South Pacific

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Hello Everybody!
I've been enjoying myself too much to write.
We had eight days at sea...all of them perfectly calm. In fact, we haven't had even a slightly rough day yet. Here's a sample day on board:
8:00 Get up and have breakfast, either Continental delivered to the cabin, or a full breakfast (with cloth tablecloths and napkins and waiter service) in the dining room.
9:45 Attend lecture about future ports.
10:30 Find deck chairs (what they call sunbeds) on the promenade deck. Sit and read. doze, chat.
11:00 Go get a mug of tea and return to deck chairs for more of the above.
12:00 Go to the dining room for a three course lunch.
1:00 Reclaim deck chairs. Chat, read, doze until 4:00.
4:00 grab a mug of tea and go the Classical Music show. (We had an excllent pianist from Curacao to Tahiti.)
4:45 Walk around the deck 5 times for a mile.
5:15 Get ready for dinner.
6:00 Have a Gin & Tonic in the lounge before dinner.
6:30 Four course lovely dinner with the most impeccable wait staff on earth. Fabulous food.
8:45 Go to the show. We've had excellent comics and magicians. Not very good vocalists.
9:30 Walk the deck in the moonlight.
10:00 End the day with a nightcap in the Observatory Bar at the top of the ship. Lovely piano music in the background.

Such hard work, huh?

By the way, this tea business is very serious. It may be 95 degrees with 100 per cent humidity but, by golly, a hot cup of tea is what they all drink. At least there are some lovely fruit-flavored ones.

February 1st we finally saw land again. We tried to anchor at Hiva Oa in the Marquesa Islands, but it was too rough to use the tenders to bring us in to land. So the captain executed Plan B which was to go to the next island, Tehuata, where he found a calm bay that was perfect. We later found out we were the first cruise ship to ever come to this little bay. There were just 60 people living there and they rolled out the red carpet for us. It was the real Polynesia with real people doing their native dances...not bored paid entertainers. It was truly a wonderful experience...one we were lucky to have. Incidentally we also found out later that Captain Cook had followed the same path. He couldn't land at Hiva Oa, either.

One more day at sea and then we woke up to the bustling port of Tahiti. Whatever you imagined about Tahiti, I can tell you it is wrong. "They've paved paradise and put up a parking lot" must have been written about Tahiti. When I opened our curtains all we could see were oil tanks. The other said of the ship was the city which was not much better with buildings going up the sides of the hills as far as you could see. Hugh and I took the 80 km circle tour of the island which stopped at some black sand beaches where the locals were surfing, a beautiful waterfall in the midst of a cloud-forest, and some gorgeous gardens, but for the most part it was just too busy and developed. The bus got in a terrible traffic jam as we returned to the city so we arrived two and a half hours later than we were supposed to. Not at all the paradise we had expected! And hot, hot, hot!

Yesterday the new people for the next leg of the cruise arrived from England and those getting off left. Including Hugh. So sad. Except that he signed up to come back on in Capetown next month for the last 22 days of the cruise! So I have that to look forward to.

Today we DID wake up in paradise because the ship sailed overnight to the neighboring island of Moorea. I opened the curtains to the green volcanic peaks used in the film "Mutiny on the Bounty" and other South Pacific movies. It was astoundingly beautiful. And, unfortunately, pouring rain. It cleared up some by lunch time so I took the tender in to look around, but didn't make the effort to get a taxi to go to a beach since it was so overcast. Still, it is an incredibly beautiful place. We set sail in couple of hours for Rarotonga where we will arrive for the day on Sunday.

If you are wondering about Mom, she decided it was too hot to do anything in Tahiti, so she stayed on the ship. Although her energy has certainly been increasing, she's probably wise not to push it. She has a bit of a cough, so she needs to be careful. She's been walking around the deck everyday and enjoying the "sunbed" on our balcony.

Sorry I don't have any pictures for you yet. I got a WiFi card yesterday in Tahiti, but didn't have time to use it. It was supposed to work in Moorea, but we aren't in the usual cruise ship bay, so there's no access here. Who knew it would be this difficult to find a hot spot? At least I know I will find something in Sydney, but that is almost 3 weeks away.

All for now.

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