Friday, Kona on the Big Island of Hawaii

Right sunshine this morning. We anchored at about 7.30am and went ashore for an excursion.

We started off this morning going to a chocolate farm: how amazing to see how cacao grows, is processed and made into the final product. Again, hugely expensive but all gown, harvested and processed on site, so it’s pure and high quality. Samples were delicious!

Next was a soap/personal care farm – this is all natural stuff and we did a tour of the farm, with all sorts of beautiful flowers, coffee, chickens.

Last was the Kona Joe’s coffee farm, where we saw the whole process of how the coffee is hand-harvested, processed and tasted the finished product. It’s the third most expensive coffee in the world. I learned a lot about what makes good coffee and what makes Starbucks coffee! The chocolate coated coffee shots were amazing!

I’ve just spent an hour here in Quinn’s restaurant with a coffee to get free wifi and now I’m off to catch a tender back “home”. It’s been a lovely, lovely day: Kona is beautiful and the tour was worth every cent – wonderful!

I forgot to mention that today the sea was very choppy for tender travel between our anchorage and the pier; it wasn’t a problem when we were moving on the water, but it makes getting on and off the tenders tricky, even more so for the significant number of people who have mobility problems. Apparently one gentleman, ignoring the direction to wait, stepped at the wrong time and fell and cut his leg; being on blood thinners made that quite a nasty accident!

Back on board at the end of the day, I met Anita from our table when I got back to my cabin and she said she and Dorothy wouldn’t be at dinner in the dining room because they’d had a late lunch when they got back from their tour. So I sat at my table and waited for Debbie, John and Nancy but they didn’t turn up, I had my first course alone, enjoying watching the last tenders join the ship and then moving slowly away from the port. Then the people at the next table (for 8) invited me to join them, as 4 of their group had gone to the Pinnacle for dinner. So I met Carolyn and Debbie from Ontario and Arlene and x (can’t remember her husband’s name) from north of Vancouver. Before too long, we were the best of friends and soon we were all talking about the Lord’s work in our lives!

After dinner I had a lovely walk out on the deck, so I wouldn’t be in my room when the stewards were doing the turn-down service. I had been in the room when they came last night and said thank you to Adi for the chocolate they had left each night; so he gave me 4 last night and there were 4 on the bed again tonight! :o)  Yummy yummy! I had to get to bed a bit earlier because it’s an early start in the morning for an all-day tour in Lahaina, Maui.