Today we stopped at Alotau, PNG. Everyone took a bus tour. The bus we rode was the prison bus, they used every bus on the Island, literally. We learned that 90% of the people of PNG are unemployed. Looking around, you would not ever guess that. The city was clean, the housing was modest. Our guide said that everyone was a gardener, fisherman, hunter or gatherer of fruits. That is what everyone lives on.
Even the children danced in their costumes
After some time at the local market, we went to a village where we were treated to ceremonial dances, clay pot cooking, coconut husking and shredding.
This gut even started a fire with 2 sticks. I tried that a lot when I was a kid, but he actually made it look easy, way better than they do on Survivor.
A young family, both Mom and Dad had red teeth. I noticed that several of the dancers had red teeth, and our guide told us about Betel Nuts. Betel nut, also known as areca nut, is the seed of the areca palm tree. It’s a common ingredient in betel quid, a stimulant chewed in many parts of Southeast Asia and the Pacific. However, betel nut chewing is associated with significant health risks, including increased cancer rates and cardiovascular diseases.
Kim tried to sneek this little guy out in her back pack.
Okay, so we took too many pictures of the children…..
Over all, it was an enjoyable day, but very hot and humid.
The following day we were at Conflict Island, so named by the discoverer while on a ship name the Conflict. We are now in what is called The Coral triangle. T is called this because thr best snorkeling and diving in the world is right under us.
Kim went snorkeling in the morning and saw Nemo! She also saw the giant clams that you probably thought were only found in cartoons.
She came back to the ship for lunch, then we both went back to the Island to do some swimming, yep, that’s me. Another beautiful day.
As I said, this crowd is more lively, and again, all I was doing is listening. We were docked at Alotau and when it was time to leave, we had to back out. As I mentioned, it’s a poor country. I kind of assume a lot of sewage gets dumped straight into the Ocean in places like this. I was up on deck 9 watching the sail away and there were 3 women in a hot tub close to me. As the ship churned up the water, there was the unmistakable smell of sewage, well at least I thought it was (unmistakable, that is). One of the women asked what that smell was and her friend said “oh that, it’s the exhaust from the ship burning fuel. It will go away once we turn around and start going forward”. Well, to my amazement, she was absolutely correct, once we were out of the port and going forward, the smell went away. Wow!
And then, while sitting at the pool, a couple walk out and he says to her “tonight, the sun will go down over here.” I look, get my phone out pull up the compass app and sure enough he just pointed to the East. “We are in the Southern Hemisphere now, everything is opposite”, he told her. It reminded me of the time we were in Key West, standing at the southerly most point of land waiting with about a hundred others to see the sunset. A guy says “this is the only place in America that you can see the sun set in the Ocean”. Wow, didn’t I tell you that these trips were educational?
Now, we have 3 straight days at sea, so I will be listening for more wise educators.
Here’s the map of our course fron Papeete to Honiara. Those that left the ship were flown to Sidney on a charter plane. Those that rmbarked were flown up from Sidney.
Sunset as we leave Soloman Islands
April 26, 2025
Honiara was the city we were docked at for a day and a half. It was also the end of a segment. So, 165 passengers left us. While 174 joined us. There are now 237 passengers aboard, that’s the most we have had this trip. This group is younger and love to party.
Here is the breakdown from the Tahiti to Soloman Island leg of our trip. Soloman Islands Guadalcanal, Nationality Breakdown; AUSTRIA 1, AUSTRALIA 26 ,BELGIUM 3, BRAZIL 1,CANADA 31, SWITZERLAND 4, GERMANY 10, DENMARK 2, SPAIN 2, UNITED KINGDOM 33, IRELAND 3, ICELAND 3, ITALY 3, JAPAN 1, LUXEMBOURG 1, MEXICO 5, NETHERLANDS 9, NEW ZEALAND 6, SINGAPORE 2. THAILAND 2, UNITED STATES 181
Fuel trucks pumped fuel for over 9 hours. It only took a few minutes to empty a truck. Next gas station is Darwin in 2 weeks.
The town was a disappointment, it was dirty, and poverty was obvious. This is the first time we have seen that on this trip. This area was instrumental in World Was II. The Japanese claimed the Islands and the United States took them back. It’s the sight of many famous Land, Sea and Air Battles.
The Market was quite amazing. It is clear that they can grow things easily.
Today is a sea day and then tomorrow we will be in Paupa New Guinea for a few days. More new places to see. I heard a quote from the stage the other night that went something like this “It is better to see a place once than to read about it a thousand times”. Never a truer statement as we travel to places that few have ever seen. This trip is exactly like and very opposite of our Northwest Passage trip a couple years ago. They are similar in that we stopped in tiny villages or uninhabited Islands and visited with the villagers that only see visiters once or twice a year, opposite in that its 84 degrees here instead of 24 degrees in the north. Both ships are class 5 ice breakers, but we haven’t seen a single iceberg this whole trip, LOL. We also haven’t seen must sea life on this trip either. Kim and I saw that one beak whale in Chile. Some saw a feeding frenzy of tuna a couple of days ago. We see flying fish all the time and a few birds. Oh yes, Kim’s lizard too.
That’s what traveling 17 knots per hour looks like. We are pushing a lot of water.
Is this some sort of I.Q. test? Funny it’s two different people on two different days in that same chair!
I understand the need to be competitive. I used to think I needed to win at everything. I would like to think that I have out grown that, but clearly some people never do. On sea days, there is team trivia. In the first leg, there was one outstanding team. We found out later that the Alpha male couple actually vetted their team members. Well, on the final sea day of that leg of the trip, they lost to the team that Kim was on. They thru a fit, really? It’s a game. Then remember the picture of the chocolote bunny display, it was Belguim chocolate by the way. Lupi, the cruise director, “hid” 100 paper eggs throught the ship on Saturday night. Well, one couple stole one of the big bunnies and told the hotel director they would give it back only if he told them where the eggs were hiden. They ended up finding 41 of the 100 eggs and thus were the winners. I guess they didn’t even consider how they spoiled the game for so many others.
Today is a special day for a special friend of mine, Dr. Paul Boring. When I was a sophomore in high school, Paul (of course he was “Mr. Boring” then) was a first-year teacher. He was my biology teacher. I’ve mentioned before that I was not a good student either academically or citizenship-wise. I got along well with Paul though. It was also the first year for a program called Sesame Street on PBS TV. Paul started every class of every day with a groaner joke. I’m not quite sure how it came about, but a few of us started going to his class during lunchtime and watching Sesame Street. Word got around and soon there were more students joining us for lunch. Well, one day the door opened, and the principal stuck his head in. He looked around, looked at the television, at us and then said to Paul, “I heard about this, but I had to see it for myself”. He then just closed the door and left. Someone asked if we were in trouble and Paul said, “your probably not, but I might be”. Well, nothing more was said about it, so we just kept doing it with what we assumed was the blessing of the principal.
Towards the end of the year, Paul asked me if I would be his lab assistant for the next year. In shock, I suppose, I accepted his offer and for the next two years I helped in the biology room. His fellow science teachers told him that he made a huge mistake, but Paul saw something in me that most missed. We have remained steadfast friends ever since. We often try to out groaner each other on texts, to this day.
Our welcoming commitee
The Dancers
Bungee tower
Meanwhile back in paradise we went to the Vanuatu Islands. In the morning, we watched a dance ceremony and then went to another Island where bungee jumping was first discovered. It was a very interesting day. At the first stop, everything was interrupted by a very large rainstorm. The trail to the bungee jump was muddy and slippery. One guest said, “while we’re taking pictures of the jumpers, they are taking pictures of us falling down”. That got quite the laugh out of everyone. The locals were very friendly and helped those of us that needed help get up and down the trail. It was a great and memorable experience.
The night before at the Briefing, we were warned that there would be nudity on the Islands. Then later he said that if we wanted to go swimming from the beach to please swim in our clothes because our swimsuits would possibly offend our hosts. Of course, and it wasn’t me this time, someone made a comment about they can walk around naked, but we can’t wear swimsuits? I just thought about my earlier comment about speedos and bikinis needing age limits.
The Easter bunny visited the ship and brought us lots of chocolate. He also hid 100 paper bunnies and eggs for those who wanted to search. Kim got up very early and found a few.
The seas are smooth today and it’s 83 degrees and sunny.
We hope whatever your expectations of this day and weekend were filled to the fullest.
After a day at sea, we came into the Islands of Fiji. There are over 500 Islands in the group.
We have entered an area called Melanesia. We will island hop our way over to Papua New Guinea, then down to Darwin, Australia from where we fly home on May 10th.
As you can see from the pictures, these Islands are among the most beautiful in the world. If you have ever visited Fiji on a cruise ship, you probably stopped at one of the 2 largest Islands. 95% on all Fijians live on these 2 Islands, with 74% of those living in the capital city of Sava. Well, we were not stopping at either of those modern cities, we were stopping at 2 very sparsely populated Islands.
The first Island was yesterday, Good Friday. The Islanders had planned for a church service for all of us. Fijians are ultra conservative; we were told we had to cover our shoulders and knees, and we could not wear any head coverings. Our color group, orange, drew the short straw and we were told to board the zodiacs by 7:00 AM. Now, if you know me at all, you know my day doesn’t start that early and there is only one thing I hate more than early starts and that’s long pants. I opted out and stayed in bed.
There was a group singing as the zodiacs arrived.
The church was open air, no air conditioning anywhere on the island. The service was advertised as 1 ½ hours was not even half that long.
Being Good Friday, everything was closed, so, other than walking around town or beach bumming, there wasn’t much to do on that Island.
They did show us the islands first cell phone and told us it could be heard from almost anywhere on the island.
In the afternoon, they took us snorkeling where there was plenty of large coral, doesn’t that picture look like its taken in someones living room aquriam? Coral grows very slowly, less than 1” per year, so some of the stuff we were seeing was over 300 years old.
Today’s Island, Yasawa, had lots to see and do. Again we were greated with song and dance.
The road from the beach to town was lined with women selling everything from baskets to blankets, Kim bought a Pereau from a lady that had come from a nearby island just because our ship was visiting. It had cost her about $50 US for the boat ride. Kim soon found out that most of the women selling things were from other islands and come to this island whenever a cruise ship is scheduled to stop, which is not very often at all. She told Kim that this was her only source of income. All of the people were very friendly and plesant.
Before we were “allowed” to visit the island, the chief had to approve our visit. Last night, 2 men from the island came aboard and explained the ceremony that would take place in the morning. After the explanation, they said we needed to choose a captain from the guests. George (seated in the chair with Jill beside him) volunteered to be our captain. We had met George and Jill about a week ago. We had booked a polar bear excursion in Churchill Canada after hearing about it from an expedition leader. When the paperwork was emailed to us, there were several questions about our general health and mobility issues. Since I do have mobility issues, we started getting concerned about if I could manage this trip. We started asking the expedition team if they knew anyone that had done this trip, well, we found out that Jill had done it a few years ago with her mother. She was happy to answer our questions and described the experience to us and said her mother was much more mobility challenged than I was. Last night, we had been invited by the cruise director, Lupi to join him for dinner. We were the first to be seated at the table for 5. Shortly after we arrived, the other couple arrived, you guested it, it was George and Jill. We had a great time visiting with them and Lupi.
At the ceremony, Captain Geoge would sit facing the chief. After exchanging greetings, one of the elders made a bowl of Cava, the root of the Cava plant is dried and pounded into a powder, the powder is put into a mesh bag and placed into a bowl. Water is then poured over the bag and the elder with his hands works the bag by squeezing it. Once he is satisfied that all the good stuff is mixed into the water. He scoops out a bowl (coconut shell) and presents it to the chief. The chief then drinks it, emptying the bowl. Then Captain George was given a bowl of Cava and drinks it, he was instructed to empty the bowl, or the chief would be disappointed and may not allow us access to the Island. He did a good job and we were allowed access to the island. Cava has special “powers” and some mind altering effects. It also makes your mouth feel like you just came from the dentist, numb.
Today was the first day that the heat was too much for me, so after about 2 hours I retreated to our cabin Again this afternoon, Kim went snorkeling. It was mostly a good swim.
Okay, still not worthy of pool cronicles, but close. At the briefing, we were told that the landing would be wet, meaning there was no dock to let us off. So, they basically run the zodiacs aground on the beach and we get off in very shallow water. When he asked for questions, a lady asked if we would be allowed in church with wet shoes, really? Then came the great one. How wet is the landing? Well, my mouth works way faster than my brain most of the time, so I said in my best indoor voice, “how wet is water?”. I can’t imagine how anyone could ask such a question. The speaker answered nicely and finished with “not even going to ask for any more questions”.
Again, thanks for your comments, I like to hear from all of you. For the grammer and spelling notzies, thanks for over looking my less than perfect writing.
