Day 42 - Sun 10/21/18 Huahine Ini, French Polynesia

Today was the day it was hard to remove the stupid grin from our faces. Apart from Easter Island, this simply was a beyond amazing day. So what made it so? We did something that was so far outside our comfort zone: we rented jet skis and proceeded to motor our way around the islands. We rode 2up in the open ocean, in sheltered bays and lagoons, under a bridge, and even rode around the Maasdam at full speed. It was so much fun squeezing the throttle and getting up to 53kmph or about 31mph bouncing across waves. We even got to do some drift snorkeling which was fantastic, and there was a brief refreshment break on an island.

We had the tour company drop us back in the little town of Fare where we shopped and each of us had a grilled to order French Crepe. We also met up with Deborah from the ship and tried snorkeling at the public beach, but there was no coral and there was a stiff current. So we caught the ship's shuttle called Le Truck which is essentially a 2 ton cabover truck with a set of seats the length of the frame and it has a covered roof. It's sort of like a truck mated with a trolley car.

We showered and watched the sail away through a very narrow buoy marked passageway. It was pouring rain, so we watched from inside the Crow's Nest. I went to the Half Moon room to lead the interdenominational service but only 3 people showed up (6 pm is not a good time as it is in the early dinner hour). A couple excused themselves and we chatted with the remaining person who is a deacon in the Catholic Church. It was a great conversation about spiritual things.

Dinner tonight was a special Polynesian themed dinner prepared by the guest chef from Auckland. The overall meal was the best of the special dinners we have eaten and the chicken entree was the most moist chicken I have ever had on a ship. Our table mates from Oregon, Norm & Sue, were terrific.  

These special dinners take a long time, so we missed the 8pm performance of the Unexpected Boys who were doing their Broadway show. But we caught the 10pm show. We first saw this show a few days over 3 years ago on the Statendam. It's still really good and I could see it again tomorrow!

We have an exciting day planned for our return visit to Bora Bora. Stay tuned!

Day 41 - Sat 10/20/18 Avatoru, Rangiroa, French Polynesia

Today was Paradise revisited day in Rangiroa. We were here a few weeks ago, and for today we decided to try to go over to the other part of the atoll to the village of Tiputa and visit it.

Tendering began at 7am but we didn't leave the ship until after 9 following a short wait. Others reported waiting some 1.5 hours to get off. Once on shore Angela asked a tour operator where the water taxi was, and we were directed to the other side of the dock. Shortly a small covered roof boat came and picked about 6 people up including 4 from the ship. The fare was 300 francs per person or about $3. It ran on a 30 minute schedule until 5pm.  

Once we arrived at Tiputa, we walked to the post office/telecommunications office/ATM building. We also found a local little general merchandise/grocery store plus 2 others as we walked into village. We saw two churches (one Protestant and one Catholic) but neither were open. We walked about a mile down the main road, made a left turn, and found ourselves at a coral beach on the Pacific Ocean side of the atoll. We walked along the coral beach for at least a mile enjoying the many different shapes of the now calcified coral. From time to time we would walk in the tide pool, and Angela sat in the tide pool and allowed a large wave to break over her as I photographed it.

We even found teensy hermit crabs and played with them a bit. At one point the surf deposited a 3" long fish at my feet and it was thrashing around, so I scooped it up and got it back in the water. One small scoop for a fish; a large dose of satisfaction in helping a small creature.

On the way back to the water taxi, we encountered a couple ladies with coconuts. We admired them and in turn they gave us two. They absolutely refused to accept any money and wouldn't let us refuse them. I was able to open one without any tools using my new found skill at opening coconuts! We enjoyed the refreshing drink, and learned that this was really an immature coconut as the meat inside was like gelatin and hadn't hardened. We ended up bringing one back to the ship for future enjoyment.

After catching the water taxi back to the Avatoru village, we enjoyed a raw shrimp ceviche like dish at the restaurant on the left side of the dock as one faces way from the tender. It was quite good. We then headed off to snorkel at the public beach and had Deborah from the ship join us. Angela has been teaching her how to swim over the last few days and today was a breakthrough day. We even joke about adopting her. She's really progressed in losing her fear of the water.

After snorkeling (we saw quite a few fish) we walked back to the tender dock and shopped a bit before catching the last tenders. We were on the second to last and Deborah was on the last one.

After showering we went up to deck 13 above the Crow's Nest to watch sailing through the narrow passage out of the reef. Due to overcrowding we moved down to Deck 11 in front of the gym for an excellent vantage point. There were a few dolphins in front of the ship.

Once out in the open sea, we watched the sunset before having dinner in the Lido with friends. Annie Gong was the entertainment tonight. We've seen her before and she's a skilled Chinese accordionist. Peter Carey told an interesting story about his first trek to count seals at the Snares Islands. I started to watch the movie, "Love Affair" set in French Polynesia but gave up after 1/2 hour. Angela later said I really missed a good one.

All in all, I think we did our own EXC exploration today, and it was really enjoyable. It was also really good to do a repeat visit, and we are going to do repeat visits to Bora Bora, Moorea, and Papeete over the next week.

Tomorrow we are really going to do something well out of our comfort zone. Stay tuned.

Day 40 - Fri 10/19/18 At Sea to Avatoru, Rangiroa, French Polynesia

My favorite view

Geometric shapes for the photo class

Today at sea was a long and packed sea day, and one that amazed us at least a couple times with how small our world is since we started serious international travel six years ago.

We started our day attending the 9am coffee chat with Jonathan, our Cruise Director and the Unexpected Boys. It was interesting to learn more about them and how quickly this group of four came together. Their rehearsals only began on September 3, which was one week before our ship departed from Fort Lauderdale. They, however, didn't join us until Peru. I also searched my previous cruise blogs and found that we had heard the second of two of their shows (different cast members) exactly 3 years ago on the Statendam as it sailed through Malaysia on its way to Singapore to be transferred to new owners.

Jo Bradford presented a fast paced session on Photographic Creativity which was marred by interruptions from a crew drill. She showed some amazing pictures taken with a cell phone. Meanwhile Angela continued her ukulele lessons. Martin Cohen gave his final Main Stage presentation on Coral Reefs which was quite good. Throughout our voyage, he has been an anchor presenter on a wide range of topics. David Happe gave his overview of the next 3 ports of call of which one we have already visited on the first segment.

After lunch with Deborah, Tani & Rose, singers from the Cook Islands delighted us with more Tahitian music in the Ocean Bar. HAL should book them more in venues where there is beverage service as I'm pretty certain it would do well. Dr. Sperlich gave a repeat talk on Polynesian Cultures and more of the new passengers should have been there! Gerald McCormack also presented a nice display of Polynesian Ornamental Plants and attendance there was very light. A couple of us slipped out to attend Jo Bradford's Phoneography class. 

While walking around the deck taking photos for the Phoneography class, I was wearing my Seattle Seahawks shirt and a couple commented on the shirt. It turned out they are friends of a couple who are long term friends of ours in Tacoma. It's a small world. Then as we were getting ready to watch tge Unexpected Boys show, a group behind me noticed the shirt and it turns out they graduated from the same high school that my wife taught at for 20 years. Again, it's a small world.

The Unexpected Boys gave another two full house concerts on the theme 'The trip of a Lifetime'. They are being well received even by a largely non-native English speaking audience. It goes to show how music transcends borders and languages.

Dr. Cohen gave a poignant story time talk about getting bitten by a coconut crab. Afterwards, Marny, Arlene, Angela and I enjoyed a terrific private chat with him. It was a good opportunity for us to give positive feedback and encouragement about continuing the EXC format. We all conveyed that it HAL had eliminated the next segment, a number of us would have booked through to Auckland.

It was a good day, and tomorrow is the first of three repeat ports. Stay tuned.

Day 39 - Thu 10/18/18 Nuku Hiva, Marquesa Islands

Arlene & Marny with the Maasdam in the Background

Today was another special day in Paradise. The ship anchored in Taiohae Bay, and we got an early tender off and met our guide, Lolo. It was an hour ride in a Toyota 4x4 pickup on a twisty concrete paved road over several mountain ranges (with a scenic viewpoint of the ship at anchor) before driving another mile on a dirt road to an ancient pier. There a small outrigger boat was being loaded with concrete stair posts and other building materials that we later saw were being used at Anaho Bay.  

After the concrete filled boat departed, our little open runabout bobs up to the dock and 10 of us pile in including one fellow who can't swim and has a look of sheer terror at about what is about to happen. I also looked around and counted up the PFD's (personal flotation devices): zero! This could be interesting. And off we go ploughing through the water and its 6-8 foot swells. The 'captain' steered us close to dramatically rough black lava cliffs with pounding surf trying to take down the lava rocks. After crossing about 3 bays were turned into what would be Anaho Bay which is quite protected.

At the end of the Bay is a little settlement with a pension and a restaurant. We all (but one) immediately got in the warm and waist deep waters of the bay and tried to find fish while the little runabout went back for the other two groups. There were a few fish and after an hour and a half most of us left the water and tried spotting small (under 2 foot) black tipped reef sharks and sting rays. They were quite visible in the shallow water. It was pretty nifty to have this whole Bay to pretty much ourselves.

We were served a BBQ fish and chicken lunch and I demonstrated how to break a coconut open which I had learned a few days earlier on our excursion in Moorea. After lunch, some went back in the water while others strolled the beach or just relaxed.

Since our group was first to arrive, we were first to depart. So we ploughed our way back to the ancient pier in heavy swells. At the pier we unloaded and a family with a mattress and two dogs got on the boat fir the trip back. The skipper was going to earn francs today! We retraced our way back on the dirt road and the paved road making stops at a scenic lookout, an archeological site with lots of tikis and wooden crafts for sale and an overlook for the site of the TV series, Survivor, Season 4 from 2001. We've now seen two of the Survivor sites with Samoa being the other site.

We got back at the little villlage of Taiohae (tender port) around 5:15 and our guide showed us the memorial to Herman Melville who lived here during the early 1800's. As it was getting dark, all of the little vendors were closed and we caught a tender back to the ship as we had a Caneletto dinner reservation for 7pm. It was a nice quiet dinner, and we caught most of the 8pm showing of BBC Planet Earth II before listening to the Cook Island couple, Rose and Tani, perform beautiful Polynesian love songs in the Crow's Nest after which we caught the whole 10pm performance of BBC Planet Earth II. We did notice movement in the ship around 9pm, so it appears that everyone got on board early so we left early.

Thanks go to Kathy (Jokelady) for setting up today's excursion. The scenery was stunning, it was great to get away from the crowds, and now I can say I've snorkeled at Anaho Bay. It's truly another part of Paradise.

Tomorrow we have a sea day with a packed schedule. Stay tuned.

Day 38 - Wed 10/17/18 Atuona, Marquesa Islands

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.

Day 37 - Tue 10/16/18 At Sea to Atuona, Marquesa Islands

John the birthday boy

Wow, what the size and difference in the passenger demographic makes on this segment of the voyage. The average age is about 55 compared to 70 ish on the previous segment. The Lido is always full. There are full pools with lots of children. The casino is quite active, and the ukulele lessons turned into a  jam session led by the sheer quantity of Polynesians. For us there was a repeat of the Polynesian migration lecture, so I elected to not go to any lecture until David's port talk at 2:30pm in the afternoon.  

Our Cruise Critic Meet & Greet at 10am in the Explorers Lounge was very well attended. It was good to put faces with screen names for the newly embarked members. I also had the opportunity to talk about the tendering process and field questions regarding the same.

Yesterday I sort of felt like a celebrity when at breakfast, a lady sitting with us suddenly turned and said, "You're the one writing the blog!" Besides her, I've received lots of positive feedback and I appreciate the comments. If you have a question, feel free to contact me through the link on the blog.

We enjoyed a very nice birthday dinner in the Main dining room on Gala Night for John (of John & Ann) with 8 other people. Cake and an Indonesian happy birthday song sung by the crew were enjoyed by all.

The captain's toast was brief and he's really young, but definitely has a captain's voice! The Unexpected Boys presented the first (Frankie Valle tribute) of their repeat 4 shows from the first segment. It was well received for both the 8 & 10 pm shows (yes, we attended both and Angela danced with Joe in the first show but we took a defensive seat in the second row for the second show).

Afterwards I was finally able to get on Cruise Critic's new website, and I have to say that I am not impresssd. So far I've not found any explanation for what the changes were needed for. As I use an iPhone while traveling, it's not particularly friendly to IOS. But the biggest negative is that one can't access the site using an APP like Tapatalk which improves the speed and ease of access.

Tomorrow will be our first tendering and it remains to be seen how well that will work. Stay tuned.

Day 36 - Mon 10/15/18 Papeete, Polynesia - Departure day

Yesterday I forgot to mention that we had a change of Captains. Captain Ryan Whitaker is now in charge and he has a great Captain's voice for being a very young Captain in his second year in that role.  The rest of the senior offers seem to be the same.

Today was a leisurely partial day spent in town as we had to be back on board by 2pm. We first walked to our hotel, the Sarah Nui, which is near the port and reconfirmed that we could leave our luggage there on the morning of our arrival on 10/28 until check in time at 1pm. From there we found an optician that could fix Angela's glasses (he wouldn't take any money). The bulk of the rest of our time was spent in the local market, and I also found a non-cotton T-shirt outside the market. We were going to walk down to the local Carrefour supermarket, but in the end we didn't as it was pretty warm. We did walk over to the ferry terminal and checked it out. It was sure nice to see the city hustling and bustling after the quiet Sunday the day before.

We all had to participate in the he Mandatory Passenger Muster drill at 2pm. During that drill there was a medical alert that occurred but we didn't learn what it was about. The ship let its lines go around 3:30pm, backed out of the berth, and rotated clockwise before heading out to sea. I watched all of this from deck 13 before moving to deck 10 to try to find a fellow passenger. I wasn't successful.

We ate dinner in the Lido and Angela went to the BBC movie which I had already seen. I stayed and talked with another passenger, and completely forgot about the 3, 4, & 5 star Mariner reception. The evening program introduced the new EXC speakers, and it remains to be seen if this voyage has a similar vibe to the last one. I am guessing that it won't. But we'll see. Tomorrow is a sea day which will be good, but much of the programming is a repeat of what we've already seen. Oh, and I did find the person I was looking for after the EXC presentation.