HURRICANE LALA and VERY SLOW WIFI

The title above describes the reality of travel.  We're abut 5500 miles away from Hawaii, where something serious could be happening, and the location of the Azamara Journey off Greenland means that WiFi is really, really slow.  One video can take up to 24 hours to download.  Thus, I will for the next few days show that a video is there, but I probably won't be able to link it to You Tube until the ship arrives in Montreal.  Then, I can try to reload ten videos each day.  That is the limit.

The biggest news of the day, for me, is the coming of Lala, now a tropical storm, but projected to increase to hurricane strength, and make landfall over the Big Island of Hawaii tomorrow.

I know two hurricanes that badly damaged the island of Kauai, but don't think a hurricane has ever in recorded history made landfall over the other islands.  So I asked Google AI if the Big Island of Hawaii has ever been struck by a hurricane:

That is correct. In modern recorded meteorological history (dating back to 1950), no hurricane has ever made a direct landfall on Hawaii's Big Island. While tropical storms like Iselle in 2014 and Darby in 2016 have managed to make landfall on the island, true hurricane-intensity landfalls have not occurred. [1, 2]

Historical Context of Big Island Storms

No Hurricane Landfalls: Zero hurricanes have officially moved ashore at hurricane strength on the Big Island since reliable satellite and aircraft tracking began. [1]
Close Brushes: Strong storms frequently pass near the island rather than hitting it directly. For example, Category 1 Hurricane Hone passed about 50 miles south of South Point in August 2024, and Category 4 Hurricane Lane dropped massive amounts of rain nearby in 2018 without a direct center landfall. [1, 2, 3]
Rare Tropical Storms: Only a couple of tropical storms—such as Iselle (2014) and Darby (2016)—have crossed onto the island at a lower tropical-storm intensity. [1, 2]

Why the Big Island is Often Spared

The Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa Effect: The massive high volcanoes on the Big Island disrupt and weaken approaching circulation centers.
Prevailing Tracks: Most Central Pacific tropical cyclones approach from the east or southeast and tend to track just south of the island chain, steering clear of a direct strike on the massive slopes of the Big Island. [1, 2, 3]

You can review further historical tracking data via the Wikipedia reference or read analysis on regional patterns via Honolulu Civil Beat. [1, 2]

With that ominous beginning, on to our cruise on the Azamara Journey, where all is well.

• We did see the Total Eclipse of the Sun yesterday.
• The ship just entered the Prince Sound, and here are the first photos of Greenland.

Homes.

• We will cruise along the coastline and dock in Nanortalik tomorrow morning.

Lunch was again okay.

Dinner started with an Iceberg salad and mussels.

The main entre was Osso Buco.  I wanted only the bone with marrow plus meat, but not the accompaniments, so told my waiter to place the Osso Buco on another plate with creamed spinach and baked potato.  What came was fine, but no bone and no marrow.

Then went to see Chris Bannister singing John Denver.  Went well.

Then went up to the Living Room for dancing to the Shore Things.

To close, video going back to Vintage Honolulu when I was in high school, 1957, almost 70 years ago. And Part 2.  Found a United Airlines travelogue of 1950s Hawaii.

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OUR CRUISE ON THE AZAMARA JOURNEY CONTINUES

So how is the world turning?

•  The war with Iran is back.  U.S. bombs Iran.  Then again, this could be an older video.  It's getting confusing about what is really happening there.
• If you think it's hot where you are, it was up to 125 F at the Kuwait International Airport today.  Vostock, Antarctica was down to -99.8 F.

My photos and videos of the total solar eclipse was essentially shown yesterday,  That opening in the clouds is all we had yesterday on the Azamara Journey.

• Here is a video from You Tube.
• Or if you're really into this, 3 hours and 40 minutes from NASA.
• From NPR:
• Christian Hartmann/Reuters Javalambe Astrophysical Observatory, Spain,

• Fabrizio Bensch/Reuters Berlin, Germany,

• Alberto Salz/AP, Valencia, Spain,

• Cesar Manso/Getty, Lodoso, Spain,

• Markus Schreiber/AP, as seen from the Molecule Man sculpture in Berlin.

A recap on total solar eclipses:

• It’s only by a bit of celestial serendipity that perfect solar eclipses occur at all. The sun is about 865,000 miles wide—or 400 times larger than the 2,159-mile wide moon. But the sun is also 93 million miles away—or close to 400 times further than the moon, which is, on average, 239,000 miles from Earth. The result is that the disks of both bodies appear to be roughly the same size in the sky. When the moon passes in front of the sun in the just-so juxtaposition of a total eclipse, it thus causes the solar body to be blacked out entirely and the solar fires to flare brilliantly around the intervening moon. 
• SORRY, CAN'T SEEM TO GET RID OF THIS BLANK SPACE BELOW.

• On average, one will occur somewhere on the globe only once every 18 months. At any particular spot on Earth an eclipse will happen just once every 350 years—whether that’s the heart of Paris, the fields of Stonehenge, or in this year’s case.
• The last total eclipse over Reykjavik was in 1433, while the next total ecliipse over Iceland will be in 2196.

• 
  According to Google AI:

Three of the most noteworthy solar eclipses in history are the 1919 Solar Eclipse which proved Einstein's theory of relativity, the Bur-Sagale Eclipse of 763 B.C. which helped anchor ancient chronological history, and the Eclipse of Thales in 585 B.C. which famously stopped a war. [1, 2, 3]

And our cruise continues, with hamburger for lunch. Burger was nearly 1.5 inch thick.

During lunch, an iceberg cruised by.

Then came the aftrnoon into the early evening of the total eclipse watch, followed by dinner.  Started with a Greek salad.

Followed by Escargots and Caesar salad.

Dancing again?

According to Google AI, these are the most popular total eclipse songs.

"Total Eclipse of the Heart" by Bonnie Tyler: The undisputed global anthem for dark skies.

"Eclipse" by Pink Floyd: The iconic closing track from The Dark Side of the Moon.

"Black Hole Sun" by Soundgarden: A 90s alternative staple for darkening skies.

"Ain't No Sunshine" by Bill Withers: A classic soulful track capturing the temporary loss of light.

"Here Comes the Sun" by The Beatles: The ultimate celebratory track for when totality ends and the light returns.

"Moon Eclipsed the Sun" by Evolfo: An indie track that routinely sees massive percentage spikes on Spotifyduring celestial alignments. [1, 2, 3, 4]

Tropical Storm Lala recently formed and is expected tough the Big Island on its westward path.  Could attain hurrican strength when the eye is south of Honolulu.

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