The New Blog - Fiji

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Well, it’s been over a week that we’ve been home so I suppose it’s about time I got around to finishing up the blog. I’ve been busy wading through a six-month tall pile of bills, statements, letters and the ubiquitous paperwork of everyday life. And I haven’t even started our taxes yet (I filed an extension electronically while we were away). We are reacquainting ourselves with driving on the right side of the road. We’ve also been busy reconnecting with family and friends. I’m happy to report that the cat did not hold a grudge and instead welcomed us back into her life with no hard feelings over our unexplained absence.

Certainly it is in many ways good to be home, surrounded by the people and things we care for. We forgot how nice the space we live in is. I missed my art studio. Soon I might even escape the confines of paperwork management and get back to painting large works of art, not just the small pieces I’ve limited myself to as we have traveled.

I do miss the sunshine though. And living constantly in shorts and sandals. And the new friends we made in Australia. And the sight of Kangaroos, Rainbow Lorikeets and Sulfur Crested Cockatoos. And the sounds of the Kookaburras and the Magpies. And the constant surprise at how differently and colorfully the Australians use the English language. And using meters and kilograms and degrees Centigrade like the rest of the planet. And Tim Tam cookies. And of course the sense of adventure from living somewhere unfamiliar.

But we’ve already started preliminary planning for next winter. We’re thinking Europe; maybe Spain and Portugal. We’ll try to do house sitting again whenever possible. That saved us a ton of money and lent a richness to the experience that you just don’t get as a typical hotel-bound tourist. So this blog is ended now but I’ll start a new one when we start our next trip– most likely in early December. The new blog will have a new name but I’ll do my best to let everyone know where to find it. Thanks to you all for following along with our adventures.

Cruise - Maui

Our ship anchored off Lahaina, Maui in late morning. By the time everyone had gone through US Immigration and tendered ashore it was noon. I didn’t mind the late start because I had managed to come down with a nasty head cold and wasn’t feeling too energetic. We just walked through town checking out the many art galleries – most filled with awful tourist art – and a few other shops. Our only purchases were a large cup of mango-flavored shaved ice and some pharmaceuticals. We were back on the boat by 4pm. I know we’ll come back to Maui for an extended stay some day so I didn’t feel pressured to see that much. The highlight of our brief visit was the sight of two giant turtles mating in the shallow waters just offshore. They were at it for quite some time while we voyeuristic humans snapped what should probably be considered pornographic photos of them. Eventually the female had enough and threw the hapless male off her back. Then she bolted for the open water while the male swam confusedly around in circles looking for her. Pretty much like humans, really.

Maui is our last full day of the cruise. We head to Honolulu to disembark on Tuesday morning and fly home that afternoon. I’ll wrap up the blog with some closing thoughts upon our return.

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Maui

Lowering the tender boats


Long line of people waiting to tender back to another cruise boat (not ours, thankfully)

Turtles in love.

"I said that's enough Harold! Get the hell off of me!"

The last sunset.

Cruise - Lost at Sea

This stretch of four consecutive days at sea is a challenge. Both Deborah and I are struggling with boredom. We shouldn’t be; there are many activities on board. Things like bingo, dancing, cooking demonstrations, game shows, seminars on numerology... Yes, many activities in which I have absolutely no interest. I should be painting but, even if I had the necessary thinner with me, which I don’t, this windy, wave-tossed environment isn’t exactly conducive to my precise style of making art. So instead I edit my photographs, attend the daily history/destination lecture and write blog entries like this. Deborah goes to the gym every couple of days and has made use of the ship’s library to keep herself supplied with reading material. If the afternoon movie or evening show is of interest we attend that also. And of course we eat. Often.

Many people onboard seem to actually like the sea days. They lie all day in the sun, lined up in their deck chairs like sausages on a barbeque, self-turning every 30 minutes. All are dedicated to the proposition that, as one of the entertainers said, brown cellulite looks better than white cellulite. I tried the sunbathing gig one day but it just isn’t my scene. Deborah has to be careful about getting too much sun also.

The evening shows have been a mixed bag. Some, such a violinist and one of the singers, were actually pretty good. Others, such as the chubby Tom Jones impersonator, clearly demonstrated that they are at the point in their careers where they are reduced to working on cruise ships. Live music also pops up in the various lounges around the ship throughout the day. It too is a mixed bag. Unfortunately we often end up sitting within earshot of this one female vocalist who is just awful. Deborah just wants to wrestle the microphone away from her and beat her over the head with it.

I’ve heard an unsubstantiated rumor that the ship is only about half full, which perhaps shouldn’t be surprising given the state of the global economy. We paid just under $4000 for this cruise last summer. Just on a lark I checked the prices again a couple of weeks before we left and found the price had decreased to $2800 for the same type of stateroom. Once onboard, Deborah got to chatting (as she does) with a couple who booked at the last minute and paid only $1600. So much for the benefits of planning ahead.

Part of the difference is the $224 fuel surcharge, which was discontinued last fall, but only after we had already booked and paid. We didn’t get a refund in cash but we did get an onboard credit for that amount. That comes in handy since any illusion one may have had that everything on the ship is already paid for is quickly dispelled. All alcoholic drinks are extra. Sodas are extra. Lattes are extra. Many of the exercise classes are extra. You have to pay for any laundry services onboard, or salon services, or day spa services. Internet access is quite expensive. And of course there is the minibar, where even a bottle of water will set you back $5. All items are listed as available at a “nominal fee.” In this case a “nominal fee” translates as “an inflated price to which our captive audience has no alternative short of abstinence.” And any money left in your wallet after the plethora of nominal fees can be quickly extracted at the casino.

Fortunately we can be tightwads when necessary. So far we’ve managed to only splurge on one bottle of water (to be refilled and reused endlessly), one soda (to help Deborah choke down that cauliflower lodged in her esophagus), two laundry services, a whopping $3.50 poured foolishly into a slot machine, and of course a few hurried internet sessions to check email and post blog entries. We’ve also bought a few cocktails, although we generally wait for the two-for-one specials or just split one beer.

Some people must be racking up huge bills, especially given the amount of alcohol being consumed onboard. The cruise line must have underestimated the very considerable drinking capacity of the Australians, who make up the majority of guest onboard. Halfway through the trip they had already run out of the favored brands of Australian beer.

Tomorrow we will be landing in Laihaina, Maui. Later that evening we will be sailing over to Honolulu where our cruise will end the following morning. We fly home that same afternoon. I may not have the chance to blog on our day in Maui until we return home, but I’ll be sure to try and wrap things up in the next few days.

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Deborah passing the time.

Towel sculpture by Tony the room steward.

Cruise - Bora Bora

The doubly named Bora Bora was our third island in French Polynesia. It has a number of swanky resorts but the rest of the island is very pleasant also. We rented a couple of well-worn one speed bicycles (Deborah called them Pee Wee Herman bikes, but his was much nicer) with which to circle the island on a 22km (13 mi) mostly flat road. About a half hour down the road the seat on Deborah’s bike slid down to the bottom of the post, forcing her knees to be constantly bent as she tried to pedal. She said she felt like a circus monkey. I wisely refrained from drawing any correlation between the collapse of her bicycle seat and the weight of a certain part of her anatomy. We were able to borrow a wrench from a man working on his car to repair the seat to its proper height and continue on our journey.

Riding the bikes was great fun and we stopped often to admire views, take photos, grab a coke, and once to cool off in the lagoon. While floating in the water, a stingray passed between us and the shore, no more than 10 feet away. We also thought we saw a humpback whale but it turned out to just be another passenger from our cruise ship. All in all it was a great day which we finished off with some Tahitian beer before tendering back to the ship. Next up we have four straight days at sea (which is about three too many) before landing in Maui.

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Cruise - Raiatea

Our second island stop in French Polynesia was Raiatea. It’s lush, green, clean and beautiful. It doesn’t have Tahiti’s sandy beaches, but it also doesn’t have a lot of Tahiti’s problems. It’s not overdeveloped; traffic is not an issue; the houses are tidy and well cared for; there’s very little graffiti; and far fewer stray dogs. And if you really do want those sandy beaches you can just hire a boat to take you across the lagoon to one of the many little islands called motus.

We didn’t do that but we did hook up with another couple from the ship to hire a taxi to take us around the island. The driver spoke only a little English but enough for all of us to communicate what we wanted and understand what we were seeing. His wife and 2-year old daughter came along and rode quietly in the back. Apart from enjoying the general scenery as we drove around the island we stopped at a botanical garden, where even the dead leaves looked exotic, and a marae, or sacred site, where stone platforms and other structures were laid out for the performance of various rituals including sacrifices of vegetables, animals and tourists.

Our taxi companions Jim and Lisa were from Minnesota and therefore inevitably very nice. Her Midwest accent was so strong I could have sworn I was listening to a radio skit from Prairie Home Companion. She persuaded the taxi driver to stop somewhere she could buy some black pearls, a natural commodity for which these islands are famous, and she scored a good deal. We joined Jim and Lisa for lunch back on the ship before stepping back out in the heat and humidity to walk around town a bit. Eventually unable to stand our own B.O., we returned to the ship for a very necessary shower, followed by a beautiful sail out of the harbor near sunset before resuming the normally scheduled rounds of gluttony onboard.

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Botanical Garden

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Dead leaf as sculpture

The marae (sacred site)

View of nearby islands as we sail away from Raiatea.

Cruise - Tahiti

Tahiti was a disappointment. We docked at Papeete, the main town on the island. Our impression: dirty, overdeveloped, heavy traffic, ugly concrete buildings, litter, lots of graffiti, stray dogs – not at all the postcard paradise we had imagined. I’m sure the fancy resorts are little oases (if you can afford them) but the rest of the island is less than inspiring. Still, we disembarked in the morning and found a bus tour that circled the island (for half the price of the shore excursions offered through the cruise line). The tour guide was an American, originally from Hawaii, and he was quite good and informative. The sites included a couple of nice viewpoints, a seaside blow hole which was less than impressive with the current water conditions, a waterfall, a cave, and a crappy museum. The latter was the Paul Gauguin museum, devoted to the famous French painter who spent many years in the islands. The museum had no originals, only faded reproductions arranged haphazardly in open air displays. This was not the Louvre. Our hope is that the remaining islands will be more like Rarotonga and less like Tahiti.

Here are a few photos which I’m sure will put a more positive spin on the place because I tend not to photograph the ugly bits.

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Papeete - it looks better from the waterfront.

While docked, our cruise ship was the highest “building” on the island. There is a local law forbidding the construction of anything taller than a coconut tree (about 5 storeys).

A grotto or cave.