Hilo, Hawaii

Hilo (pronounced Hee-Lo) is situated on the Big Island in the archipelago on the island "Hawaii". This is the 2nd largest city in the islands with Honolulu being the largest ,of course.

Hilo, seat of Hawaii county, northeastern Hawaii island,  Hawaii, U.S, circled on map at left. It lies along Hilo Bay and is the island's business centre. Polynesians settled the area about AD 1100, establishing agricultural and fishing communities. Christian missionaries arrived c. 1822 and were followed by whaling and trade ships that did business in Hilo's port.

 In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the city attracted tourists who came to view the island's active volcanoes. In 1946 and 1960 the city was damaged by tsunamis and whilst I was there on the two occasions, we were subjected to several warning trials which, at first, I thought were the real thing. Only the embarrassing feeling of running down into the foyer of the Hilo Hawaiian and noticing that everyone was going about their business in the normal casual Hawaiian way, did I realise that it was just a trial.

 Tourism increased dramatically after 1967, when direct air links with the U.S. mainland began. Sugar was once the city's economic mainstay, but the industry has since declined. Hilo supports a thriving orchid industry. Exports include orchids, papaya, anthuriums, macadamia nuts, and cattle. Its deep water harbour is protected by a breakwater. Wailoa River flows through the area and provides berths for a large fishing fleet. Hilo's lush beauty is fed by more than 275 days of rain per year, a factor in its much slower growth as a tourist spot compared with other destinations in Hawaii.

As per my previous Blog, "SF To Hilo Hi", we arrived in the Islands on the 22 day of the voyage on 28th October 2009 and as we travelled south down the coast line and got closer to Hilo Harbour, we started to see more life the closer we got to the town itself. It was a great sight, but we still had some problems due to having no communications and as our engine was not working.

My travelling companion remarked that it looked a lot like Ireland with the hills and the lush detail on the hills. As you can see from the grainy pics at left, A tremendous sight after so long at sea.
During this part if the journey, I was constantly on the VHF, even though we didn't know that the port authorities could hear us, but we could not hear them.

As you can see from the aerial pic at left (courtesy of Wikipedia), we were heading down the coast to this protected bay & breakwater. After entering the bay and doing several tacks and jibes within that zone, a fishing vessel with several locals on board, approached and set up a bridal and tow line and attached it to our bow. They then took Fete into an area called Radio Bay to the left of the pic.

The Port of Hilo is a commercial port and as you can see, it is divided into two distinct areas, the cruise terminal and the smaller Radio Bay with smaller anchorages for boats like us and other transient craft.

This port was under the authority of US Homeland security and therefore it turned out to be very strict  on all movements within the Port proper although I was extremely happy to be in safe hands.

Radio Bay was also home to the US Coast Guard as you can see in the pics below.

 

This is the first sight we saw as we entered the bay under tow and below I will show you Fete at her eventual mooring.

We dropped anchor and got busy securing Fete and getting the tender into the water so as to go to the authorities and get all the paperwork sorted out. After being escorted to the office and getting all this done, we decided to go to town - as you do in a new anchorage.

As we left the marina, and having received directions to town from the security personnel at the gate, we started to walk into Hilo, approximately 2-3 kilometres up the road, but as you can see, they must have known we were coming, for they had put out a sign for us.

The first thing that I noticed while we walked, was the lack of the tourists like you would find in Honolulu or Maui, even on the western side of the Island at Kona, or on some of the other islands in the Hawaiian group. The sense that Hilo was more of a locals city with some tourism due to the Cruise liners, back packers and visiting yachties, was highlighted even more when we found the Restaurant, come sports bar, that the security, guards had told us to visit - Cronies.

Cronies, as you can see is a Sports Bar and specialises in good old Pub food and drink. The staff were friendly and extremely helpful to us "Orzies" having just arrived on a boat from the mainland.

Lance, Shay and all the girls were fabulous and on my next trip back to Hilo, we spent a great deal of time eating here as it was good and affordable.

It was this first nite on land\, here at Cronies, that my travelling companion decided to leave to voyage and go his own way, which I was happy to hear as he had become increasingly obnoxious as the voyage went on and the last 22 days at sea bought out the worst in him, and I suppose, me. It is a long time to be couped up with a person with all of his problems.
He left that nite and stayed on another yacht moored in the Bay. I returned to the boat to decide what to do next.


As I had been injured during the passage, I decided to get some medical assistance the next day, and then, arrange to have Fete left in Radio Bay so as I could fly back to Australia for short period to aid in my recuperation and to gather some crew for the homeward leg of the journey.

On arrival here, the skipper of the local Pilot boat came over to introduce himself to us and it was to him, Mike Thomas, that I turned to for assistance.

Mike and his delightful wife Ku'ulei, ran Hilo AA Storage business just outside the main gate to the port and seeing that the port authorities were not keen on transient yachties leaving their boats in Radio Bay for extended periods, with the exception that if you had a local who could look after the vessel in your absence, then it was permissible.

I immediately employed Mike to look after everything, then secured the boat, packed some gear and headed off to the airport. This was in November 2009.