It was another lazy day at sea for us. After breakfast, we took our usual morning walk, finding the weather much the same as yesterday. Actually, it was a mixed bag with partly cloudy skies, some sun, and eventually rain. During our promenade deck hike, we happened to look up and see one lone masked booby. That was the first sea bird we have seen for quite some time now. And oddly enough, we only saw the one bird for a few seconds before he flew over the ship and disappeared. Watching closer, we did spot some shearwaters flying over the waves, but they also disappeared as they often do. Occasionally we saw some tiny flying fish, but very few of them.
At noontime, Captain Smit reported that we were 284 nautical miles north of Fanning Island, our next destination tomorrow. Maybe….. He expected to be at the anchorage around 7am, where he will find the best spot for a safe tendering operation. There may be a problem with the 4 to 5 foot swells and the winds at 21 mph. The forecast was for cloudy skies, some showers, turning into thunder showers in the afternoon. He expected the tendering process to be slow at best, and somewhere in his voice, we could hear some doubts about actually stopping here. Not that he said as much, but we remember what happened while on this same trip last year.
On the Volendam's South Pacific cruise last year, we faced no obstacles with tendering ashore. But the local officials never showed up to clear the ship. They have to come from a bigger island by boat, and something happened where they forgot we were arriving. With all aboard time at 1:30pm (which is the same tomorrow), it was a no-go. But what Captain Paul did was a circumnavigation around the entire island providing us with views we had never seen while on the atoll itself. It was simply beautiful looking through the narrow atoll into the center aqua-blue lagoon. We saw many birds including the tropic bird, which we never knew were here. All of the donations the passengers had brought were to be saved and delivered here on a future cruise in January. Since we have been here several times in the past, we were not disappointed. But many people were. These are things that can happen anywhere and anytime, and the best you can do is roll with them.
Before we went to lunch in the Lido, we watched a port enrichment video of Fanning Island, a talk given by Daniel, the cruise and travel director. The detailed information was good, but we feel some of the activities on the island were exaggerated. For one thing, there is no modern plumbing on this atoll, and from what we recall, there are no restrooms. They do show an area close to the tender landing where people can swim on a small beach. Common sense tells us that if there are no restrooms, then the surrounding waters may not be as safe as you might think. On past stops here, we had warnings not to snorkel in these waters, but so far, we have not read this anywhere. It is a nice place to take a walk through the villages, and perhaps pick up some local handicrafts and souvenirs.
Hopefully the weather will improve, or else this stop will be messy at best if it rains. Time will tell. What has not improved is the TV reception. We were told that by adding a sports channel for the football games, it messed up the other stations. A different day and a different story. Bottom line – they are working on it.
We stretched our legs again for a late afternoon walk. This time we caught a sunset as well as spotting the lone masked booby. We figured he was resting on the bow during the day, and will stay onboard until Fanning Island. Another hitch-hiker.
This evening was "dressy" and most folks looked nice. The waiters looked spiffy with their pink bowties. However, there was a Masquerade Ball planned at 8pm in the World Stage. For that reason, the dining room was jammed early on, and it continued through our dinner time of 7:30pm. It was the first time that we had to wait a long time to even get our Caesar salads. Like 45 minutes to be exact. Our entrees were not the ever-popular surf and turf, but one rack of lamb with a baked potato, and one Club Orange blue plate special of butter basted chicken. These entrees arrived by 9pm, with apologies from our head waiters and both of our waiters. By the time we shared a very nice strawberry shortcake-style dessert, the dining room had cleared out. Good thing we never attend this ball, which required the guests to dress to impress and don a fancy mask for a touch of mystery. We think we read yesterday that a prize would be awarded to the person with the best mask. The only person we saw in the dining room with a mask was the roaming photographer, who scared us with her spidery mask. In all truthfulness, we think the masks are creepy and are suitable for the young Halloween trick-or-treaters.
Now technically, we have crossed the International Dateline. Our computer said so sometime today. That means we went from Sunday to Monday. However, there was a notice in tomorrow's newsletter saying that we will NOT be changing our day to the local date and time, which will be October 15th. We will be following the ship's time during this visit. We seem to recall we did the same thing last year, but it really did not matter, since we never went ashore.
Bill & Mary Ann
