No blog is complete without a hopeful first post concluding with false promises of punctuality. It has been this way since the internet was born, an exercise we used to celebrate with animated GIFs of yellow signs and cyber-construction workers. So please bear with me as I now follow the next step of the enduring ritual: the apology for being late. Will the third cycle of continued broken promises continue? Stay tuned to find out!
So while when I last left you we were just arriving in Hawaii I am now in fact writing this between the competing skylines of Shanghai, bobbing in the Huangpu. I will crank back the memory machine for you though, with the aid of my photo catalogue.
Hawaii was one of those places that I honestly didn't really ever have much interest in going to. It seemed to me overly touristy and disgenuine, the kind of place people without passports go to in search of the 'exotic.' Perhaps that's more true in Maui, but I was thoroughly impressed by our port of call, Hilo, and the eastern Big Island. It was remarkable how honest it felt; the climate, scenery, and easy-going lifestyle all lived up to the hype in my book.
Our first day, Patrick, Evan, Matt and I were assigned to 'B squad' while the 'A team' went off to film an Unreasonable workshop. Our job was to get pretty b-roll, which is really the ideal assignment to get in Hawaii. We took a cab to the airport and, being the only one who brought his driver's license, I was designated driver of whatever rental car we could scrounge up. Apparently, it's a good idea to book a rental car in advance – as we approached each counter (Avis, then Thrifty, then Hertz, then National, then Enterprise...) we were told they were sold out until the good folks at Budget informed us they still had SUVs available. Being of the particularly gear-heavy persuasion, this interested us greatly and we seized the opportunity. Before long I found myself behind the wheel of a brand new hybrid Ford Explorer with SYNC by Microsoft technology built in. It was actually really refreshing to drive again and made me feel useful during a day when I could do little more than assist the video folks and take behind the scenes photos.
The four of us broke for lunch and sated our craving for fish tacos at a local eatery along with a shared pitcher of Kona Porter before setting out again. We drove east and got lost on the small roads that criss-cross Puna, ending at a fantastic viewpoint overlooking a hundred foot cliff. Crashing waves rolled large black lava-rock boulders on the beach below and created an incredible sound. Old stairs clinging to the edge of the cliff face descended to nothing. We assembled Matt's home-made jib arm and swung a camera out over the precipice to get an epic opening shot for our first episode of the web series.
Our drive back to the ship that night felt like a car commercial. We leveraged the awesome technology that is SYNC by Microsoft; basically an extremely over-complicated menu system for pairing a bluetooth device to the car stereo. After ten minutes pulled over (the car forces you to stop, because surely there are no passengers present to do this for you) we finally got the iPhone to talk to the car and before long we were blasting Thrift Shop with the windows down and moonroof open as we snaked our way through one-lane roads in the dark, surrounded by jungle.
After sleeping on the ship, we returned the car the next morning and set out to capture some timelapses. There aren't many sandy beaches on the Big Island, but Mark, Larissa, Jessie, and I took the cameras and some sound equipment to record a bit before going for a swim in the ocean on Richardsons Beach.
Overnight the Explorer snaked her way through the islands of Hawaii to port in Honolulu to fill up on fuel. A large storm out in the Pacific caused our captain to decide to stay ported for an extra evening there. Despite being in a new city, we weren't allowed off the ship, but the views of downtown Honolulu, Pearl Harbor, and Diamond Head Mountain were an enjoyable alternative to the open ocean we had grown accustomed to seeing outside our portholes. The most memorable experience of our brief time off Oahu however had to be seeing dolphins swimming alongside the ship as we left port.
Hawaii was good practice on how to operate off-ship as a crew in a relatively safe environment: unfamiliar, but with the same currency, language, laws, and customs we were already used to. When we re-boarded however, we knew we were headed for rougher seas, both literally and metaphorically.