Cruise Trek –Day 4
Tuesday, 02 June, 2003
8:00a.m. HST
Somewhere in the Pacific, between Hawaii and Fanning Island
The air is heavy and humid. We are under a blanket of grey clouds, but it doesn’t look or feel like rain. The seas are exceptionally calm, too. I doubt they are more than five feet. The Pacific ocean is very . . . well . . . pacific!
This ship that we’re on is HUGE. She holds over 2200 passengers, and over 1100 crew. She has something like 12 restaurants, two swimming pools, a health club, a spa, and several bars. There’s even an English pub on board where I had Guinness and Fish-n-Chips.
Yesterday, I did two CruiseTrek events. In the first event, Anne and I played in the “Not-So-Newlywed Game,” against three other couples, all of them Star Trek fans. I was certain that we’d do well on the standard questions, but I knew that if there were any Star Trek questions, we were dead, because Anne doesn’t watch Star Trek at all. I think she humors me when I am watching it on TNN and I say, “Honey! Come watch this! It’s so cool!” but other than that, she’s not interested.
However, there were only two Star Trek questions. The first, asked of me, was, “Which Star Trek male will your wife say she would most like to be with?”
I said, “My wife doesn’t watch Star Trek, at all, which is one of the reasons I married her.”
Laughter.
“I mean, she’ll humor me when I’m watching TNG on TNN, or searching for some scene on one of my DVDs, and she does a great job of pretending to care about things like reversing the polarity and emitting a pulse into the heart of the anomaly . . . ”
More laughter. It’s fun to entertain these people.
“But she just doesn’t like nerdy things like I do. So she wouldn’t know to answer ‘Picard,’ or ‘Kirk,’ so she had better say ‘Wesley!'”
Huge laugh, and some applause.
When they brought the girls back in, and the question was asked, Anne looked horrified and said, “I don’t watch Star Trek.”
It was like that time Bart Simpson said, “I didn’t do it.” It brought down the house.
“I mean, I’ll watch it a little bit if Wil is watching it . . . but I just don’t get it. So I’ll say . . . Wil’s character?”
I jumped out of my chair, and held the card up high. Everyone, including the people we were playing against, cheered for us. It was very cool.
The next question was, “Which Star Trek woman will your wife say she would most like to be?”
Okay, Anne could care less, but I know that she’s heard me talk about Ashley Judd a lot, and people ask her about that scene (you know the one) all the time . . . so I knew that there was a good chance she’d answer “Robin Lefler,” which she did. Bingo, baby! We went four for four!
When it was time for the wives to answer questions, the first Star Trek question was, “Which Star Trek woman will your husband say he fantasizes about?”
I said, “Have any of you seen my wife? Why in the world would I want to fantasize about anyone else?!”
How’s that for scoring points, eh? Feel free to use that one, guys. *wink*
After the laughter died down, I said, “Well, Dr. Crusher is right out, (har har har) and Anne hasn’t seen the Detox Gel scene from Eneterprise . . . .so I’m pretty sure that Anne would say . . . ‘Ashley Judd?'”
She held up the SAME CARD I HAD USED for her question, because she gave the same answer! Yes!!
The next question was, “What is your husband’s favorite food?” (Guinness, which we got right) and the final Star Trek question was, “Which Star Trek male will your husband say he’d most like to be?”
I paused a second and said, “Picard?”
Anne jumped out of her chair, gave a “whoop!” and held up the card that said, “Captain Picard.”
She later told me that she was pretty sure I wouldn’t want to be Wesley, and that she’s heard me go on and on about how cool Patrick is, and how much I liked that character.
When it was all over, we went seven for eight, and took home first prize!!
The second CruiseTrek event I participated in was an actor’s panel with George Takei, who played Sulu on the Original Series, and Vaughn Armstrong, who has played something like 11 different aliens on all four new Star Trek series. Vaughn is a really wonderful man, and I’ve really enjoyed talking with him. I found out yesterday that he played one of the main Klingons in the “Heart of Glory” episode we did on TNG.
Heh. Anne just woke up. She has her “I just woke up” face on . . . it’s too cute and I love it.
Anyway, I sat on this panel for an hour, answering questions and listening to the two of them talk, and, for the first time in years, when the inevitable “What are you doing now?” question came, I didn’t feel like a loser.
In the past, when that question has come, I have struggled to keep my head up when I’ve said things like, “I just did this movie called Python,” or “Well, I keep coming in second on auditions, but I know I’ll get something soon,” (trying very hard to convince myself that it was true, trying very hard to believe that I still had a chance to be TV’s Wil Wheaton again.)
I was so happy yesterday to hold my head up high, look the woman who asked the question right in the eye, and answer, “I’ve written a book, and I’m very proud of it. It’s called Dancing Barefoot, and it’s available through my publishing company, Monolith Press.”
One last thing, and then I’m going to eat breakfast and play shuffleboard.
When I signed up for my Internet access, the guy who works in the Internet Cafe looked at me, and he said, “Hey! It’s Wil Wheaton, the author!”
It’s the first time anyone has said that to me. I think I could get used to it.

Aloha!
I am writing this from the Reading Room aboard the Norwegian Star, as we cruise between Hawaii and Fanning Island.
I am such a dork, I wanted to bring my garmin, so I could update position with much greater accuracy . . . but it was forgotten in the chaos that surrounded our leaving Los Angeles a few days ago.
So.
Since this is the first time I’ve had Internet since we left Los Angeles, there will be three entries following this one, each of them representing one day since I left.
Onward . . .

Day 3.5 1:17 PM HST In port at Hilo
We are pushing away from the dock as I write this. The ship shudders and the water between us and the dock boils violently.The ship’s horn just blew a long blast, and Anne and I looked at each other and said, without any planning, “The looovvveee boooaatttt . . . ”
Heh.
The Big Island of Hawaii gets 278 days of measurable rainfall each year, and today was one of those days. But it didn’t matter at all. The clouds and rain kept the heat and humidity away, and the grey sky provided a wonderful contrast to all the tropical vegetation. There were some palm trees that positively glowed with an internal, emerald luminescence that took our breath away.
We had an awesome adventure this morning. We rented a car, and drove to Volcano National Park. It was awesome! It took us about 45 minutes from the port, and only cost us 54 bucks, plus 3 bucks for gas.
Once inside the park, we made a stop at the visitor’s center, where we picked up a map, and found out that our time on the island (just under 6 hours) didn’t allow us to drive all the way to our planned destination: the lava flow.
(We’ve just left the dock, and are sailing out past the breakwater now. The island is a patchwork of various shades of green, where fields and trees come together, sitting placidly beneath thick, grey clouds.)
Instead, we drove a circular road, 11 miles around the crater of Kilauea, called, appropriately, Crater Rim Drive. The road starts out in a full-on rainforest, where we stopped at some steam vents and got our first glimpse of the crater, and then travels around the edge until it crosses several enormous lava fields, which are completely devoid of any life at all. The silence that surrounded us while we stood at the edge of the caldera was like being in a vacuum. I told Anne that the lava reminded me of pictures I’ve seen of the Moon or the surface of Venus . . . and I found out later in the day that some of the Apollo 1 astronauts actually trained in the crater in the early days of the Apollo Program. I also read in my awesome Lonely Planet Guide to Hawaii that they filmed some scenes from the remake of Planet of the Apes in the Kilauea Iki crater. But don’t hold that against the volcano, okay?
It was an amazing, breathtaking experience, and it was wonderful to feel the Earth as a living thing — it’s hard not to with all the steam and sulphur and micro earthquakes all around you.
On the drive back to the port, Anne and I talked about what we’d seen, and decided that we weren’t disappointed to have missed the lava running into the ocean. We got to travel from a rain forest, to an alien landscape and back again in just three hours, we did it entirely on our own, and we wouldn’t trade it for anything.
Now, I am off to participate in a CruiseTrek event, as we head down to Fanning Island: 1200 miles south east of Hawaii, in the Republic of Kiribati. I just realized that I’ve written 4 entries since I got here, and I haven’t had time to upload any of them . . . I wonder when I’ll get to put this one up? 🙂

Day 3: Monday June 2, 2003. 6:30 AM HST
Off the coast of Hilo, Hawaii
As I type this, I am sitting on my verandah, looking out at the Hilo coastline. The sun is just risen, and is sitting between the sea and the clouds. The ocean is calm and the air is warm and humid. This truly is paradise.
I was very happy to leave Honolulu yesterday. While the beaches are beautiful, and the water is clean, warm, and placid, the entire city feels like Santa Monica or Venice, in California: there are homeless, panhandlers, and shifty-looking hustlers everywhere. There is graffiti on most of the buildings, and trash litters the gutters and doorways along most of the streets. There seems to be a great deal of poverty just a few blocks away from Hotel Row, and the whole place just reeks of desperation.
We’re only in Hilo for a few hours today; our ship sets sail at 1:00 p.m. The plan is to rent a car and drive to the Volcano National Park. Anne and I rarely take traditional shore excursions through a cruise line. We prefer to rent a car, and use a map to make our own tour, or hire a local guide to drive us around. When we were in Alaska, we took a bus to the Mendenhall Glacier for 5 bucks . . . while our fellow passengers took the exact same trip on a cruise line organized bus for sixty-five!!
More later.

Day 2: Sunday June 1, 2003, 8:04 a.m. HST
Honolulu Hawaii
The convention yesterday was fantastic. It was small — about 300 people — but that seemed to be the perfect number of fans. I brought 20 copies of Dancing Barefoot with me, and sold them all!! Many people came over to me and told me that they read my site, and wanted to get my book. One guy told me that my site was “some of the best writing on the Internet.” 🙂
At most conventions, it’s always such a giant CF, and this was really different. When it was my turn to take the stage, rather than do the typical Q&A thing, I just read some of my stuff: The Trade, from Just A Geek, and a previously unpublished selection from SpongeBob Vegas Pants that’s in Dancing Barefoot. The audience seemed to enjoy themselves, despite the cellphone that kept ringing, and the guy who thought it was really entertaining to constantly shoot at me with the laser gun, complete with loud “zzzaaapp!” sound effects.
After the Con, Anne and I walked on the beach, (there’s a lot of that in Hawaii) and changed for a Bon Voyage Luau that Cruise Trek and Geek Cruises were throwing. I am not a big fan of luaus, but I had a nice time, and gorged myself on sweet potatoes and guava juice.
Thanks to jet lag, Anne I I fell asleep at 9:30 p.m., while the strains of “She Love You” exploded up from beneath our balcony, played by a Beatles cover band. Thankfully, 39 stories between us and Anne’s sleep cocoon (ear plugs and an eye mask) ensured a good night’s sleep.