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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Cairns

Monday 2nd March - I was up on deck to watch the ship dock at Trinity Wharf, Cairns (left) around 07.00am. We did a complete 180 degree turn close to the pier and for the first time we docked on the port side. The dock area, which is a short walk from the city centre, was not what I‘d call impressive, a tin roof shed, and around 08.00am we went ashore and walked the 10 minutes along to the Reef Fleet Terminal. I had booked a tour online the previous day, with Big Cat Green Island and after checking in at their counter, we found our boat and took a seat on board. We had a 4 hour tour which included the 45 minute trip each way, about 2 hours on the island and a glass bottom boat trip, all for A$69 per person , Bill and Shelley arrived shortly afterward and after dumping our bags on our seats we decided to spend the 45 minutes from Cairns to Green Island on the front deck of the catamaran. The front deck had some bench seating extending from the superstructure but we chose to stand facing forward against the waist height front bulkhead. It was a beautiful morning and as we left the dock at 09.00am the sky was clear blue and the temperature was 30 deg C (86 deg F). The big cat started out slowly and the resulting breeze was a relief from the humidity, as we cleared the dock area, the boat captain announced that as we got into the open ocean, the movement up front would be considerable. I could hear the low rumble of the engines steadily increase and soon we were up to full speed as we were treated to a roller coaster ride slapping across the water, being soaked occasionally as the waves sprayed across us.


Windswept on front of the catamaran (left)


Fortunately there was a handrail across the front of the bulkhead, without it I’m sure one or two of us would have been pitched overboard, and all too soon we were slowing down in preparation for docking at Green Island (above). We made our way directly to the only patrolled beach and settled down on the sand with our ships towels. The beach was not anything like I remembered from our visit 20 years ago when we’d walked out 100 yards in waist deep water followed by a myriad of fish, now it was perhaps 200 yards long by about 10 yards of waist deep cordoned off before falling off into deeper water. It was much busier than we’d remembered and interestingly most of the beachgoers were Japanese. It was probably busier since they had built a large hotel on the island in recent years and I assume it is largely marketed in Japan.


We’d been in and out the water a couple of times when we noticed some hurried activity over to my left, the lifeguard, accompanied by a couple of other swimmers was dragging a small lifeless body in toward the shore. A young Japanese girl was laid out on the beach and as the lifeguard administered first aid, he was quickly joined by, first 2 then 3 and 4 medical types. As they all continued to work on her, I didn’t see any movement, but I assume she was recovering since they carried her off on a stretcher (pictures, left). I decided to walk around the island to see if there were any better beach areas and soon after starting, I saw some familiar figures heading my way, along the beach.

Shelley and Bill, (left) with a stout walking staff in hand were just completing a circuit of the island, apparently most of the rest of the shoreline was rocky, so I cancelled my planned circuit and we all returned to Izzy.

As it was now getting close to the time for our side tour, we headed back to the pier and were soon crammed into the glass bottom boat (inside shown left). We saw a few fish but nothing spectacular and soon we returned to the dock to rejoin the Reef Rocket, our transport back to the mainland. The trip back was as windblown as before, I’m sure we’ll both look like giant tomatoes, tomorrow, from windburn. We walked back to the ship, a slow walk as I was dragging our 50lb bag and it was hotter than h e double hockey sticks, back on board we had a quick lunch and shower (the sandwiches got very soggy) and went back off again as we wanted to do some shopping and visit the Reef Casino. We both broke even in the casino, but weren’t so lucky with the shopping. Soon we were heading back with our bags of junk, hope you like the $3 tee-shirts, kids, back on board again after a short nap, we decided not to go to the main dining room and instead just eat up in the Bistro. Izzy went up to the top deck and I went to the Promenade deck as I wanted to watch the ship’s departure from port. Our departure time came and went and we were still firmly tied to the dock, the gangway was still down and several officers and crew were standing around. Then about 15 minutes after scheduled departure the side gates, in the dock area, were pulled open and 4 figures raced toward the ship. It was some of the casino staff and they quickly ran on board to the cheers and applause of the watching crowds on board. I found Izzy on the upper deck and we sat talking to Seattle Jim, Lucy, Maine Bob, Doreen, Welsh Bob and Dave, for a while before going into the Bistro for dinner. I had some nice black bean and beef chowder followed by some rotini in oxtail sauce then for a change, a western omelette. It was all delicious and when we went back out on deck around 09.00pm, Lucy and Jim were in the pool, we were tempted to join them as it was still very warm and humid but I was tired and decided to come down to the cabin and do some work online, Izzy stayed on deck chatting before coming down to the cabin about 10.30pm.

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Dining

Seems like a good time to profile our table companions who have been with us since Fort Lauderdale, now 40 days ago.
This is Mary and Andy from Minnesota, they are a retired couple, their cabin is on the port side and Andy likes to joke how much better port side is from starboard, assigning points to each side depending on its’ advantages. Andy was was an engineer before retiring and has a great time kidding with his grandchildren via email. It‘s obvious they‘re both very proud of their grandchildren.


Next is June and Jim from Utah, they are not Mormon and June is Jims’ only wife, they have been married 3 years and are in their early fifties. Jim is an engineer also and is quite a practical joker, he likes to kid around with people and can frequently be seen sword fighting with one of the waiters using any of the many implements on the table. June and Jim are always first to volunteer for all the activities on board and have won a pile of prizes for their participation.


Next is Martha from Massachusetts, travelling on her own, as her husband is confined to a home due to illness. She has not talked about what kind of work she does or in fact, if she still works or is retired. She is a member of an international woman’s organisation which welcomes and guides women travellers wherever they may be.


Then, of course, there’s us.










Q. Could you ask the Captain that when they are in port that they park the ship so that we have a better view....
A. I mentioned your concerns to the captain, at dinner last night, I‘m writing this email from an island somewhere with all my luggage piled around me.
Q. Da, you never told me how your movies are working out? Have you watched many of them?
A. The DVD player works gr8, but we’ve only watched 3 out of the 150 we have with us, 2 bc losing m1y in the casino.

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