15 Craigside Place is 2.5 miles up the hill from the Pier 2 terminal, where we will board the Pride of America this afternoon, and return to Honolulu in a week.  You might wonder, why again?  Yes,  we took this cruise a year ago , and was nothing much.  I guess we like cruises to enhance the joy of life.  In addition, for this ship, we don't need to take lengthy plane rides and pay huge sums for any hotel stay. Date / Time Port 02 Sep 19:00         Departing   from   Honolulu, Oahu Island, Hawaii   hotels 03 Sep 08:00 - 04 Sep 18:00         Kahului, Maui Island, Hawaii 05 Sep 08:00 - 18:00         Hilo, Hawaii Island 06 Sep 07:00 - 17:30         Kailua-Kona, Hawaii Island 07 Sep 08:00 - 08 Sep 17:30         Nawiliwili, Lihue, Kauai Island, Hawaii 09 Sep 07:00         Arriving   in   Honolulu, Oahu Island, Hawaii   hotels The Pride of America is 18 years old  and 922 feet long, with a passenger capacity of 2630 plus 927 crew members.  It was refurbished in 2021.  There are 14 deck

Read the  Sunday  Star-Advertiser  about the Lahaina Apocalypse.  Mentioned are Oprah Winfrey, cadaver-sniffing dogs, Googledoc, 93 deaths, estimated damages now up to $6 billion and other wildfires still continuing on Maui.  This is now a period of transition and mourning. Today, I will look back into my past, then project a hopeful future for Lahaina.   Four and a half years ago  I had lunch at one of my favorite restaurants in the world, the Paris La Tour D'Argent ( I've also dined at their Tokyo steeple ), and from my table could view the Seine and the  Notre-Dame .  A month later, this church burned down.   At a cost exceeding a billion dollars, this cathedral might re-open at the end of the year, but could take up to 40 years to completely restore. In May of last year,  we took the Pride of America for a cruise around the Hawaiian Islands.  The first stop was Maui, and from our cabin in Kahului Harbor, took a photo of a wildfire. The ship was on the other side of the isla

Lahaina on Maui is now no more.   You can follow the devastation from where you are.  I will provide special details tomorrow.  For now, read my posting of 29April2023 about Lahaina , the one best day of our entire 53-day Seabourn Odyssey cruise.  What we saw are now all gone. I prepared the following yesterday for posting today. Some USA Covid stats? 32% have been infected, and the percentage is probably lower/person because many have caught it twice, and some more. 2% died from Covid. 1% of those who caught Covid died. Should you contract Covid today, there is now a 0.5% chance of dying. In South Korea, those who contract Covid today have only a 0.03% chance of dying. Why this significant difference?  I don't know. The mortality rate of the seasonal flu is between 0.03% and 0.07%, depending on the year. Asymptomatic Covid victims have always been the most dangerous to spread this disease. Three years ago, the CDC thought that 35%  of  Covid cases were asymptomatic.    Tony Fauci