Friday

This day didn’t happen as we crossed International Date Line last night and skipped a day.

Happy 25th Birthday Jess!

Saturday

At sea

Now instead of being 21 hours behind Sydney time the local time is a couple of hours ahead of Sydney time. When I woke up it was overcast to the horizon with intermittent rain; a 2m swell with some white caps on the waves (that was the forecast swell height for this morning, I didn’t measure it but it looked close enough).

My bedtime reading last night was the Somerset Maugham story Rain which is set in Pago Pago in the 1920s. Somerset Maugham visited Pago Pago about that time and was forced to stay on the island for two weeks because of a measles epidemic (which meant that he and others couldn’t travel on because of the risk of infection during the incubation period). The place he stayed is still standing (near the High Court) and is now named in honour of one of the main characters in the story Sadie Thompson, a prostitute. In the story the rain is incessant but this isn’t the rainy season otherwise yesterday’s visit would have been much less pleasant.

I’ve also been reading a history of naval battles between Britain and Germany in WWI. The night before we arrived in Pago Pago I was reading about how the German battleships stationed in China at the outbreak of the war in August 1914 tried to return to Germany by sailing across the Pacific and into the Atlantic. At that time Western Samoa was a German colony and the ships arrived just after New Zealand troops had arrived to take over. The ships then sailed on to Valparaiso in Chile (which was neutral) before attempting to attack the Falkland Islands, where all except one ship was sunk by the British fleet. I remembered all the places in the Falkland Islands that were described (even though my visit this was very brief) and the port at Valparaiso hasn’t changed much since 1914.

Every night at 10.30pm there is a Late Night Snack. This is themed each night; Italian, Hawaiian, French etc. Normally at this time of night the last thing I want is more food but last night it was Thai and I dropped in to see what was available. Lots more food, that’s what was available! A horde of passengers was shoveling it down. As I was there I had a beef satay, a spring roll and a tiny bit of green curry; not because I was hungry but just so the cooks wouldn’t feel their efforts had been wasted. A couple of days ago the Executive Chef gave a talk and said that each day the chefs prepare at least 100 distinct dishes.

Another lazy day until I walked my 99 laps around deck 3. I walked against the flow as to walk with the flow meant walking all the way along the starboard side with the setting sun in my eyes. I’m sure that the people walking in the other direction would have been glaring at me if they hadn’t nearly had their eyes closed against the sun.