On the plane

On the plane at the moment so no internet. We’re about 90 mins out of Honolulu, aboard  a JetStar airbus A330-200. Its a long old flight too - 10 hours and 3 minutes southwest across the Pacific Ocean to Sydney.

Things were a bit fraught this morning as our flight was at 0815, but the boys’ was even earlier at 0625. Fortunately, we still had the hire car - a cavernous low fat wallowy van thing that could only have been invented in America - which made getting everybody to the airport and checked in on time, much easier. And of course there was no traffic about at that time - we left the apartment at 0330 - although we still managed to get pulled by the cops, blue lights an all. I think it was because we made a sharp left turn, which must have looked like we were trying to avoid the parked police car. But once Nadine told him we were trying to get to the airport, he was fine and gave us directions.

It was sad seeing the boys go but I think they’ve had a good time and have certainly packed stuff in, what with five days in Vancouver, three in San Francisco and a full week in Hawaii. But they both have jobs to go back to so they were on a time limit.

Our last day in Hawaii was fun - snorkelling off Hanuama Bay on the east of the island. Its a reef, with heaps of brightly coloured fish and coral literally just metres from the beach. It is actually a marine sanctuary but it used to be an unrestricted swimming and fishing area, but years of that have depleted the reef somewhat. So now they encourage people to go there but teach them about it in the hope that they will be more aware of the surroundings, and what a reef constitutes, and treat it a bit more respectfully.

We hired snorkelling gear there and that enabelled us to go out across the reef. But it was low tide and the water level was falling quite rapidly whilst we were there. That made swimming difficult after a while because as water rushes through the channels between the rocks, the current pushes and pulls you, and the lower the water level, the more chance you have of getting scraped on the sharp coral. And we all did get scraped - legs, arms, hands, feet. That’s not good for the coral of course, but its also not good for us as scrapes mean blood, and blood attracts sharks. And scrapes are easily infected with bacteria from the corals.

The water was very clear though, and sunlight filtered through it just like it does in the movies, making patterns on the sand and glinting of the fish and corals, making the fish shine as they dart about, and giving the rocks and coral a startlingly bright appearance. 

And the fish weren’t bothered by our presence. Rather, they were indifferent and just got on with their lives, small gangs feeding on the coral, picking parasites off each other,  coasting on the current, before flicking their bodies  and turning together in different directions. How do they know when to do that, when to turn and when to dart in unison? Birds do the same thing at dusk, playing on warm air currents in the fading light in swarms.  What is it called? A botheration or something.

It is weird world though, silent and constantly moving as if a wind were blowing through it and back every second, causing things to waft. When get used to this and the fish just being around you, you start to notice other creatures, in the same way that when you go into the dark, your eyes adjust, gradually revealing things that were right there the whole time; sea cucumbers, anemones and little shellfish. I was half hoping to see a conger eel just because we had been told they were there and the habitat was all about - rock holes and crevices - but in retrospect, I’m sort of glad that I didn’t because they are right up there on the sea monster-ometer, along with sharks and stingy jellyfish.

After leaving the reef, ate lunch in a rural cafe that we happened upon. It was run by a nice older couple from the mainland - her from California, him from Oregon, but they had both lived in Hawaii for years. And it was proper food too, not the processed and over sugared stuff that I keep complaining about.

In the evening, we went to a luau - a Hawaiian shindig with food and dancing and various traditional skills on display. It was all rigged up for tourists of course, and its not the sort of thing I would usually bother with, but it was very well done and the food was excellent. We all got dragged up on stage at various times, but big surprise of the evening was George who had disappeared while the rest of us were made to get up and wiggle our bums on stage, arms in air,  Hawaiian style. We assumed he’d gone to hide, but not so; after a drum roll, a big bloke in a grass skirt ran on stage and tapped the chief on the shoulder. It was George of course, who’d been put up to do a solo. He did a good job too, really hamming it up in a sort of London meets Honolulu sort of way that got the whole audience clapping and cheering. Good boy. I’ve always told them two things : 1. some things are worth getting in trouble for, and 2. if you get put on the spot, take control of it and make a real spectacle of yourself. And he certainly did the latter.

The venue was brilliant too; a ranch on the edge of the ocean which once it got dark, was lit up by a full moon. The rain died off too, which was just as well as the whole thing was outside under the stars.

Then it was back to the apartment, pack, sleep for a few hours, then up and out for the airport and the next part of the journey; Australia. We’re planning on staying there for about a year, travelling round on motorbikes. We know the stuff we shipped has arrived in Oz ( mostly riding gear) and its been cleared by customs. Now we have to go north to retrieve it from a friend of Nadine who kindly accepted custody of it. We have to do that this week, as well as buy helmets, get insurance, swap driving licenses, activate a bank account ( already opened from London) and register for Medicare (Australian emergency NHS which we get, courtesy of a reciprocal arrangement with the UK). Hopefully, thatwill all go to plan and we’ll be off on our first ride in the Snowy Mountains next Wednesday, about October 29th I think. Fingers crossed then!

Almost halfway there now, and all of us have been sleeping so far. One of the best bits about air travel (for me at least, although I might be a bit strange here) are the destination maps they have in the airline’s publication. There is something fascinating about the maps they use showing the curvature of the earth and the lines joining places. And now that technology allows it, what is even better, is the constantly updating electronic map that you find on your tv screen. Even though we’re now five hours into a 10 hour fight over the Pacific and there is really nothing at all to see, even if we were seated at the side ( we’re in the middle) I’m addicted to the map and the local seabed geography that it keeps showing. For a start, we crossed the equator about half and hour ago and so are now officially ‘ down under’ , but the things marked are now things like ‘ New Britain Trench’, Vityaz Trench, Tonga Trench Eauripik Rise and Magellan Seamounts. And land markers are places like Lima, Ho chi Minh City, Kona Kintabalu and Port Moresby. Its all very foreign and a long way away. Even the second language on information is Japanese, not the familiar French or Spanish of longhaul northern hemisphere jaunts.

We just had dinner. Well everybody else did; I had to make do with a dried up old sandwich yet again because they had apparently run out of veg meals. How hard can it be? Get the passenger manifest, match it up with pre-ordered meal requests and seat numbers so the woman in seat 49F ( me) gets her preordered vegetarian meal; do not give it to somebody else who on a whim has decided they don’t fancy the chicken or pork, and hasn’t bothered to make a meal request. Donkies.

Immigration was easy and not at all as I remember if from before. Astonishingly, the electronic visa thing worked for me and I was stamped in then waved through without any problems at all. Same as at quarantine, albeit I did get stopped and questioned about where I’d been and what I’d been up to. But the fella was nice, so it was quite a good chat.

There is a noticeable pall of bushfire smoke over Sydney, and it got more pronounced as we drove north towards the Central Coast. And there is a fairly strong burning smell in the air too - a bit autumnal wood smokey. But a state of emergency has been declared in NSW and many homes have been lost. However, it looks like it might cooling down now.