h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

"We're going fishing?" I exclaimed the next morning as Orp and Kanekanani led Scribbles and me out of the Hilo International Airport. "I thought you said we'd be on a pirate boat."

"Well, we sort of will be," Orp said. "The company that we rent the boat from is called Pirate Fishing Trips, and they specialize in deep sea fishing. We will work our way past Maui to Oahu, where there's a marvelous pirate ship with all sorts of great features. Okay, we could have gone to Oahu directly, but then we wouldn't be about to have breakfast at a restaurant that sits on the edge of the Kilauea Crater. We can watch lava bubble and smoke rise out there as we watch steam rise from our coffee and eggs in here."

"Plus, we can show you a state park with authentic Hawaiian vegetation like fern trees, and you may even see a mongoose," said Kanekanani. Orp frowned at this -- The mongoose, imported to control a burgeoning rat population, had become a menace to native ground-nesting native birds -- but she just giggled and went on. "Then, we'll board the fishing boat around 10:30, dine on the fish we catch for lunch, and be in Honolulu by 4:00, where we'll have 90 minutes on the pirate ship, and a nice dinner at a top restaurant afterwards."

"Then very early tomorrow we'll bid goodbye to you as you fly to Tijuana for a ride in a zonkey cart."

"A what?" I exclaimed.

Scribbles could barely contain his mirth. "We'll explain to you tomorrow," he said. "Then you'll have something to look forward to."

The air was fresh and salty as we set sail on our fishing trip. Frankly, I caught nothing at first, but some of the crew members made great catches -- unless they were clandestinely dropping fish over the edge so they could then *catch* them. In any event, there was plenty of fish for lunch, notably mai mai, a prized local species that Hawaii exported to other places. At last I had a nibble, and got so excited that the crew members, laughing, sent it to the kitchen so I could taste it fresh.

We were pleasantly tired when we got to Pirate Adventures outside Honolulu. Many tourists typically asked why Hawaii, of all places, would have pirate ships, so the captain told of the great Pirate Raid of December 1884, when 5 pirate boats come ashore. Wielding cutlasses and Winchester rifles, 70 armed men captured the town of Honolulu. The king, his ministers, generals, and numerous companies were held for ransom. The pirates robbed them and made off with the royal treasury. No shots were fired, and no one was killed, though this sent shock waves through the King's government and perhaps hastened the day when the United States took over the Hawaiians in the interest of better security. The treasure was never found.

The ship we were on was nowhere near as sinister as the ships we imagined, so we enjoyed snacks and watched pirate-attired crew members and enjoyed the sunset.

[Amy P]

I remember reading pirate stories as a young child. I always imagined that lived wholly on bananas and rum.

I've read books about pirates -- some of them Jewish -- in Jamaica. How true any of this is would be anyone's guess.

Considering that tobacco and sugar cane were prominent crops in the Caribbean, I'm guessing that few inhabitants were especially healthy. If pirates caught any fish, that would at least give them some protein, but probably they ate hard seabiscuits that lost their flavor and nutritive value after a while. .

I grant you that Hawaii is a strange place for me to have Pell ride a pirate ship. Well, his route never comes anywhere near the Caribbean.

Boston has the Pirate Ship Formidable, a harbor cruise. Boston's history also includes a number of famous or infamous pirates, including some women ones. But I didn't think of that when Pell was first starting out.

The Mediterranean has been plagued by pirates for thousands of years, but Istanbul is the only destination near the Mediterranean, and I needed to work some kind of African or Middle eastern form of transportation into he story. The camel was the best I could do; Pell was never going to get any closer to Africa than this. I intended to have Pell ride a pirate ship confiscated from the Somalis when he arrived in Mumbai, but the elephant ride was too tempting to pass up. Elephants are also found in Africa, but not the same type of elephant as the ones in India. Pirates also plague Southeastern Asia, possibily as far as Hong Kong, but I really wanted a crack at a rickshaw ride, as tip of the hat to tradition and history.

So, Hawaii it had to be. But Pell also got to do hang-gliding in one of the world's best places for it. He also got to do some-deep-sea fishing, though he could have done it form yacht. I just didn't think of that at the time. Still, can you think of a more beautiful pastime than watching the tropicallty forested Hawaiian Islands from the deck of a fishing boat on a beautiful warm day? [it's 84 degrees F in Honolulu today].

I still haven't figured how to work a wheelbarrow ride into the story.