship. Mark asked the driver to drop us at our corner, so that worked out very well, with a much shorter walk back. Our dinghy was safe and secure. We had to paddle a fair way to get off the rocky bottom of that end of the bay, before we could start the engine. I am still so impressed that the dinghy motor is starting on the first pull! Back to the boat in pouring rain. The cruise ship is still at dock. Not a very good day to tour the volcanoes. We hope everything clears for tomorrow and Monday, which is a holiday in this state. We can see a few waves spilling over the break water in several places. That actually rocks our boat when it reaches us. There are thick clouds surrounding us and a very misty layer hiding the hills in the distance. Lots of rain, too. We are enjoying chips and hummus with our sg&t. All is well aboard Charabia. Thanks again for the many emails, texts, phone calls and satellite messages. We appreciate hearing from you and miss everyone. When I get up from sitting, my legs are aching and do not want to work. We have overdone the walking after being on the water for so many days with not much walking at all. Cabin temperature is 77 degrees. Our batteries are in need of some sun. Maybe tomorrow? Enjoy the weekend!!