Around the world in 104 days!: Hawaii: “Give me liberty or give me dock time!”

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Back in the good old US of A! It was very strange waking up and looking out the window as I do every morning and seeing land. That in itself would have been exciting enough after 11 days at sea but to know that it was The United States, the place we left 4 months ago, home, the closing of the circle, was a lot to process. We watched it come closer and closer and finally around lunch time people starting turning on cell phones. It took me a while to figure out how to use mine again, and I kept losing it because I would forget I had it.

Pre-port for Hawaii was as silly as we thought it would be. “Um – the exchange rate here is 1-to-1, and the water is safe to drink, and people speak English. Oh - and look out for uneven pavement.” We did learn a bit about the Hawaiian culture. Some of the Hilo students told us not to bring any rocks or sand back to the ship; it will bring a curse upon us. They were dead serious. They said they wouldn’t want to sail on if someone tried it. Like in Taiwan, we arrived before we arrived. We stopped earlier in the day in Honolulu for fuel. It was BY FAR the strangest part of the whole trip. I have seen us pull up to almost every country but it was my own that felt the most surreal. First of all it was gorgeous. I could look down into the crystal clear water and see a giant sea turtle. Ilana saw a whale. We pulled up along side and there were people in cafes that were waving to us. I bet they had no idea who we were or where we were coming from. I bet they didn’t know that we were coming home after 4 months of international travel and they were the first Americans we were seeing. “We made it” was all I could think. 4 months, an 11 day crossing – and here we are. I really can’t explain how bizarre it felt. We weren’t allowed off in Honolulu but we stayed there all day. I could use my phone and we could look off the ship to see the mountains and the trees and the harbor. We went through immigration and Marty told us later, “Did you notice that the only immigration officers that brought guns on board were the US ones?” The security in the States was the strictest, even more so than India where we had to go through airport security every time we re-boarded the ship.

Ilana and I got off the ship together in the rain. It wasn't raining heavily so we started walking towards the beach. Eventually it let up and we ran into these two guys who were sitting outside of their truck by the water drinking beer. They stopped us and asked if we would like some. It was our first taste of island hospitality. They were mildly interested in where we had come from, but not as interested as I thought they would be. The SAS staff had starting warning us that we are going to want to talk about this trip more than people are going to want to hear about it, and this was our first exposure to that. "We came on a ship" is a much less useful conversation starter than I expected. Both men were unemployed and just hanging out on the island. They tried to make us eat raw oysters (so raw that they were still alive) but we kindly refused. We headed down the road for another mile and found a small beach. When the rain stopped we could walk around in the bay and lay on the hot black sand. For lunch that day I had a caesar wrap -unimpressive I know, but still – American food! We walked home instead of hitchhiking (which is legal here) and I went to dinner at a real American diner. There were 8 of us and it was like we were on crack. We ordered the strangest combinations of food. Pancakes and eggs and pasta, I had mac and cheese and chocolate milk and part of a waffle. I pretty sure we confused our waitress.

The next day was beautiful for a number of reasons. First, I finally got the bagel and cream cheese I had been craving for months and then went to another beach where they had huge lava rocks for climbing on. We explored the tide pools and found a tie-dye crab and a bunch of odd muscles and a ton of fish. The four girls, me, Sara, Ilana, and Alison traversed way far out on the rocks away from the beach dwellers. It was a slippery climb but we made it. We sat out on the edge of the rocks and fought the urge to jump off of them into the water. We were mostly silent, there wasn't much to say to each other anymore, we were comfortable just sitting there and knowing that we were all feeling the same things. I was wearing a lei that a woman on the street had given to me as a welcome to Hawaii. It was beautiful, made out of huge fresh pink and white flowers. I took it off and we all held a corner and said a silent prayer of thanks to the sea for bringing us here safely. Then I flung the lei out into the water and we watched the current carry it away.

“Next stop home.” I kept saying in my head.