Cruise: Kona

Kona is a tender port, which means there is no dock,and you have to go ashore aboard the cruise ship's tenders –actually three of the powered lifeboats, each of which holds 60 people or so. Once again, our elevated status as residents of a suite meant that we got to skip the line-ups and board the tenders whenever, rather than wait for an assigned section. Ah the joys of being rich -- or at any rate, living like we were rich.


rear view of a tender mounted on the cruise ship as a lifeboat

We spent the morning shopping in the local artisan market, buying various knick knacks, etc., and wandering around the town.

The highlight was eating snow cones (I use the Canadian expression somewhat loosely, since they are in no way equivalent) at Scandicanian Shaved Ice. The 'small' size was the size of Kasia's head; the medium that Mary and I shared was roughly the size of a basketball. Each ball of shaved ice comes with three flavourings (from a choice of about 30 exotic flavours) and Kasia asked for 'rainbow' so the lady layered red, yellow and blue flavorings to produce a five color rainbow (e.g., blue + yellow = green); we ordered ours with chocolate Macademia nut ice cream in the center. These are unlike anything we have ever had before, and an obvious must have in any warm climate. Mary and I told the owner that they ought to franchise their invention (the ice machine etc) and she told us that they had made arrangements to franchise but the franchise organizers had insisted on their being in business at least one whole year before they went public -- so that they could have a 'year plan' laid out for the franchisees and to demonstrate that the theory actually worked, etc. Time's up in March, so if anyone is looking for a failsafe summer franchise....

Unfortunately, I accidently erased all the photos of the shaved ice, the tenders (I had some great close ups of the interior, operating instructions etc that I intended to work into my novel) and the local sights when I had some free time to experiment with the camera settings. Tigana was a tiny bit exasperated with me. "Dad, even I know you down load all the pictures before fiddling with the settings on a new camera, and I'm nine! Duh!" well, what can I say? But it was a very relaxed and enjoyable day.