Day 12 – Sailing towards Nuku Hiva

While walking around the ship today, I realized something was missing.   There was none in the Ocean Bar – one of its usual haunts – nothing near the Explorers Lounge.

No flyers in our mailslot, no announcements from the Cruise Director announcing the next event. Something as pervasive as BINGO on all my previous cruises has – VANISHED!

What am I talking about? Why Art Auctions of course.   I was told they don’t have Art Auctions on any Grand Voyage.   Now – it did take me 10 days to realize they were missing, so I guess that tells you something.

At 9 am today was the second of the Polynesian craft events. This time we would make a Polynesian Fiber and Seashell Apolima Bracelet. Based on the turnout to the last Polynesian event I wondered if it would be necessary to bring a sleeping bag to the deck and hang out by the pool all night.   With 45 minutes to go, I sat down in one of the last 10 open seats.   Note to future cruisers.   If you are interested in these events, get there 45 minutes early. Some people grabbed their breakfast and arrived before 8AM.

As it turned out, the materials for this event were so plentiful, they were able to accommodate all comers – no one turned away, some had to sit on loungers some distance away, but the sound system was great so it worked out fine. We were in and out of showers all morning and with the pool cover closed it was stifling hot by the pool.   The weather cleared enough for them to open the roof and the relief was instantaneous.

The Jack Pack were the guests for Good Morning Amsterdam.   The Wajang theater fills up early and I often have to stand.   The far wall is pretty good to lean against or even sit on the steps if necessary. They always have something sweet to eat along with coffee and tea. There was a humorous moment during the Q and A period. A women asks “How often do you rehearse?” After they answer, the next question is from a man about 5 seats away from the women who asked the earlier question.   He then asks “How often do you rehearse?” Laugher erupts and people thought for a second, this was a joke – but it wasn’t and the microphone was passed to the next guest.

The Jack Pack; Shaun, Alfie, Martin and Andrew, are in their early thirties and quite interesting as they explained how they got their start and other insight to their careers. Good Morning America ends promptly at 9:55 and Gene scurries out quickly and finds a microphone to make morning announcements at 10AM sharp.

After morning Crafts, Judy went knitting with the Stitch and Knit Group which has settled on meeting at 10AM in the Explorers lounge daily.   About ½ the women work on the Linus Project with the rest working on their own projects.   Judy’s projects can be seen on Ravelry under her name JudyZZ.

Attendance at the Ukelele class as dropped off to the point where we would only need one class rather than two. We started off with a song that was fairly complicated for total beginners. Today we started to work on Happy Birthday – which was probably a better choice all along.   We are not going to perform as a group, so I sense there is less pressure on the instructors to get us ready for the show and this allowed them to work with simpler songs. We stayed for both sessions to get extra practice.

A shipbuilding contest was announced and I think I was the first person to sign up.   We have until February 9^th to build our creation. I will post the rules on the blog and will accept any tips from previous participants.   While discussing this with contest with the knitting group, we learned there was a minor scandal on the 2006 world cruise when the daughter of a crew member allegedly received preferential scoring on her teams entry much to the chagrin of others.

There was a towel folding competition at 2pm by the pool. Every cabin steward team submitted their best towel folds which were displayed until 6pm for voting by the guests. The winning team will get a free shore excursion at a future port. I promptly stuffed the ballot box for my cabin steward.   They indicated that you were allowed to vote more than once. The winner will be announced tomorrow at Good Morning Amsterdam.

Day 3 of the 4 day craft project continued today. The strips of wall paper we had wrapped around sticks were shellacked, dried and formed tubes, which are now the beads in a necklace. Interesting and fun, but a little frustrating getting the wall paper beads off the sticks.

We joined some friends that we happened to meet during the first Gala night and who are from my hometown for dinner in the Pinnacle Grill. Great conversation, but my Bone in Ribeye was just OK and did not meet my expectations.   I will try the filet next time as this is the second time I have been disappointed by the Bone in Ribeye on a HAL ship. The theme for the MDR was “Tropical Paradise” and we stopped there after the Pinnacle to see how the dining room was decorated. It was colorful and lively and set a great tone.

The evening’s entertainment was provided by Dance Trance, a professional ballroom dance couple. They were not at the level we have come to expect from watching Dancing with the Stars but they were very good and put on an entertaining show. We will learn more about them tomorrow during the Good Morning Amsterdam show.

We are done with time changes till we leave Nuku Hiva.   Another wonderful sea day tomorrow.

• Dance Trance