We approached Hilo early in the morning—passing into the bay past the hotel where we have stayed before, immediately adjacent to the beautiful park and Japanese garden. 

As we docked in port, the ship was securely moored by lines holding her to the dock where we disembarked to explore Hilo. 

 

Since we were familiar with the city and had been to all the planned excursion places (Volcano National Park, etc)_and more, we were going to use local transportation to get around Hilo in the eight hours or so we were visiting the city.  We first taxied ($14.00) to downtown, as we had hoped to explore some open shops and the Tsunami Museum, which we had not yet been to in past travels.  However, our visit to Hawaii had been re-arranged due to the tragic fires in Lahaina, and the Hilo stop (which was to have been on a Tuesday, fell on a Sunday.  Sundays in downtown Hilo are pretty quiet—most shops (except for a few coffee shops and restaurants) were closed, and all the museums were closed, even the Tsunami Museum which had an online web page asserting it was open.  Not so.  We stopped for iced tea and while drinking our tea were asked by a young woman, clearly a visitor, where we had obtained our maps.  We told her we had received them at our cruise ship.  Since both Liz and I had a set of maps, we gave her our second set, since we really no longer needed them as most things were closed.

The chickens of Hawaii seem most prevalent on Kauai, but the fearless Hilo chicken shown above was in downtown Hilo, clearly on top of HIS world, and the ever-present Hawaiian zebra dove (endemic but not native) shared sidewalk and parking lot space with him.  The downtown area of Hilo is old, but seems to be on the rise, with murals and interesting shops interspersed with well-tagged derelict buildings.  But the lovely flowers of the tropics bloomed against the faded structures, showing the promise to come.

We walked back to the transportation center and caught the Hele-On local bus, which happens to be free on Sundays.  Most everyone on the bus were from on-board ship—except for the young Asian woman we had given our maps to, who also had apparently walked back to the transportation center and boarded the bus.  The cruise ship folks ALL disembarked the bus at the Target/Walmart stop because everyone on the bus, except us and the Asian girl, were apparently heading to Walmart.  We got off the bus at the port, and the sole remaining passenger was our old town compatriot – probably a foreign student studying at the University.  However, she was soon joined by people getting on the bus from the cruise ship!  I wonder what she thought of us all.

Later, as we were waiting to sail away from Hilo, the distant rains were intensifying, and for awhile it seemed as if it was raining all around us, but somehow missed the ship.

On Monday, the next day, we were excited to spot land in the distance, as we approached Oahu.  We must have passed Maui in the night.  It looked like a shining city in the distance, glimmering in the early morning sun.

As we passed, we noticed another large ship between us and Honolulu—its grey color and shape suggest it is one of our navy vessels stationed at Pearl Harbor.