Sunday Jan 28... ......Anchored In Honolulu for the day. A really wonderful place, although it has become a large, modern city. We spent some time tracking down a large material shop in order to select costume material for the "Timber Pines Hula Dancers". After that it was a bus to Waikiki Beach and The Royal Hawaiian Hotel.This is the original old hotel in Honolulu before all the modern stuff was built. It's a wonderful old place. We had Rum Punches and a great lunch outside on the terrace overlooking Waikiki Beach. Perfect weather and we could watch all the surfers riding the waves. They also had large canoes holding six people who would paddle frantically to get out through the surf, then turnaround and ride a big wave back into the beach. All very interestingThe next day should have been spent on Maui, another Hawaiian island. The harbour is small so the QE2 has to anchor outside and we get ferried ashore by ships tenders. At least that was the plan, but rough weather made it too dangerous, for the small boats, so we had to sail on.It was a disappointment as we had booked a whale watching boat trip which we were really looking forward to. Apparently there are usually lots of whales you can get close to and see them coming up for air and rolling over. Also sometimes you get to see giant Swordfish or Marlin leaping out of the water. All very exciting.The newspapers in Honolulu still carried exaggerated stories of illness on the QE2.Actually, it is all over now and everything is back to normal.It reminds me of someone (Mark Twain?) who, on reading his erroneous obituary in a newspaper said "The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated."Wed Jan 31...... So far, due to bad Internet connections and high cost, I have been unable to post the above report. Will try again tomorrow. Today was noteworthy We crossed the Equator, and King Neptune held a ceremony in which volunteer travelers had to kiss a large dead fish, then be plastered with raw eggs, spaghetti,baked beans, and other junk, then thrown into the swimming pool while the rest of us cheered. I did not volunteer. If they threw me into the pool I would drown. Ah well! Such is life at sea.And so we sail on. Some 2400 miles South over the equator to our next port of call, the magical island of Tahiti.