We're leaving Vanuatu

will try to post more tomorrow am. In the meantime:
On the way to Vanuatu
It has been sunny and gray off and on today.
Just like home
We have been collecting puddles of water on the balcony so when Ed’s socks got soaked through his shoes, he decided it was time to report the problem; it wasn’t going to go away. We have a bulkhead as a part of our patio and so there is no drain to the outside. The engineer had to snake the drain while we were at supper. Apparently, we aren’t the only ones with such a problem
Photo contest
I entered a photo of a man on the ship who was on the Copper Canyon train trip. I thought the lighting was wonderful and he was so cute. So I thought I’d enter it and then give it to him. Lots of entries involve close ups of people. The theme is People Family and Friends. I cropped and then showed Ed how to do some simple editing in Picassa and he entered a photo of the Fijian male dancers yesterday. It’s really quite spectacular as he caught the four of them jumping and they were in mid air. I was glad he was finally enthused about entering a photo.
Rudeness
During the port talk this morning about Noumea, a fellow called out to the speaker that he wanted information on shopping and such, not stuff about the beaches and snorkeling. She had the information in her talk but it was for later. At trivia today, some guy on the other side hollered out to Brett that he was going too slow. We think it might be the same boring bull. We’ve all agreed we’ll provide affidavits for Brett if this jerk complains because he specifically asked for Brett’s name in front of everyone as if he wanted it to complain.
More laundry stories
I don’t know how true any of this is but it’s fun nonetheless. Supposedly, on this cruise, some woman went to the Laundromat and filled all 4 washers, left and locked the door to the room on her way out.
The other story involves a passenger on this cruise who supposedly (alledgedly?) brought cloth dirty clothes bags with her. She puts her laundry in those bags, puts detergent into them, and then sprays the water into the bag from the shower in the cabin. Her husband squeezes it around (I have a vision of him sitting on the throne while doing this). Then she puts it all on the floor of the shower, not the cleanest place imho, and does more squeezing. Then she puts the beach towel on the carpet and puts each piece on top and then tops all that with another towel and she stomps it all down to get the moisture out of it (I admit I’ve done this too in my youth. Now I put the towel on the bed and then Ed and I twist it until the moisture is pretty much all gone. This is how I do my hand laundry). Then somehow they have clothes lines hung up in the cabin and she hangs the laundry to dry in the cabin.
Now I don’t know if either of these stories is true, but I ask you: who would make these up?
Trivia
So we won this morning and it wasn’t the easiest quiz either. We were in 2nd place this afternoon. So two more tokens to put in the safe to redeem our reward at the end of the cruise. This afternoon, there were only 4 (of 6) on our team too. Not to shabby.
Corporate law
He droned on about serving on the boards of NonProfit organizations. I tolerated this drivel by editing photos while he was lecturing. There were some very specific questions from the audience as clearly many of these folks serve on such boards.
Get your kicks on Route 66
This is the WWII guy. I went back to the room and read as the lighting on the cabin during the day is very good for me for reading. Ed stayed and said it wasn’t all that bad since it was mostly photos and a hobby kind of speech anyway.
Dinner
Three of us couples there and we discussed silly things around the ship as well as illnesses you contract while you’re travelling. There was a discussion of food borne illnesses and did folks eat off ship (some don’t you know). We do eat the food on the tours (though we have rarely gone on our own to eat except in reliable places like Sydney and Singapore) and have never had a problem. But one of our dinner mates got very severe (believed to be) E. coli infection somewhere in Mexico which required antibiotics. So there are no guarantees and it pays to have your immunizations current and to wash your hands a lot.
Well don’t you think that was a good match for dinner conversation? There are, after all, 2 nurses at the table. Ha.
Entertainment
An Aussie guitarist who did a variety of things with harmonica, and electric guitar. He played a variety of tunes some classical, all the way to boogie woogie. I was a little restless but he was fun. We’ll see him again before he gets off in Auckland.
Not even FOX NEWS at the moment. Who woulda thunk it. The only things on are the pre-recorded ones. I don’t miss TV that much anyway fortunately. But I do miss updates on current events and thank my friends, especially MA$, who send me summaries.
Tomorrow
Vila Vanautu. We get in very early and we have to be in the Lounge at 7:15 am for our tour around the island. But the ship leaves at 3:30 pm so there isn’t much time.
Then the next day is Noumea. So I may not be so predictable with postings for a while. And photos will take much longer.