H1N1

I was REQUIRED to get this H1N1 vaccine. The dead virus one I guess. The shot didn’t hurt, and So far no symptoms, but I woke up this morning with a slight cold. I don’t know if it’s because of that.

It sucks cause if you wanted to keep your job on the ship You HAD to get the shot. Even if you just got it. No excuse could get you out of this stupid shot. I didn’t want to get it. I was not happy about it. I also had to wake on a sea day where I get to sleep in…I shoot things in the afternoon on seas days so I don’t have to get up at stupid o’clock. So the fact they scheduled this shot at 8am was another aggravation. Alan saw me walking back from my shot and I looked all pissed. Lol. Well pissed, aggravated, and in my morning form. Which usually isn’t good. Lol.

Dreaming

When you get on board you immediately realize sleeping is very different. Now with dreaming it varies what happens to people. Some people I know say they dream more and they can remember them very clearly. Other People say they don’t dream at all.

What happened to me for the first month I dreamt about work, editing and shooting. Lol. It was weird. I than started dreaming of like a regular day on the ship. I was dreaming about stuff that would happen as if I was awake. That sucked. Cause who wants to dream about the same shit that happens during the day? Really though. Lol.

I finally am dreaming regularly now. ☺ It’s nice to finally go to bed and have a regular dreaming night sleep. Weird things with random people I crossed paths with in life, not just work and ship life.

Maui

For this port I actually went to another island. Lana’i. This day was rough!! I am exhausted by this day. I woke up late, but wasn’t late to my tour.

We waited in the princess theatre for 45 minutes before we got to tender over to the harbor. Than we waited there for the ferry for about 20 minutes. Than waited in line for another 20 minutes to board the ferry. Than it was a 45 minute ferry ride to the other island.

The whales I was supposed to shoot were not very active. I imagine they felt like me…didn’t feel like being all crazy happy and jumping around. Lol.

Got to Lana’I and I have to say that this island is so different. The landscape is very dry. They don’t get rain. Two hundred years ago King kamehameha …(I think) like ordered the whole island to be set a blaze. So it changed the climate and vegetation forever. Crazy right. It was a very rural area. 3000 inhabitants. The population has been that size the past 40 years.

I saw the island Molokai from the top of Lana’i. I’ve been on 5 islands, and one I’m not allowed on. The big island, Kaua’I, Lana’i, Maui, and O’ahu. Molokai from what I hear is a lot of poor people with nothing really going on there. But who knows. And Ni’i’hua is forbidden. The 8th island…I forget which one that is…

I wanted to get a picture of the soil, but I didn’t. I did get a few pictures of some other things though. The soil though is super rich with iron, so its bright orange-red. It was trippy to see.

We had lunch at this little coffee shop. It was cool, the whole island doesn’t hae any chain restaurant or anything like that. All the shops/stores are locally owned and operated. I had the Best coffee I have had in a Looooooong time there!!

After my tour was over and I got back over to the ship I got my best whale footage!! All up close and they were active! It was 5pm and I had been working since 8am, but after that great coffee my mood and energy were wonderful. ☺ I think the whales and I and in sync. Lol

So far so good. ☺

Honolulu

I did the Natural Highlights of O’ahu tour this cruise. It was a short tour and I was thankful, cause by this day I am starting to get tired. I was seriously sour from the tour the day before cause I was doing some serious hiking with my equipment. I didn’t feel it that day- Wasn’t tired, winded or anything, but I felt it the next morning. Oy.

We stopped at Diamond head crater. Drove in, people took a picture of the sign and than left. No hiking!! I thought we were, but thank god we didn’t. lol. We stopped at this cool looking bay where a lot of people snorkel. We went to see a blowhole where it wasn’t doing much of anything. Lol. Than a beach where they shot this movie. Than we went to the 100% natural sand beach. Absolutely beautiful!!

A lot of people don’t know but Waikiki…the most famous beach in the world is man made. It used to be a wetlands area. They import the sand from California, and Australia every few years, and from other Hawaiian islands. And from far out at sea.

We than went to see some war temple pile of rocks thing….by this time I was started to get tired… so my memory of that and what it really was is kinda …blurred. Lol.

We did the Na Pali lookout, but I already had sweet footage for that and a cool edit of the history of the battle there. So I took pictures of plants and chickens. ☺

After I went on my tour I went for a coffee…was disappointed. Wasn’t great…why I keep going to that place I don’t know. I keep forgetting its crap there. My memory lasts less than two weeks apparently. But I was waiting for the shuttle and I HATE waiting for the shuttle. I don’t know. It’s like almost unbearable. When I get done with tours while we are in Honolulu I am always in such a hurry to go go go. Waiting around is the last thing I want to do. So, I kill time by going to the shitty coffee place. Where it takes forever and a day to get an iced vanilla latte…when I’m the first person in line.

I shopped around…bought nail polish and a shirt. Yes, ONE shirt. Lol I was disappointed.

Honolulu is getting old. I should have gone to the movies or something. Or walked to the beach or something.

Kaua’i Ziplining

THIS TOUR WAS AMAZING! I did the Mountain trek, wagon, and Zipline.

When I first found out what I was doing I didn’t know what I was getting into. All I knew was that I was going to be in a wagon and on a ranch. I didn’t know what fun or boring time I’d be having.

Kaua’i is so far my favorite island. I had high hopes for this tour. Luckily the tour group was small. Usually it’s a group of 20- we had 8! It’s always better when there are less people. One of the crew members was an escort too, John from the shops.

We pull up to this ranch, with cattle - the whole 9 yards. Amazing views of the mountains there. I love it! Especially the morning. I hate getting up that early, but its so worth it for the views ya know.

We get on this wagon that hooked up to a tracker. It was a cool ride. I got some sweet footage. We saw the spot where Jurassic Park was filmed.

We than get to the zipline. I did ziplining before, I liked it but after awhile I was like okay…ehhhh. It was very proper-structured….I don’t know the vibe was waaaaaaay different doing it with this group. It was sooo much more fun. We had less zips, but it was so much better. The passengers got to zip line without holding on and backwards the second time around. I was filming so I only did one zip at the first stop. It was cool hiking back to the spot that we started. You zip across and hike back. It sounds like it sucks, but it totally doesn’t cause you got to go across these cool bridges!! It was like hiking through a giant tree house!!!

So we go on a small hike, saw these cool spiders called crab spiders. They are super poisonous. I couldn’t get a picture my camera was being difficult. I don’t know why. ☹

We hike to the next zip line. Again it looks like a giant tree house. This zip line was great. You HAVE to do it backwards. When you do it you free fall for like 2 seconds!! You than go upside down!! I tried but it didn’t work for me. Lol. I put myself doing it on the dvd. It was hilarious. Lol so fun!
You zip across then you have to go over on these hanging bridges, over these streams. Again, a sweet tree house deal. ☺

After that we hike to this waterhole where we got to zipline into the water!! I did it twice. I also jumped off this 5 or 6 meter platform. I did that twice. I was so scared, but just did it. Than we hiked, had lunch than went to the second watering hole place with these cool little waterfalls and did rope jump thing. John and I were the only ones that did it. The passengers got a kick out of us. ☺

I got eaten alive by the bugs in the rain forest, but hey it was soo worth it. They’re going away by now anyway. That tour was so fun. The tour guides were really cool too!

Hilo

To start off this cruise has been great!! It’s almost over. I am on seas days… stuff is compressing and after staying up to 530am editing I am slowly catching up on my work. So, while port files are compressing I am chilling out and I can update you guys ☺

Hilo was good. The tour I went on was the Land of Frozen Fire. It was basically like, the Secrets of Puna tour, but the tour guide was really good at presenting the story. I added a bit to my Hilo mini documentary.

It was cool cause I got interviews from two different tour guides, and he took us in a restricted area where the town of Kalapana was destroyed and people are building houses right on the lava rock there. Its intense. My edit is pretty cool. I got some extra footage of the Lava tree park, and some footage of these great stills that are on display at the what use to be the largest black sand beach in the world. The only thing that sucked was how I couldn’t use the interview from the other tour guide. He spoke so softly … while the camera was on. Lol. But the wind just destroyed all audio. Next time I am taking the lav mics with me. Yay! More equipment to carry with me.

I love how I am making these cool mini docs. There simple but people actually watch them. They learn a tiny bit of Hawaiian history.

Its funny when I’m on tours cause I always get this question 100% of the time: “ is that equipment heavy?” I always come up with this funny answer… and a different answer every time. I try and mix it up. I always offer for them to hold it. They always fear it and just laugh like its 50 lbs. It’s not that heavy. I never weighed it, it does get heavy after 4 or 5 hours of carrying it around- or when I have to hike with it. But I always have it with me so it’s like nothing. I always have the guy tour guides offer to carry it for me. I ALWAYS decline. It’s my job, if I couldn’t handle the equipment I wouldn’t have this job. I always say this is my job this is what I get paid to do.So, no, I thankfully decline your nice offer of helping the chick with the camera. Lol.

Rough Seas

It’s weird how the ship rocking affects everything. For crew we only feel it when its gets super rough. Like when we went through a hurricane that was intense, ever since than everything has been small potatoes-for me at least.

The slightest lil storm the passengers are cranky!!! But really though they do get cranky and become very hard to please. Its hard for them, they get sick at the drop of a dime.

Last night there was some 80’s party in the crew bar and dancing was pretty funny with the rocking. I guess you never really danced until you danced on a ship that is a storm. It was interesting to say the very least.

Its weird its rougher now than when we first left LA. Usually when we enter the pacific its gets the worst. When we get closer to the islands its usually gets more and more calm, but that’s the ocean for you. Unpredictable.

I like that. Unpredictable. ☺


Tomorrow we get to the Big Island. I am taking a tour that is covering the Natural highlights of Hilo. I will be making a sweet mini documentary of it for sure, just like I did the past two Hilo Ports. ☺ People like my edits. Now THAT makes me truly HAPPY!!