Leaving Atuona
Sometimes life hands you lemons. Today was one of those days. After getting passengers prepared to tender at Atuona, at 11am, an hour before we were projected to begin tendering, the Captain's deep Captain voice came over the loudspeaker system and announced that due to high swells and wind conditions he was canceling today's stop and that we would only circumnavigate the Island. As the stop was only scheduled to be 6 hours, I can appreciate his approach, but honestly I've tendered in worse conditions.
As I thought would be the case, the line for tender tickets was about half the length of the ship. Fortunately those tickets will be used tomorrow, so people won't have to repeat the process. The entertainment staff then prepared new programming for the day which included Tony Sperlich's presentation of his talk on Captain Cook and Gerald Mcormick on birds of Polynesia. Both were excellent subjects; however, they were not well attended as they should have been by the newbies on board. As I have stated previously, the character of this cruise really changed in Papeete and I hope the EXC concept doesn't get watered down from critics who don't understand the concept and are here only for a two week Polynesian vacation. If HAL had set the itinerary to be a straight two weeks and then on to Auckland, I think there would have been a lot of carryover business from the first 34 day segment. Enough ranting. It was a lovely 5-6 knot cruise around Hiva Oa, and it's a rugged looking island. The sunset was beautiful!
Two of our Cook Island cultural Ambassadors sang for a half hour at the 7:15 insight session. Many of the Polynesian passengers joined them in song, and it was super melodic. Our comedian tonight, Jim Short, was really good with clean jokes and self deprecating humor and had some cute Seattle jokes. One of our EXC guides, Kay, told her family history story at story time. It was very personal and connected her to the voyage we're on. For privacy reasons, I'll not repeat it here. But it's that kind of depth that only the EXC program can provide the venue for.
Last, and to give another indication of the change in the character of the cruise, at 11pm the Ocean Bar was packed with rock music being played and good times being had. I didn't notice anything similar on it he 34 day segment. The casino was absolutely vacant at that hour.
We are scheduled to arrive at our next port at 8am. We're on a private excursion to Anaho Bay. Stay tuned.
Thank you Tim very interesting--I think I must have missed yr Pitcairn commentary..I couldnt read some of the posts as they did not show up against the black background as the letters seemed to be black or grey..so maybe Pitcairn was in there.. But loving it all and wish WE were there.
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