July 10, 2010, 22:10 HST

N 19°43.915’, W 155°03.149’

Settling in… First Full Day in Hawaii
A really weird thing happened last night. I went to sleep and then woke up in Hawai'i. It’s not a dream and Richard and I really did do this incredible thing. For those of you who think that it’s just the journey that's important, I think you’re missing half of the experience. The destination is just as important as the journey because the destination is symbolic of something and holds some meaning for you in the first place; otherwise, why would you have embarked on the journey in the first place?

I awoke this morning to the sound of the surf pounding on the breakwater outside of Radio Bay in Hilo on the Big Island of Hawai'i, tropical birds cooing in the distance, Osprey anchored and sitting perfectly still in a protected bay surrounded by other boats from far off places with interesting stories to tell. The skies are blue and while this is the “rainy” side of the Big Island, I have to remind myself of two things. One, rain is just weather, and two, I’m in Hawai'i! It probably rains here every day but not 24/7. So if you don’t like the rainy weather of the moment, you probably just have to wait less than an hour for the skies to clear and the sun to shine.

Today was spent settling into the middle segment of our journey. We both started working on getting Osprey out of ocean-going mode and into “sitting around-relaxing” mode. That involved taking down the lee clothes, setting up the forward and aft cabin sleeping quarters, rearranging all of our gear (packing all of the fleece and other cold weather clothes in duffle bags and stowing them out of the way), cleaning, putting up the bimini (a canvas canopy that hangs over the cockpit to provide shade from the tropical sun…did I mention we’re in Hawai'i?!), getting some extra drinking water, etc. We also both rowed to shore and took showers. Believe me, after three weeks of roughing it while under way on the open ocean, real showers are the most incredible thing on earth.

We decided to go into town for dinner and ended up at a sushi restaurant (Ocean Sushi Deli) that we had gone to and enjoyed the first time we came to Hawai'i as land tourists. After dinner we walked around downtown Hilo for a little bit (after all, I do have this broken foot thing going on) before calling a taxi to take us back to the boat.

I’ve decided to use Brian’s Back Blog as the place for me to ramble. Anyone that knows me knows that I have thoughts about everything. Some of these thoughts are well thought out, while others tend to appear half-baked. So be it, it’s a choice that you, the reader, get to make on whether or not you want to read what I’m observing and experiencing. Like always, I welcome your comments and look forward to engaging in a healthy dialog while here in Hawai'i. Mahalo and Aloha!