Tsunami update

March 11th, We had a great day at Lahaina, on Maui yesterday...  Since we had canceled our hiking tour there, we decided to just spend our day around town...  We shopped, had lunch and visited with some of the locals.....  At 5:00 we went to the “old lahaina luau”.....  Along with a wonderful dinner they put on a beautiful dance program showing the history of the hula......  That ended about 9 then we took a cab back to the dock where we tendered back to the ship....  

Shortly after we got back in the room, the captain came over the loud speakers with the announcement about Japan being hit with the devastating 8.9 earthquake and tsunami.    He said the tsunami was scheduled to hit Hawaii at approximately 3:00 a.m. but they did not know how large or small it might be.   They would continue to monitor it, but until otherwise notified, we would continue to head towards Honolulu and we would be updated in the morning.....

7:30 a.m.  the captain announced that Honolulu had received a 6 ft. surge and there was no damage reported but that the coast guard was still monitoring the situation and he was waiting on clearance from them....  As soon as he had their ok, we would be docking in Honolulu....  Our tour today is of Pearl Harbor then following that we will be take a city tour to visit some of the old structures.....

It is 7:50, the captain just came back on to say we are still waiting for clearance due to the possibility of additional waves..... No idea on how long that wait might be.

In the meantime following is a picture of the world’s 2nd largest Banyon tree we seen yesterday in the town of Lahania...   There is no comparison to the world’s largest which we seen in Mexico...  “Tule” in Mexico grew tall and strong with it’s branches staying closer together to reinforce each other......   This Banyon has spread with it’s shoots covering almost an entire block.....  Also the tree in Mexico is kept protected, surrounded by a fence so no one can abuse it.  This tree is abused on a daily basis, people have carved their initial’s into it and children climb on it and adults hang on it’s branches......

We just heard on the news that Hilo and Maui the two islands we have already been to were hit worse with the tsunami with flooding reported....  We have heard no reports on any of the Islands further south in Tahiti where we will be visiting next week.   One interesting note is the number of smaller boats around us this morning.  Many of them left dock last night to stay on the water for safety..  The tsunami does not become dangerous until it hits shore, so in order to protect themselves they went out into the water.....  In closing it is 8:15 and we are still waiting.......