Happy Thanksgiving/ Hawaii

        I was incredibly excited to get into Honolulu.  That excitement coupled with the built up time changes kept me awake the entire night before.  My roommate and I decided not to go to sleep at all; we wanted to see the sunrise.  Around 4 in the morning I went up to my favorite spot on the ship, the observation deck on the bow.  We were only traveling about 13 knots, so it was open.  I took a few books and sat against the wall.  It was still dark out and the wind was blowing strong.  I read a few pages out of CS Lewis and set it under my leg to just look out on the water and search the sky.  A few minutes passed and I shuffled my position just a bit to relieve the pins and needles that had begun to accumulate in my knees.  As I brought my knees up and my feet back, my book that had been so tightly secure under my legs, caught wind, blew across the deck and before I could flinch to run after it, it was gone. Man overboard!  I was a little upset cause I’d only gotten through about 40 pages and had been underlining and taking notes in the margins, but at the same I couldn’t help but laugh at the situation.  I sat a little while longer and then decided to check the charts downstairs to see exactly when the sun was to make her debut.  It was about 5:45 and the sun wasn’t expected for another hour.  I decided to take a nap until then.  Unfortunately though, I did not wake up until around 7:15, and by then the sky was well illuminated; I missed it.  O well.  I then had breakfast with a few friends and devised a plan for the tragically short day ahead of us. 
        Benson and I had been talking about flying his kite on the beach in Hawaii since the day he bought it (back in Cape Town).  Before we could get to the beach though, we had a few errands to run. I needed to get some postage and Benson and Jocelyn wanted to buy external hard drives to swap photos and load movies on.  Our one-stop-shop was a Walmart on the way to Waikiki beach.  After that, our next order of business was to find some lunch.  Something the three of us had been missing a ton is Mexican food.  Naturally, the decision was easy to make when we happened upon a Mexican restaurant/ conversion van.  The cashier poked her out the window and took our orders, then turned to the cook (also inside the van) to dictate what he’d have to create for us.  Honestly, I’ve never had a better chicken quesadilla.  And the jalapeños! O man, I loved it☺ From there, we walked a short block to the beach.  The sky was clear and it must have been around 75 degrees with a slight breeze; perfect weather for my first day in Hawaii.  We walked along the beach for some time, being sure to get past all the resorts and overcrowded strips of sand.  Our goal was still to fly that kite, but all the beaches seamed far to short.  We ran into many clusters of SAS kids on our journey up the beach, all of whom Benson had to stop and talk to, he’s always doing that! After about a half hour’s walk, we made it past the crowds and found a nice patch to nap on.  My dad’s always telling me “there’s nothing better than an afternoon nap.”  The only thing I’d have to add to that is “there’s nothing better than a Thanksgiving afternoon nap…IN HAWAII.” Got a chance to call home from the beach, which was awesome.  It’s one thing to receive emails from the people you miss, but there’s something so significant about hearing someone’s voice. Apparently while I was making these calls, Jocelyn overheard some people on the beach say I looked like “bearded Screech from Saved By The Bell”…I didn’t appreciate that at all. So we swam and napped and swam and napped and argued about whether the water was cold or not.  Being from California, it was hard for me to understand how swimming in late November with no wetsuit was cold.  There were a few trees across from the sand to climb in with vines to swing from.  Tarzan was really on to something there.  The sun was going down and we had been hanging out with some friends who had put together a BBQ on the beach.  They had family in Hawaii and offered to drive us back to the ship, but by this time Benson and I had spotted a soccer field.  We knew there was only about half an hour of daylight left and noticing the tops of the trees, we decided it was a perfect opportunity to fly the kite.  We said thanks for the offer to drive us back to the ship, and ran to the field to snag as many lighted minutes as the day had left.  The wind was blowing nicely and the field was empty, so we had plenty of room to really explore the space with those kite strings.  The wind was strong enough even to pull me off the ground a few feet!  We took turns until there was no more light left, packed up and made our way towards the bus station.  After reaching the ship, I took some time to make a few more calls to surprise some friends before leaving the docks and heading for Costa Rica. 
        All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed my day on the beach in Hawaii.  I am so looking forward to 3 days in Costa Rica to swim and relax after finals.  Can’t wait to see you all.  A little over two weeks left! Until then, I’ll be working on getting you caught up with the rest of the ports.

-mason

“There is no surer sign of confirmed pride than when you think you are humble enough.” –CS Lewis

Leavin Japan!

Can't believe I'm leaving Japan tonight. Seems like I barely stepped foot on the ship and now I've been to 8 different countries! Next port of call: Hawaii, USA! This has been an incredible experience so far.  Thank you all for your patience with my blog.  I understand I've left you hanging for some time now and promise to have some fresh literature in the days to come.  Please forgive me for getting behind, this rhythm of off and on the ship has been so hard to get used to.  And as far as productivity goes, its nearly impossible for me to be of any creative use in the days just following port.  So, I hope to get caught up by the time I reach Costa Rica.  Thank you again for your patience, love, prayers and thoughts back home.  Can't wait to see you all and share our stories from the last few months.

-mason

SAS Participant Killed

To my friends and family: Not sure if you've received any information on this or not, I just found out this morning.  One of my friends, Kurt, was killed last night in a traffic accident in Hong Kong.  I knew him, laughed with him, and have many memories of this voyage with him.  The SAS website describes him as easy going, kind, and gentle.  He was all of these things and more.  He had wit and was always lookin out for others.  I remember in Namibia one late night he spent a good half hour making sure I had a place to sleep, and that I was taken care of.  It's still a bit surreal, hard to imagine that this could happen to any of us.  We are so fragile and yet on a trip of a lifetime, sometimes we forget and assume invincibility.  Please keep his family and all of us on the ship in your prayers.  I love you all so much. -mason