Sea days before Osaka

Monday 9th March - Not quite as hot, today, as we head toward Japan, our next port, Osaka, is 900 miles to the North and currently the weather service is showing a high of +15 deg C.

Tom Fletcher and Izzy


This morning, as usual, we were up on deck having a coffee and talking to friends. There were a few other people sitting around at other tables who we didn’t take much notice of. The subject came up of the previous nights entertainment and when asked what she thought of the comedian’s show, Izzy said “Oh, his jokes were all old, I’ve heard them all before, so I left after the first five minutes”. From behind us came a booming voice “Are you talking about all my old jokes”, we turned around and there sat Tom Fletcher, the comedian. Izzy was immediately flustered, but to her credit she recovered quickly and said “Well, I’d heard your first three jokes before, so I left”. He seemed a bit ticked and said “so if you go in to hear a singer, do you say ‘oh I’ve heard that song before’ and then leave” “so why leave when you’ve heard a few of my jokes”. Going on the offensive, Izzy countered “ok, I actually left because I wanted to go to the casino, but I can tell you a few good jokes”, with that, she lifted her coffee and moved over to his table. The mood softened and Izzy went into joke mode as she and Tom traded jokes and insults. We sat for about an hour laughing, ‘til we had to leave to play trivia. Parting words went to Tom, when Izzy said “You can join us to play trivia, if you want”, Tom laughingly replied “Oh I think I’ve seen enough of you for this morning”. We didn’t win trivia, missed by one point again.


The bridge of the Royal Princess

Me on the outside wing of the bridge

Izzy steers the ship



After lunch, we had signed up for a tour of the bridge and around 02.00pm we gathered with 14 others and passed through the mysterious gateway to the ship’s control centre. The first barrier opened to reveal a continuation of the corridor with several doorways, officers quarters and meeting rooms. I noticed the corridor walls were covered with awards and plaques given to the ship for various achievements as we made our way to the second barrier door. Inside the bridge area, we had a guided tour of all the instrumentation, by Alan, the officer on watch, the highlight was stepping out onto the open-air wings at each side of the bridge. The view down the side of the ship was spectacular, we stood on the floor grating, looking straight down at the ocean breaking against the hull. Back inside, we were free to look around ourselves and ask any questions of the two officers on duty, though we were warned not to touch any buttons, apparently, true or not, we were told that on a past bridge visit a passenger had pushed the emergency stop button. At evening dinner, we applied a little lubrication to the maitre’d and arranged to move to another table with bill and Shelley but for tonight we had dinner back at our usual table to let our tablemates know that we would be moving, it went surprisingly well. We lost some money in the casino, watched the evening show, ’the sensational voice of Claude eric’, for five minutes before deciding that we’d rather have a quiet evening in the cabin.


Tuesday 10th March - Didn’t sleep well at all last night, Izzy was up with chest and back pain and we came close to calling a doctor, but after a while we decided it was probably indigestion. Anyway she was somewhat improved in the morning, but she decided to stay most of today in the cabin.
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Guam

Our escort into Guam harbour












The dock in Guam


Sunday 8th March - We weren‘t scheduled to arrive in Guam ‘til noon, but the captain put his foot to the floor and we docked about 10.30am. Immigration officials came on board, since Guam is US territory and everyone on board had to be cleared before disembarking, we went through the process about 11.30am and went ashore about noon. Before disembarking we said our goodbyes to all of the tradesmen from UK as they were heading back home after finishing their alteration work in the captains quarters, during their 10 days on board, we had got to know them all. A free shuttle was provided by Galleria Mall in the closest town, Hagnata, about a 30 minute journey each way, the mall was very expensive and filled with upper end retailers, Gucci, Fendi, Louis Vuitton etc, so we passed through it quite quickly and stepped out into the street. It was extremely hot and humid so we crossed the road and went into another plaza, bought some beer and pop and had a look around. The beach was very close and several shopping trolleys were available to transport you around the different shopping centres, but as Izzy’s back was bothering her we just made our way back to the shuttle stop and then back to the ship. The town of Hagnata was basically like any other North American town with all the usual franchises except everything was written in Japanese and English, probably because most of their visitors are Japanese, it’s a three hour flight from Japan. Although Princess said there would be taxis available pierside, in fact there were none until you got clear of the main gates, about 30 minutes walk away from the ship.
The ship was deserted when we got back and after having something to eat, we had the whole upper deck and pool to ourselves.

A group of local entertainers (Chamoro indians) came on board and we enjoyed a folk show before the ship departed around 06.30pm.







Bob, Jim and Izzy on deck


We watched the sail away under a beautiful sunset, then sat talking to friends over a few beers before going in to the buffet about 07.30pm. Also leaving us were the guest entertainers while a new set came on board. They were supposed to change in Rabaul, but because of the ash from the volcano, all flights in and out were cancelled. One of the new acts was Tom Fletcher, a comedian, and we went in to his show later in the evening, Izzy lasted three jokes then announced she had heard them before and was taking off for the casino, (shades of Philipino crew show) I stayed to the end and was quite glad as he was funny.

Sunset over Guam harbour













Joggers on track on deck 10 at sunset

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Sea days before Guam

Friday 6th March - Hot and sunny this morning though the sea was a bit rough. I took my laptop up to the Panorama buffet at 06.00am to do some typing, the wifi access is very good on the ship, it seems to be available from just about anywhere on board. Izzy slept in ‘til about 10.30am as she wasn’t feeling to good, with back and shoulder pain. Later we went up play trivia and won again this morning, that’s 2 in a row, can we make it 3 tomorrow?. After lunch we had the ‘crossing the equator’ ceremony, I didn’t go to it, but Izzy said it was quite funny as this time the captain was one of the victims. We actually crossed zero degrees latitude at about 09.30am this morning so the ceremony was a bit late. I spent most of the afternoon in the sun by the pool, reading, then when it started to rain heavily, I went down to the cabin. By then we were rolling quite a bit and the wind had picked up, conditions that remained for the rest of the evening. After dinner, I went to see a Tom Jones tribute artist, Jaques Renay, despite the name, he is Welsh and looked a bit like the real guy. A few people didn’t think much of him, but I thought he was quite good and actually laughed out loud at a couple of his jokes.


Saturday 7th March - Rough seas again this morning, according to the official weather page, the proper term is ‘high seas with windblown foam’. We slept in ‘til 10.30am this morning after having breakfast delivered at 07.30am, so by the time we got out on deck, it was stifling hot and I spent most of the afternoon by the pool again until I couldn’t take any more. We had dinner with Bill and Shelley instead of our regular table, we‘ll probably move tables next segment if not sooner. The evening show was pretty bad, ‘comedian’ Yakov Nyoy, s strange act part improv, part storytelling and lots of miming, as I said, pretty bad. Tomorrow we’ll be in Guam, it’s still about 200 miles North of us, so we’re not scheduled to arrive there ‘til after lunch.

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Rabaul - Papua New Guinea

Thursday 5th March - I was up before the alarm went off at 05.15am, I’d read from previous reports that the view was worth the loss of sleep. Rabaul in the East New Britain Province of Papua New Guinea was established by the German Empire in the early 1900’s as the capital of their colony Deutch Neu Guinea. And the area was later ceded to Australian administration as a ‘trust territory’. The town was all but destroyed in 1994 by volcanic ash from the eruption of Vulcan, one of the 5 volcanoes surrounding the area and even to this day it is still threatened by continuous volcanic activity from Tavurvur, another one of the volcanoes. Above, (Izzy and me, early morning, on the sail into Rabaul)



The sun hadn’t appeared yet as we sailed into Simpson harbour and one of the first things I noticed was the faint smell of sulphur, fortunately the wind was blowing toward the volcano. I could see the shapes of the volcanoes ahead and at first light the streaming black smoke and giant cloud above it were clearly visible. Simpson harbour is a beautiful big bay, dense tropical forest down to the waterside on two thirds of its’ circumference and a grey wasteland with smoking volcanoes on the other side.(see left) The 1994 eruption covered the old town with up to 2 metres (6 feet) of ash and all that survived of the vegetation in the area was the bare stocks and branches of what had once been jungle. We had arranged to meet our travelling companions, Elaine and Bob, at 07.45am and walk to the Rabaul Hotel where we’d find our rental car and driver. Even at that time, it was hot and humid, we passed through the dock area gates and some vendors had already set out there wares on the ground. The roads were wide uneven paths of black volcanic ash with few buildings on either side, fortunately it hadn’t rained or they’d have been much more difficult to negotiate. Ten to fifteen minutes later we reached the hotel and met our driver, Robert, before entering the hotel to meet Bruce, the owner, he was the guy who had made all the arrangements with Bob, online. A pleasant enough Australian fellow, Bruce had the casual manner of many of his countrymen. I enquired about exchanging some Australian dollars into local currency, I’d checked the day before and it was about 1.7 PNG kina to 1 Australian dollar. “No worries” said Bruce “we usually change them at 2 for 1”, ’very reasonable’ I thought.



The road to Kokopo

Our vehicle fitted 4 passengers comfortably, it was a Nissan Patrol, similar to a Ford Explorer, though probably slightly smaller, but plenty big enough for us. First stop we decided was the Commonwealth war dead cemetery at BitaPaka since it was furthest away about a 40 minute drive. The roads varied from completely paved and pothole free, to dirt tracks with ruts and potholes deep enough to hang the truck up on its’ axles. The cemetery was incredibly well kept, grass perfectly edged and manicured bushes all around. Inside a large rectangular area bounded by colourful head height bushes lay 1114 Australian and Indian dead from the second world war and 32 from the first war. It was very moving, most were no older than their mid twenties and we were moved close to tears by the thought that underneath this ground lay the last remains of many promising young people, lives cut short before their time. Izzy collected fallen Frangipani flowers and laid them on as many graves as possible, then sadly we were on our way back toward Rabaul.




Two pictures from the cemetery at BitaPaka


The drive back took us through the town of Kokopo, school kids all in uniform, throngs of people going about their business, quite different from Rabaul where life and business operate on a lower level. Our next stop was the Japanese Barge tunnel, off the main road a kilometre or so up a dirt track, a leftover from world war 2, the tunnel, about 200 metres deep, still holds 5 Japanese barges rusting out. The approach to the tunnel was flanked by several vendors, mostly women and children, selling beaded bracelets, necklaces and bags. Seeing the children, Izzy brought out her bag of candies and passed them out to kids and adults, the people as everywhere else we went on the area, were friendly and welcoming, living standards are generally quite low, but most people seemed happy.



We stopped at the roadside to look at a small beach and this little guy was sitting by himself, his dad came out and told us his name was Alex




Our next stop was the volcanological observatory atop one of the dormant volcanos, it provided excellent views over the town and the active volcano. We spent a brief amount of time in the observatory, but there’s not much of interest to the layman, the outside views are much more rewarding. Next we temporarily bypassed the market and drove off toward the active volcano, over ash covered fields, fording deep channels cut by water flowing through the ash. We crossed a wide expanse of untravelled ash, reaching a stretch of water separating us from the volcano and the bubbling ocean at its’ base. We could hear the faint rumbling of the explosions within the volcano as it threw up vast clouds of ash and steam, it was quite a sight and if there had been anywhere to have a beer I’d gladly have sat for a while and enjoyed the spectacle.


As our time was limited, we were soon on our way again, visiting the Japanese memorial to the war dead and then the market which was disappointingly predominantly local produce. We returned to the hotel, settled our bill (it worked out to be about US$50 each including all entrance fees etc) and then Robert dropped us off at the entrance to the dock.


Of future interest, 2 to 3 hour tours were available on the dockside for US$20 each, in non-airconditioned 15 seat vans. Most people seemed to think they were good value and although they were way too hot, they covered most of the nearby places of interest.



We got back to the ship right at 01.30pm and the ship sailed 15 minutes later, 15 minutes before scheduled departure, maybe the captain was concerned that the wind might change and blow the ash toward the ship. After a late lunch, I spent some time in the pool before getting ready for dinner. We watched the show in the Cabaret Lounge, it was the ‘Royal variety Performance’, a bit of a ‘fill in’ show by the onboard dancers, highlighting their dubious other talents, juggling (not too bad), singing (wouldn’t get past the first round of American Idol) and instrumentalist (quite good).

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Sea Days after Cairns

Tuesday 3rd March - Where does the time go, this morning I no sooner finished breakfast and it seemed like it was lunchtime. Hot and humid again today, didn’t do much other than read and eat. Tonight at 05.00pm we had a ‘Meet Your New Captain’ reception, free drinks all round. Captain William Kent joined the ship in Sidney, he was born and raised in England and is married with 2 daughters. He holds the rank of Commander in the Royal Navy Reserve. After dinner we had a drink up on deck, it’s strange to sit on a ship with almost 1100 passengers and crew and see no-one on deck, the open decks are virtually deserted (picture above) in the evening, except when there’s a deck party or some other celebration.

Wednesday 4th March - this morning after breakfast we sat on the top deck chatting with several friends and I passed the time getting Chinese (Mandarin) lessons from Lucy. I brought a page full of common words and phrases but needed to get my pronunciation correct. We had a lot of laughs as I struggled to get the correct tone and accent. It is still warm and humid, though we’ve had a few rain showers today, each lasting only about 15 or 20 minutes. Late morning I played cards (31) with Bill and Shelley before morning trivia, which we won with afantastic score of 15 out of 20. Later, after an enjoyable dinner we went up to the open deck for a coffee and sat outside speaking to the matre’d of the bistro for about an hour. Extremely interesting young guy from Bucharest, I impressed him with my few phrases in Romanian. He’s been working for princess for 13 years and has spent time on many ships including Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth 2. It’s 10.30pm just now and we are 102 miles from Rabaul, Papua New Guinea, I’m looking forward to our visit tomorrow as I’ve heard that the volcano is more active than normal.

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