I left New Zealand a couple days ahead of time because it was going to keep raining. I'd rather spend the days in Hawaii. I arrived at Honolulu airport at 10:30 PM after a nine hour flight. The wait to claim bags was another hour. I took a shuttle van from the airport to the hostel in Waikiki and left my daypack on it. After I checked in, I realized my mistake and got really upset. I had traveled six months and only lost a couple earplugs and two pens. Even the canteen that I always carried outside my travel backpack and daypack, which I had expected to loose in the first month, was still with me...up until tonight. It was in the daypack along with a fleece coat, my umbrella, a raincoat, my favorite baseball cap (had it for 25 years), a combination lock and cable and my eye contacts that I would need to wear for windsurfing I booked for the next day.

I didn't know the name of the shuttle I took and so I had to go back out to the airport to see if I could find it. I ended up spending three hours out there until 2 AM only to find out the name of the company and call them and find out that they had not found the pack.

I was very pissed at myself. Everything in the pack was replaceable (except that hat) but the pack itself was going to be expensive (it attaches to the travel backpack).... and I would have to cancel my windsurfing the next day and try to find some contacts so that I could dive and windsurf some other days. Actually, I was so upset I was just thinking I should skip Hawaii altogether and try to fly out the next day. However, I called the shuttle company the next morning and they had found the pack and so.... I went wind surfing (attempted wind surfing) that first day.

The second day I hiked to the top of Diamond Head and went to the beach (one block from the hostel). The third day I dived two dives. The first one was a wreck dive - an old WW II minelayer that had been sunk to create a reef. It was pretty barren except around the wreck itself, though I did see a large moray eel, a five foot long, two inch diameter fish swimming just below me and a large spotted eagle ray in the distance. On the way to the seconddive we spotted some whales about 100 meters away.

The second dive was my first surge dive - where the water surges one direction for a couple seconds and then the opposite direction a couple seconds..... so that if you stood still (didn't swim) you would move about 40 feet one way and then 40 feet back. It was real strange to see 22 divers doing this. We also swam through two lava tubes - the second with a 15 foot surge. I couldn't believe they let the first time non-certified divers in the group try this.

The next day, and last, I went sea kayaking out to an island bird sanctuary about a mile offshore.

My flight to SF was only 4 hours, but it felt like 4 days. I couldn't wait to get back to sleep in my own bed without snoring hostelmates.

It is good to be back - but I am experiencing some post-holiday blues which has been exacerbated by almost being run over twice in the first twenty four hours back - I went for my first run in six months and in the first 30 seconds I saw a man driving his car so fast towards the 4-way stop sign intersection I was about to cross that I knew he would run it. I stopped to let the asshole have his way. At another intersection a car was stopped as I began crossing in front of it ... and then it started (I guess he didn't look both ways) - luckily I was at a point in my stride where I could leap and kick my legs out in front to broad jump as the hood slid under me.

I also found that Pacbell had been billing me for several months for some erroneous charge. I had been paying my phone bill for years by having the phone company automatically deduct the bill from my bank account. Because I was going to close that bank account while I was away, I called two months before I left to have them stop the automatic payment process - I paid the last two months by check. The day before I left I called and cancelled my phone service entirely and told them I'd be sending a check for $75 that would be more than enough to cover any outstanding charges on the last partial month. They did cancel my service and use part of the check to cover the last partial month and then sent me the balance in a refund check. Then...the next month "the computer" billed me $25.06 for the next month on the service that had been canceled AND took the money automatically from the former bank account (even though that process had been cancelled two months ago)...then, when "the computer" realized the phone service had been canceled, it sent me a refund check for $25.06, and then when "the computer" realized my bank account was closed it sent me a bill for the $25.06 for the refund check it sent me plus a $7.03 charge for a bounced account ....and for the next two months, continued to bill me for $32.09 (threatening to cancel my non-existent service)..... and then Pacbell finally turned it over to a collection agency to get the money from my deadbeat ass. When I called and finally was able to pry the story out of a Pacbell billing collections person (after exposing several inconsistencies and lies in her developing story) she said that I was probably not that much at fault.

And then we are going go to war which will do more to foster anti-american terrorism than anything Osama could have hoped for in his wildest dreams.

Oh, it is so good to be back.

Peace out.

Mark