So, the question of the day was what day was it? And what was the date? Technically, we had crossed the dateline, but the Captain chose not to acknowledge it. As it turned out, it did not matter because this port was cancelled. Captain Smit came on the speaker at 7am this morning and announced it was a no-go due to swells that covered our tender platforms with a foot of water. In addition, the tender pier onshore was not safe to off load the guests….even the able-bodied ones. Somehow, we knew this would be the case after listening to the Captain's talk yesterday. Several months ago while following the chatter on this legendary cruise, we read that many passengers were collecting useful items for the kids of Fanning Island. It has been our experience that all donations have been collected and presented to the elders of the island, and not handed out to individual youngsters. There is never enough to fairly go around. We did not want to rain on anybody's parade, so we did not inform anyone of past procedures. As it turned out last year, we also had to skip this stop due to the officials not showing up to give us clearance. We are sure that the folks on Dravuni Island, Fiji, will be most happy to receive these donations for their kids.
Replacing the actual landing here, Captain Smit did a half-circumnavigation of the atoll. Each side of the ship had equal time, but he took the ship out over one mile to do this scenic cruising. Doing the same thing last year, Captain Adams took us a lot closer. The scenery was beautiful as we could see the inner lagoon much better. There were many more birds too. At one spot in the atoll, we saw many white and black tropic birds as they flew from the trees out over the water. This time we may have seen one, but it was so far away, it was near impossible to get good photos of it. Truthfully, we have been here and Christmas Island about ten times over the years. We guess our success rate at landing is about 75%.
Even though we did not make it ashore, this atoll of Tabuaeran, Fanning Island is worthy of some explanation. This island is part of the Line Islands of the Republic of Kiribati. Actually they are not islands, but coral atolls with lagoons in the center. Tabuaeran has a land area of 13 square miles with a large lagoon of 42 square miles. The deepest point in the lagoon is 49 feet. The population in 2020 was 1990 people called Gilbertese, which is also the name of the language they speak. Some English is spoken. Their currency is the Australia dollar, and Australia sends supply ships here 3 times a year. The US dollar is widely accepted, however, don't plan on using credit cards…they are not accepted here.
There are 8 villages, three primary schools, one junior high, and one high school. We assume the older kids are sent abroad for further education, or go to work in the coconut plantations. Located 900 miles from Hawaii, the highest elevation is a mere 10 feet above sea level. The island is also 228 nautical miles north of the Equator. Coconut production has been the main industry for many years. The Fanning Island Plantation Inc. and the Atoll Seaweed Company have operated here in recent years. The coconuts are still harvested by tree climbers using machetes. Then the coconuts are cut in half and set out in the sun to dry for several days. When dried, they are gathered and shipped elsewhere to be processed for copra. The coconut oil has been a popular commodity as well.
There is limited electricity which is from generators and solar power. There is no cell phone coverage, however, we did see televisions in the huts the last time we were here. There are two clinics on the island and the Pacific Care Missions and Pacific Island Aid are helpful organizations that work through the schools and churches. The diet of the locals consists of rice, tinned meats, such as Spam, fresh fish, pigs, chickens, coconut, taro root, and seaweed. Crafts you will find here are made locally of sharp shark teeth knives, woven bowls, and seashell jewelry. Collector stamps are a big seller, and having your passport stamped is also done. A warning to those who choose to have their passports stamped is we were advised never to do that. In some countries it is considered tampering with the passport, and makes them nullified.
Lagoon wildlife includes sea turtles such as the hawksbills that feed on sponges. Manta rays, sea anemones, starfish, crab and shrimp are abundant. The sharks are considered the largest predator and are white and black-tipped reef sharks. Deep sea species include tuna, marlin, and other large species like dolphins and humpback whales.
Also interesting is the fact that this atoll served as a WWII base for allied forces. Old bunkers and an airstrip remain to this day. The national bird of Kiribati is the frigatebird and is displayed on their flag. We did see some of these birds today. Pirates of the sea we call them. Some of the birds we did see today were the white or fairy terns, some boobies, possibly tropic birds.
The weather was hot and humid with mostly cloudy skies. As we sailed partly around the atoll, there was little in the way of a breeze. If rain was in the forecast, which it was at 88%, it would have helped cool the air off. It never did rain while we were scenic cruising. In the Captain's noontime talk, he mentioned that we have 1312 nautical miles to reach Pago Pago, Samoa in a few days. It will take 12 to 15 knots to arrive on time. Tomorrow we will cross the Equator as well as the International Dateline at about 7am. He will sound the whistle and everyone onboard will become "Golden Shellbacks" to commemorate the occasion. And this is interesting…..for 38 seconds, he will hold the ship in a north, south, east and west position putting each section of the vessel in a different time zone and over and above the Equator. We have done this before, and came away from it about the same.
In addition to all of that, there will be a King Neptune Ceremony held at 2pm at the Sea View Pool. Always good for a laugh or two, nobody can do this performance as well as Kimberly did last year. She is a dynamic cruise director.
A new addition to the day's activities had to be distributed, and a flyer with all day promotions was delivered. The dining room was opened for lunch as well. And new to the cruise are bridge instruction classes, which many guests love.
Our biggest event was having a new filter replaced in the air-conditioning vent in the ceiling. Funny thing is we recall them doing this before we moved here about three weeks ago. It can never be too clean we say. We also had to fill out a health declaration form for American Samoa. It was mostly dealing with Covid, and a newly reported strain of infection in China. They wanted to know our personal health history in case we required being quarantined. And here we thought that pandemic was mostly over…..
We did enjoy the scenic sailing and the extra commentary, even though it was quite a distance away. Good thing we both had binoculars to see the lagoon in the interior. Of course, hundreds of photos were taken and needed to be sorted, which took the rest of the afternoon. We really appreciated our veranda today as we could relax, read a book, and bird-watch. By 2:30pm, we went out for a light lunch finding a lot of others doing the same.
Today must have been Canadian Thanksgiving, because a full turkey dinner was on the menu as well as pumpkin pie. And yes it was, we were told. We ordered the kalua pork taco appetizers, then the turkey. The meals came hot as ever and tasted so good. And there was no waiting tonight. We got the feeling that some of our surrounding table mates were not happy last night, so this evening they did not return.
There was not a regular show in the World Stage tonight, but the guest speaker, Michael Adams, spoke about his experience being a movie critic. This was at 7:30pm only. Then there were two movies….Jungle Cruise and The Idea of You (Wajang Theater). Our Aussie buddies would consider this a "dark night" in the show lounge. Correct.
Bill & Mary Ann
