Hilo, Hawaii - 4 Oct 94

Our first email home... (from Hilo, Hawaii)

THIS IS DAY 2 out of three hundred and sixty five... what are we doing?!

Last night, both Kerry and I felt quite down and wondered what we had got ourselves into and whatever it was, how we could extract ourselves from it.

It took some time for each of us to get to sleep but we decided we needed a night's sleep for "perspective". We were still sleeping, rejuvenating our physical and spiritual reserves, at 7.30 this morning [actually I was up to Cathy a couple of times around 3am giving her Dimetapp medicine - K] when a very loud phone call woke us all.

Hilo Hotel View It was the reception. We were to prepare for evacuation within the hour - there was a tsunami or tidal wave alert following an earthquake in Japan. As we could see from our window, our hotel, the Hotel Naniloa, is right on Hilo Bay, literally on the volcanic thrust into the bay, and a previous tsunami had reached the third floor.

The reception warning said to leave our luggage, and so we woke the kids and then we all rummaged through our suitcases to pack the essentials - valuables and things to cope with whatever delays etc were in store - Tsunami Graph into our hand luggage, and when the hand luggage was full, we used the hotel pillow cases.

As we finally left our room thirty minutes after the warning, another hotel staff member came by and suggested he would take the lot. Not that our room on the twelth floor was likely to get wet, but mud through the lower floors might close the hotel for days. We turned around and started again.

But I'm ahead of myself.

We left our families at the Sydney international terminal and walked into our adventure - any profound or far-reaching thoughts were precluded by immigration officials, by getting the duty-free slips taken, by convincing a security official that our duty free film (not in a lead-lined bag) should not go through the xray machine (successfully but not without some loss of global harmony of the human spirit), by Kerry finding her hand luggage was too heavy for her, and finally by Cathy's sudden need for a new disposable camera...

Cathy was a great travelling companion for me on our first leg to Cairns. With her ongoing questions and comments on the flight, the plane, the drinks, the seat and the toilets, and the interuption (and for Cathy novelty) of a large early meal about 5pm, the flight went quickly for me.

We were just getting into a game of chess when the meal arrived. Those who have flown will know economy seats are not large enough to have a half-played game of chess (even with a magnetic miniature set) left up when the meals arrived. But trying to convince Cathy of that at the same time as accepting two meals and two drinks was a challenge.

I must admit I was nervous as Cathy explored each item of her meal as a great exploration exercise - everything opened before anything was finished. The only casualty however was some of her many deserts - some strawberry jam - taking a liking to her Sydney 2000 t-shirt.

Behind me Kerry and Justin were not doing so well. Justin I gather was travelling very well, but Kerry was feeling basically lousy. It certainly confirmed our preference for the future for seats all together rather than being separated or having anyone too far away from an aisle.

Cairns terminal was uneventful, save for Kerry's malaise (we hoped a travel sickness pill might soon help), and we regrouped for the second longer leg to Honolulu. The plane was completely full by now and our interest in swapping our window seats for four in the middle was unconsummated.

We soon worked out that there was a four hours' time difference between Cairns and Honolulu, so putting our clocks forward to midnight and the effects of a large meal on the earlier flight meant we all gave the evening meal a miss. Cathy went to sleep almost immediately - Kerry had told her it was midnight when she put her watch forward and Cathy took the hint. The rest of us took an hour or so longer to commit to blankets and eye-patch, but the delay in serving the meal meant slumber won.

Justin and I, now together, slept fairly well (all considering), but again the row behind had problems. Kerry wasn't feeling so bad, but Cathy came down with a croupy cough and fever - I wonder if it had anything to do with her playing so closely together with the other children on the playground at Sydney's international terminal - it must be a mecca for jet-setting bugs. The lady in their aisle seat was quick to assist - whether from altruistic or self-preservation motives we will never know.

We survived - with the help of Panadol - to arrive at a cloudy, wet and hot Honolulu (reached the 90s in the US fahrenheit scale) right on time at 8.30am. If we weren't yet certain that we had too much hand luggage the progress through the terminal, onto a bus, off again, through passport control, and then to the baggage area soon convinced us.

There we found our large suitcase had also not survived without some damage. One of the large wheels was broken off, a fact we discovered through the long walk with luggage in the heat to the interisland airline at its different terminal. We've resolved to learn how to procure and use airport trolleys in future.

We had expected to be met in Honolulu, and while we were waiting I went across to the bank to withdraw US$ from our US$ bank account - using the card and account I had pre-tested in Sydney - but oh no, nothing was meant to work that day - luckily I stopped trying before the machine swallowed my card. A call to the New York-based bank couldn't provide any immediate help - I was confident that my PIN was accurate, and this seemed to them the most likely problem.

It was at this point we trekked back across the airport territory (we were noticing the humidity by this time) to drop off some hand luggage at the lockers, so we could set out on our day. A delay at the bus stop before the right bus came, almost had us take a cab, but finally the bus came and was airconditioned and the day started brightening up.

Arizona Memorial Pearl Harbour The Arizona Memorial (at Pearl Harbour) looked good, and just up Justin's street, but there was a delay of almost 90 minutes before the next group tour started.

USS Arizona While the others looked at the museum and grabbed a snack lunch, I darted off by taxi to an audio-visual warehouse/shop to purchase the portable DAT recorder (that I had prearranged by phone). Unfortunately having the address was not good enough - the cab driver didn't know it and couldn't read his map. He asked me to take the map and guide him. It was a very long road and the number I was looking for was 98820 - only later did I learn that the first two digits referred to a block or couple of blocks. Anyway we found the shop - I paid 3% more on Visa card rather than use our supply of travellers' cheques which were now looking rather inadequate given we weren't able to use ATMs - and dashed back to the Memorial.

Tourists at work The Arizona tour was very good and enjoyed by all. It was amazing to think that only fifty-three years earlier the events of Pearl harbour happened. Pity the theatre air-conditioning wasn't working and the temperature inside was higher than outside - Kerry was again feeling ill, not helped I am sure by the heat.

After the tour we talked a minibus operator into letting us all join his trip back to Waikiki, where we had a forty minute stroll to see what everyone raved about. It certainly wasn't the waves on the day we were there. Apparently the high waves only occur in winter - still it was great to see the beach and the hotels and the stretch limos and the Japanese girls photographing each others against the lifeguard's surfboard.

The taxi trip back (via Sony Hawaii's warehouse to pick up the DAT recorder held for me) was relatively uneventful, if somewhat expensive, and we managed to gain an earlier flight to Hilo - indeed there was no problem, we were four of sixteen passengers on the 140 seater 737, which also showed us some of the other islands.

At Hilo we struggled first with our disabled luggage (finding that the large suitcase had now lost another wheel), and then with the Dollar Rent-a-Car person who didn't have any liability cover to sell us - and we had already paid in advance. Though I hate insurance companies as a matter of principle, in the United States with its reputation for suing everything in sight, we were a little nervous of being uninsured.

Eventually by talking to other car renters we discovered (and hopefully it is true) that Hawaii has no-fault third party liability insurance by law, which makes owners liable to take out such insurance and those that suffer do not need to prove negligence or otherwise to make a claim. So we took the car, and then had the relatively small problems of driving on the right, using gear levers on the wrong side and working out how the parking brake released. I sort of felt sheepish going back to the guy I'd had the argument with to admit I couldn't release the brake! Kerry also had fun with her seat-belt, an automated device that worked when the door opened and shut.

I've already mentioned that the hotel is right on the bay, quite a lovely location for views. Just right for tsunamis too. The evacuation centre was the local YMCA, and we spent a few hours there, chatting with others with kids and listening to the radio reports of the tsunami approaching. At around midday it was all over. The all-clear sounded.

The actual waves ranged from five inches to one and a half feet in height. We returned to a hotel being reconstructed - all the files and computers etc had been moved - and to a swimming pool where all the chairs were in the water - they had been put there to stop them being swept away. Didn't stop us - the pool was great - our first "time out" since we left Sydney.

Hilo Hotel Pool This afternoon, I am relieved to say, we are feeling much more positive. An easy afternoon, a new suitcase with hopes of gaining reimbursement from Qantas, arrangements to put in place a new PIN for our US$ account all help. But I think the pool was the most important part!

Cheers from me - David. And farewell from the rest of us. Things have got to get better from here - Kerry.

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