Eli: Last of Hawaii

22 April 2008

So these past few days I’ve been playing a tourist. Went on an island tour and saw various beaches including the famous Northshore. It was very windy but nice beach. I was surprised it is still undeveloped and country. Diamond head was next up and whew! What a climb but the view was spectacular.

Ordinarily, I’m a chicken but I thought this would be interesting or at least be a good story to tell. I saw a brochure on swimming with sharks… then a friend of mine mentioned it and wanted to go. Since then, the though has been ruminating in my brain and well… I went. I was so nervous I didn’t sleep – the thought of swimming with sharks and flashes of the movie 'Jaws' kept coming to mind. It wasn’t as scary as my dreams since we snorkeled in a cage… when the sharks heard the boat motor and of course, the smell of breakfast they came swimming as fast as they could.

Dole plantation wasn’t as heart stomping but it was a good way to relax and see lots of pineapples. My roommate and I had a bet going on where pineapples grow – she said in the ground, I had said in trees. We were both wrong but we’d been debating about it for a good two months – since we met. I didn’t realize there were more than one kind of pineapple but there were some from Vietnam and Paraguay – there are 3,000 species and hundreds of hybrid of the bromeliad family. More interesting is that Dole, first started out as a fruit stand and became famous by canning pineapple for further distribution.

19 April 2008

I’ve been living on the ship for 2 months now. I signed off today – no more ship life. It’s a strange feeling from going from one extreme to the other. Living in small quarters and always being around people versus now, I have a hotel room all to myself. I think people have grown on me. I’m kinda lonesome. It’s a bit difficult to describe but I have always hungout with at least one person on board. On ship, I had two roommates so I was never alone in the room. In my free time, there was always someone that also wanted to go sight-seeing with me. Granted, it was different people but the fact that there were always people around just grew on me. Never was there a time of being alone since there was always something to see and someone to go with. Again, as in all my seasonal work I have met some really interesting people and glad I had the chance to know them.

Before, when I lived at the South Pole, the population was small at 265 and I felt a bit overwhelmed at times because of the lack of privacy – you were constantly around people (except for my day off where I became a hermit and remained in my jamesway.) Working 6 days a week at Pole was tough because I was not used to being around constant people. I am very fond of the Pole and would like to return someday – perhaps winter over but was concerned about the lack of being alone – strange as that may seem in an area that is secluded from civilization. I mean, if you wanted to not be around people there was no where to escape except your own room.

Now that I’ve worked 7 days a week for 2 months on ship, had total lack of space and privacy I feel that it has forced me to be more social and probably equip me better for another Pole experience or a place where there are always people present. While in training, my roommate was the social one and I was quite the introvert. I did get frustrated with all the people about and yearned for my own space. I have realized without any extroverts present, I tend to become quite the recluse. At Pole, I realized I have to force myself to talk to people just so I didn’t seclude myself. On ship, it was quite different. I didn’t have for force myself to talk to people – everyone was friendly enough for the most part. Ship life is good… I like most of the people. Granted there are 1,000 workers onboard but I only had contact with few whom have become friends.

The part I did not like about ship life is the actual job. It’s more like 85% cleaning and 15% making sushi, when I actually made it to the sushi bar. In the beginning, I was working in the bakery and these past two weeks I somehow turned into a prep cook pealing potatoes, carrots and whatever else that was not prepared or sent to a different restaurant to help out. The mentality on-ship is teamwork… teamwork is great only if everyone is working together. But a majority of the time, 20% of the crew would work while the remaining 80% did not, which grew extremely frustrating when the supervisor would get upset with the 20% working and not say anything to the 80%.

After I signed off the ship, two buddies came with me to hangout. We ended up going to Hanauma bay for snorkeling. The water current was a bit strong so I was a little nervous but with the reef so close, we were swimming in about 3-4 feet of water. There wasn’t as much fish as I thought there would be but I was still quite close to shore. Looking at the bay from above, we should have gone out farther. My mask kept fogging up so I couldn’t see and I think the fish knew I couldn’t swim so well since they would dart out of nowhere and swim right up to us then take off. I’m really glad my friends joined me even though it was only a few hours before they had to return to the ship.

Hanauma bay would be more of an all day trip but living and working on ship, crew only get a glance at the island and not even the touristy glance… for the most part, many crew only have time to go ashore for a quick trip to the mall for a bite of lunch, a quick trip for souvenirs, or a quick walk around – things that are only a few minutes away from port unless you get special permission to arrive at work late or leave early.

It didn’t occur to me until now, but I think there will be many things I will miss. Not only the friends I have made but also the ship motion – sea sickness finally went away but it’s nice to be lulled to sleep with the rocking motion of the boat… kinda like falling asleep in a hammock except more comfortable. It took some getting used to but I will miss working in a huge chunk of floating metal, living and working in a tight-knit community – the friends you make while onboard are quite close and even seeing the guests come in, chatting with them and finding out where they are from.

I doubt I will work for another cruise line but the opportunity to do so is an experience to remember. Furthermore, I can mark it off of ‘things to do in my lifetime’ checklist. So far, plans are to return to southern California. I have made some good friends there and I miss them.

Hanauma bay

some friends joined me snorkeling at Hanauma bay.

Josie (on the left) works in the bakery - amazingly, she's trying out to summer at the South Pole.

Takita (right) works in the same restaurant as me - East meets West. Surprisingly, we went to the same culinary school in San Francisco... at the same time! We only lived a few blocks from each other but have never met before working on this ship.

getting ready to swim with sharks - at least we were in a cage.

to attract the sharks, they had couple of buckets of fish

yikes, how scary! there was a great white in the area last month but these sharks are mostly silky, galapagos and a few tiger sharks... small for a shark but very big to me - all were bigger than 5 feet long.