Due to putting the clocks back one hour last night, both of us were awake well before the sunrise at 6:20am, or was it 5:20am? It seems that the printed sunrise and sunset times have quite often been off an hour. Whatever the time was, our room lit up with the orange hues of the upcoming sun. Wonder if the old saying," Sunrise Red Skies in the morning, sailor take warning" rings true. Many times that is very correct, and a storm is brewing. Hopefully, not today.
The subject of a lecture today dealt with literary and artistic figures, and what drew them to the South Pacific. A few of the most well-known of them were Gauguin, Melville, and Brando. Each one of them had a different story to tell. And as things turn out, some of those stories are what brought us to this part of the world.
Two ports in Tonga were discussed by Kainoa today. One is Nuku alofi, and the other is Vava u. We know one well, but the second port was new to us last year. It was a tender port, with extremes in tides. Well, maybe not that extreme, but enough of a difference that we had to almost slide into the waiting tender boat to get back to the ship. Hope they have a better plan this time.
Captain Fred gave an insider talk about the Amsterdam this morning in the Queens Lounge. Who better than the Captain himself to share everything he knows about running the crew and staff of this vessel. Always a popular talk.
We all got a copy of our statements this morning. Talking to several folks we know, we heard that there had been some charges on their bills that should not have been there. Sometimes it does happen, but we have always found that it can be corrected easily. The whole trick is making sure you read that statement, and make sure it is correct.
We had a pretty lazy day, well-earned after walking so much yesterday. Thanks to a constant breeze, relaxing at the Seaview Pool was do-able. The same group seems to be coming on sea days, some to sunbathe, and others to bob up and down in the pool. Twinkle, the assistant beverage manager, sent us some slightly flavored ice water……a little lemon, orange, and even cucumber tasting. It was quite refreshing in this heat.
By 2:30pm, we cooled off in our room, and ordered chef salads. Last night at dinner, our waiters told us that there was a shortage of lettuce for salads. Never heard that before. So we did see that our room service salads were mostly arugula and sprouts. They were good, but we were not told no, they were not available when we ordered them. We heard at dinnertime tonight that the entire salad bar in the Lido was closed at lunch today, due to no ingredients. For the first time ever, there was a notice in tomorrow's newsletter that the demand has been greater than the supply. And apparently, local options were non-existent in this part of the world. Come to think of it, all we saw in the way of lettuce, was cabbage. Anyway, a new supply will arrive by air when we get to Lautoka in 3 days.
There was a formal dinner tonight, the third one of the cruise so far. It seemed to be well-attended, and there were at least three birthday celebrations that we heard. The waiters love to sing their special song, and even add percussion with empty trays and metal lids. Some of the entrees were crab legs, tournedos of beef, quail, and a vegetarian ravioli. But the best was the dessert……..cappachino bombe, a chocolate-coated scoop of coffee ice cream on a plate of strawberry chunks. Also competing with this treat was key lime pie. Reading the lunch menu, we found mud pie was offered. Gosh, this was one day that we could have done desserts and nothing else.
The show tonight was something new to us…….Frozen Planet Live: a visual and musical journey. They combined footage from the BBC series with music. When we visited the Koningsdam last spring, we were treated to a brief show in their new theater. We can see where this new idea would work wonderfully on that ship, but here may be different. Will have to see what our tablemates have to say about it tomorrow.
Oh, by the way, the clocks went back another hour tonight. And we just realized that we did not receive the usual certificates that we crossed the International Dateline or the Equator. That's a first……….
Bill & Mary Ann
