What could be finer than to be in Lahaina!

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Formed by 2 huge volcanoes, Maui is Hawaii's second largest Island. It only lies about 80 miles west of Oahu so with the Sapphire Princess saying goodbye to Honolulu, she dropped anchor off the coast of Maui (Lahaina) in the early hours of Tuesday morning (28th September 2010).

Until now, the main benefit of the cabin being right at the bow of the ship is that there is no noise from late night revellers (although Chris and Roisin weren't expecting the 'piss heads' express on this cruise!!) and no vibration or whirling from the engine room or propeller shafts. Now for everyone not familiar with the lay out of a ship, the anchor locker is usually at the front in the bow. ‘Dropping' anchor' means pressing a button or pulling a lever and letting 80 ton of cast iron drop 150 feet into the water below. The anchor chain rattles as it unravels and grates as it emerges from its opening in the hull. Unfortunately, there is no quiet way of doing this at 5 in the morning!! The noise was deafening and woke Chris and Roisin up with a start. Chris has a good mind to ring the bridge and personally ask for the Officer of the Watch to tell him that his anchor is disturbing those in the cabins below and could he gently lift the anchor and ‘place it in the water next time'.

The reason for the anchor being dropped was that the draft of the quay is not deep enough to accommodate the vessel so is moored offshore and the passengers are taken ashore by tender. A tender is a lifeboat that is released and used to shuttle passengers back and forth all day.

Lifeboats nowadays are huge covered self-contained motor vessels that hold almost 100 persons. Long gone are the days of lifeboats when every seat was a window seat and by every ‘window' seat there was an oar!! Getting on and off these tenders can sometimes be tricky but with the average age of the passengers hitting upwards of 70+, Chris and Roisin were sure that extra provision had been made to make this as safe as possible.

To avoid massive queues to board the tender and the customary pushing and shoving (have you ever been in a sale with pensioners? Well that's what I'm taking about!!) a ticket system is in operation. After being given a ticket, you wait in one of the dining rooms until your number is called.

Due to the coast guard wanting to inspect the tender, there was a 40-minute wait from being handed a ticket to boarding the tender. This didn't go down well will some of the passengers and it all kicked off. I was impressed by the handling of the situation by the person who appeared to be in charge.

‘You should have gotten up earlier then, you stupid old fool!!' was NOT what was said by the supervisor but it was what Chris was thinking!!!

Lahaina is a completely different town to the city of Honolulu. For one, it's a town and Honolulu is a city!! There are no high-rise buildings. The main harbour street running along side the quay is appropriately called ‘Front Street' and is littered with colonial style facades with an array of souvenir shops, cafes and boutiques.

Chris and Roisin had done a bit of homework prior to arriving in Maui and headed for the Sugar Cane Train. This train station lies about a mile North West of the town centre.

The Sugar Can Train is Hawaii's only stream train. As the brochure refers to it as ‘Hawaii's only AUTHENTIC steam train', one can only assume there are plenty of replica ones knocking about!!

The train journey takes about 45 minutes up the coast from Lahaina to the resort of Ka'anapali. Chris and Roisin's ‘homework' didn't extend to see what was in Ka'anapali so they stayed on the train to enjoy the return journey back to Lahaina (as most people did, anyway).

The temperature was again in the mid 80s so it was a welcome relief for Chris and Roisin to sit under a Banyan tree eating a pineapple and passion fruit shaved ice. This is similar to ‘slush puppies' in the UK.

The next port of call is Moorea in French Polynesia about 2330 nautical miles (email Dave Bailey for conversion factor to ordinary miles!!) and another 4 days at sea. Chris is hoping they take on enough food and water to last this time as he found the right arm of Teody, the cabin steward a little tough and is now regretting it because have you ever had your bed made by a one armed Philippino!!

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Comments

[Dave Bailey]

It's a long way Chris. Meanwhile, it's chucking down here and the golf''s on.

[Mrs T]

You guys are really shifting. In normal money it works out at 2,681 miles, wow! Its only about 700 miles from Lands End to John O'G! Just settling down to my dine in for a tenner from M&S, seems a bit rubbish. I'M SOOO JEALOUS!

[Phil]

Ship looks fantastic, some more pics of what its like on board please!! oh and one of the one armed Philippino making a bed, gotta see that ha ha!! Take Care