Around the World. Week 11 Wrap Up

Subject

• Day 71 / March 17: At Sea

• Day 72 / March 18: At Sea

• Day 73 / March 19: Nuku Hiva, French Polynesia

• Day 74 / March 20: At Sea

• Day 75 / March 21: Rangiroa, French Polynesia

• Day 76 / March 22: Moorea, French Polynesia

• Day 77 / March 23: Papeete (Tahiti), French Polynesia

Day 71

Started off Saint Patrick’s Day at Sea with the view of a full rainbow! Unfortunately, we were headed away from it, so I couldn’t check for the pot of gold. Also, I don’t think the captain would have agreed to let me jump in the water just to confirm! However, there were Leprechauns hiding around the ship and those lucky enough to find them got extra Big O points that many passengers collect in order to trade for Oceania Cruise swag. I spent about 10 minutes searching, but gave up quickly as there were many others already on the hunt. I figured a morning spent at the pool in the sun was a better use of my time.

Given this was our second 5-day sea day stretch, the Cruise Director planned an Escape Room in the ship’s library. Even though we couldn’t technically get locked in, the game was to solve three different riddles in each of three areas in order to “escape”. He coordinated multiple sessions each day, keeping track of each teams’ time to complete. My team played on the third day of the series. The earlier teams did pretty well at keeping secrets about the riddles and didn’t give any hints away, so we were not quite sure what we were walking into. After a short briefing about what to expect, we were off! We rocketed through the first two rooms, finding the clues one right after another, but the final challenge of the third room costs us about 8 minutes, resulting in a final time of just over 18 minutes to complete. We thought that was pretty good given that our initial hope was just to escape, but the best time of the series was somewhere around 8 minutes! They must have been very organized and clever!

Good thing we escaped because the next event was to listen to the Speaker Series, which covered the testing of Nuclear Weapons the South Pacific. While I don’t recall all the specific numbers, the main message of today’s talk was that there was no real oversight or control of testing of nuclear bombs in the South Pacific, leaving many islands and populations impacted still to this day.

The evening was full of entertainment, as always, but because it is St Patty’s day, there was a Pub Night! Turns out, my idea of a pub night was drastically different from the event on the ship. I expected beer and games and loud music, but instead the passengers all sat around and sang songs. Needless to say, I enjoyed the idea, but went on to find another thing to do.

Day 72

Since we skipped our second stop at Hawaii, we were ahead of schedule getting to French Polynesia. Therefore, we actually crossed the Equator a day early, but the Cruise Director decided to hold the Crossing Ceremony on the originally planned day, which was today! Yep, you know the drill by now - all the newbies lined up to pucker up with a fish and get baptized in freezing cold water! It still surprises me how many people, including myself, voluntarily do such silly things!

From there, I went to BINGO because the Jackpot was nearing $2,000! Game after game we played, but there was no winning for me! Nor a Jackpot for anyone else, so the pool will continue to grow until the next time.

The afternoon was full of reading and napping until the evening activities commenced. Tonight started with the Oceania Club Cocktail Party where all those in the club with even numbered cabins meet. The group is so large that there are two parties each segment; one for the odd numbered cabins and one for the even numbered cabins.

My main event for the day though was dinner with the officers at Toscana. Seven (7) of us were invited to join the Food & Beverage Manager (Carlos) and the HR Manager (Matthew) for a meal. We gathered at 7:00 pm and were lead to the small private room, which is different from the Privée room between Toscana and Polo Grill. After brief introductions, the conversation flowed (along with the wine) until after 10 pm!

Day 73

Finally, land ahoy! We arrived in French Polynesia with the first island stop being Nuku Hiva.

It was a beautiful island! The only excursion offered was a road tour up to some of the amazing viewpoints, but I didn’t sign up for that, so I walked, and walked, and then walked some more, along the coastline until I couldn’t go any further. So I turned back in search of food and beverage. The first place I checked was closed, so I kept walking. The next stop was about a mile uphill and might be closed before I arrived. The last stop I chose had half of the ship! (Not literally, but full of other passengerss with the same idea.) I had a beer there, but ultimately decided to just grab some snacks from the nearby grocery store for a picnic lunch on the beach.

All morning I had noticed no one was swimming in the bay, even though there were areas of nice sand and a gentle wave coming into shore. Following local practice, I only briefly got my feet wet. Later that day, I found out there were actually sharks in the water and they had a few attacks that year, which is why no one goes in anymore. Note to self: Keep paying attention to what others are doing when you yourself are ignorant about the area.

Eventually, I gave in and took the tender back to the ship, even though it was such a nice day and I didn’t want to go back to the place we’d spent the past 5 days non-stop, but I’d literally miss the boat if I didn’t get going.

The evening went as normal with dinner followed by the Cast Production Show called Headliners. This was the first time I really photographed the new cast and they are a lot of expressive people to capture!

Day 74

My favorite event took place today - the Country Fair! This is the event where all of the different departments have a game booth and passengers get to go around to earn raffle tickets. The games range from ring toss, tossing toilet paper into the toilet seats, guessing the flags, making knots, and much more. A key attraction continues to be playing Baggo (aka Cornhole) to dunk the Entertainment team in the pool. You have three tries. If you manage to get the bag in the hole, one of them is pushed into the deep end. When it was my turn, I sunk two of them!

Then came the raffle for prizes. Ticket after ticket was called. Sadly, none were my number, so I’ll try again next time to win the glass model of the ship…

My lack of luck continued to Bingo, where the Jackpot had grown to over $3,000. In the four games played, I was not even close to calling out, which is also kind of good because that means I won’t play again on this cruise. Unless there’s a giant jackpot again. Then I might change my mind. Also, I didn't have a chance to change my costume from the Country Fair, so maybe that influenced my outcome.

With all the sea days this segment, there were a few activities that the passengers took part in, resulting in two different recitals today. The first was a Hulu Dance recital where those who participated in the classes were asked to join the instructors on stage to show off their new skills. The second was a choir that was formed and similarly, joined the leader on stage to serenade the audience. Both were great to watch friends get out of their comfort zones a bit and have a little fun on the big theater stage.

The Speaker Series today covered the story of Kon Tiki, which is a raft that was built to prove there was a way for ancient South Americans to reach French Polynesia. The story from 1947 went that a wanna-be scientist, Thor Heyerdahl, selected a crew to captain a raft, traveling over 100 days across the Pacific Ocean. Ultimately, the science community agreed that while it was possible, the other historical evidence proved that these areas were initially settled by other French Polynesians. However, Heyerdahl went on to document the trip in a book, which resulted in selling millions of copies as he’s more notable as a storyteller than a scientist.

Another great dinner took place this week when we were joined by the violinist, Irena, and the Speaker, James. Though, this dinner wrapped up in time to see the evening entertainment, Michael Linden.

Day 75

We anchored in the lagoon of an atoll this morning, which is a new word for me. An atoll is a ring-shaped coral reef, island, or islet that encircles a central lagoon, primarily located in warm, tropical areas. Upon arrival, there was a rainbow welcome!

My excursion for the day took a group of us to the Pearl Farm, where the owner explained the history of basically artificially inserting a bead into the pearl for the organism to create the Mother of Pearl material around. That’s really how there are so many round pearls in the world today. It was interesting to hear about the other methods that they tried, but ultimately failed before they figured out this approach. Most of the time was spent listening to the show & tell, but before we left, the technician showed us how they only opened the shells just a little in order not to damage the oyster, slice open a little appendage thing inside, and insert the bead. Even with all of the progress they’ve made with the process, there are still about 20% mortality rate among the oyster colony. After the demonstration, we were released into the boutique that showcased tons of pearls, but most of them were very costly, ranging over $10,000. I bought a magnet and two postcards.

Since this stop is an atoll, there isn’t really a city center or too much infrastructure, even though the Pearl Farm owner did boast that they now have Netflix available. However, there were lots of places that you could swim, including a snorkel spot they called The Aquarium. I had planned on just getting a local guide to take me to that spot with a friend who mentioned it that morning. Throughout the morning, I ended up convincing two others new friends to join us. However, when it came time to make some decisions, we landed on lunch at a local restaurant, which resulted in picking up a few more friends along the way. While I started this trip as a solo traveler, I no longer consider that I’m traveling by myself since there are always people around to hang out with.

After lunch, we headed back to a beach by the pier to swim for a bit before taking the tender back to the ship. The water was refreshing, but the beach was very, very rocky. Luckily, someone had warned me about that before I left the ship, so I had water shoes on. The others were not so prepared and had to carefully and cautiously creep into the water in order to save their soles!

I’ve mentioned the Solo group in the past, but to recap, there have been about 30 solo travelers on each segment with a core group of about 15 continuing around the world. With this, we’ve started a bit of a tradition for when we don’t have someone to eat dinner with, we make our ways to the back deck of Terrace Cafe to see if there’s anyone else looking to share a table for the evening. This table, while it started as solo table, has been extended to others who also want to share with us. We had started calling it the Community Table, but decided it needed a cooler name. It’s now known as The Orbit. So if you are reading this on the ship, you now know our secret! It’s first come first sit and all are welcome to join.

Day 76

It’s so nice to be back on land, I went on a boat excursion for the day…

The excursion took us to two different areas to swim and one additional area to look at the sea turtles.

The first stop was shallow, which was helpful because the current was very strong. On this excursion, they provided the snorkel mast and breathing apparatus, but not fins. With the strong current, swimming to stay by the boat was pretty exhausting and required a lot of arm strength. Even though I have large size 11 feet, they are basically useless to propel myself through the water. At this stop, we saw Black Tip Sharks, Stingrays and tons of fish! I have two memorable stories about the stingrays. The first is when I was trying to record pretty fish eating at the coral and it came up from behind me. If I was above water, everyone would have heard me squeak loudly, but since I was under water, it was just a bit air bubble the floated to the surface. The next memorable was when one was swimming right towards me and I didn’t know what I was supposed to do, so I recorded and tried to stay as close to the surface as possible as it swam right underneath me! (I didn’t squeak this time, but might have held my breath.)

The second stop was much deeper water and showcased a lot of coral. While we didn’t have sharks and stingrays at this stop, there were so many species of fish to observe! The current was also much easier to manage allowing for a bit calmer experience, the lack of surprising stingrays also helped my nerves.

The final stop on this excursion was to an area where they had released sea turtles back into the wild, so there were many that continued to surface to breathe before diving back down. We saw quite a few pop up. We also got treated to seeing another shark!

A nice surprise on the excursion is the Speaker for this segment, James, was on the trip with us, so I got a chance to talk to him a bit throughout the morning.

After getting back to the pier, there wasn’t much opened as it was Sunday. They did have a little market with handmade crafts for sale, so I bought a little (fake) flower clip for my hair and of course, a magnet. I wandered a bit away from shore and found a convenience store, where I decided to buy a popsicle. From swimming in the salty water all morning, the limeade popsicle tasted soooo good!

All aboard was a bit earlier than usual because the ship expected to dock in Papeete, Tahiti still that same evening. As we cruised down the coast away from Moorea, the sun was not quite yet setting, but the sky was full of shades of grays and white with the clouds and rain showers in the distance.

Because Papeete marked the end of another segment, the Production Cast put on the Our World show followed by the Crew send off. This was another sad goodbye day as the comical Executive Pastry Chef, Adil, and my favorite Barista, Robin, were signing off the next day.

After the show, I headed back outside to watch the arrival into the port and the extremely colorful sunset, while debating what to do for the evening. Since we were about to dock, we could get off and go explore. However, because it was Sunday night, not much was open. As I stood there doing mental gymnastics, I ended up talking to some other passengers and finally decided just to grab a bite to eat at Terrace. As I was leaving, more goodbyes occurred, this time with Kenny and Kylie from the previous Entertainment Production crew. They are both headed home for a much needed vacation.

As it was already after 9:00 pm by the time I was leaving the Cafe, I headed to the theater to check out the evening show. However, once I arrived, the idea of staying inside didn’t sound so great, so I started back towards the stairs to go outside. Once outside the theater, I ended up talking to another off boarding entertainer, Michael, for a bit and a few others, never making it outside or off the ship that night.

Day 77

Given that the night sky and weather the prior evening was so perfect, I was surprised by the rain and storms moving through the region this morning. My excursion was a catamaran tour, including snorkeling, and I was a bit concerned they might cancel it. They did not, so we loaded onto the smaller boat and headed into the open ocean.

The first half hour was exhilarating! Seated at the front of the catamaran meant that we were bounced about as the warm sea water splashed through the netting. There were dolphins jumping and flying fish darting through the water as we cruised through. It seemed like the rain was passing and would be a beautiful, yet still cloudy morning.

As he anchored into the lagoon area where we were to snorkel, a storm moved back in to the point that we needed to take shelter due to the high winds. Once that passed, we were free to jump in the water. While we were treading water, it rained and rained and rained. Quite the experience to be swimming in the open ocean with the pouring ran pelting the water’s surface all around us.

All was fun and games until I got out of the water.

Firstly, the rungs of the ladder to get back on the boat were narrow and slippery, so I slammed my shin into one, leaving a dent that quickly turned into a colorful hump. Next, as I was drying off, I noticed my right arm was tingling pretty severely. Assuming they would have warned us of any jellyfish, I was hoping it was just an odd reaction that would dissipate quickly. It did not. The burning continued to intensify, while little red bumps started forming. I decided to go find the guide and seek first aid. She quickly grabbed some honey / vinegar concoction and spread it all over the red areas, explaining that it’s likely from plankton biting at my skin. Recalling a clump of algae that I passed by on my way to the ladder, I assumed that was the culprit. Nothing else could be done at that point and I just needed to wait out the pain.

The guide recommended scrubbing in the shower to make sure there were no little plankton dudes still anywhere on my skin and putting some antihistamine cream on the rashes. As soon as the catamaran docked, I did exactly that. I also took some Benadryl for added measure, which almost instantly put me to sleep. A few hours later, my skin looked much better and no longer hurt.

With Papeete being the end of the segment, meant that it was also embarkation day! Doesn’t really matter any more for those of us continuing on, except we always gather to welcome the new batch of Solo travelers. This segment seems to have about the same amount as the other segments, so it was a big group again.

Off to officially start Segment 6… the HALF WAY POINT!