Tales of the South Pacific

Two sea days! 3 4 10
So we continued through the very narrow (for a ship this size anyway) channel into the largest (second or third?) lagoon and it is gorgeous. This is of course, a collapsed volcanic caldera. The sides are spotted with homes here and there. You see nickel mines periodically and this “nickel boom” funds a lot of things in this area. It is a French area (protectorate?) but many folks speak English and you see a good number of English signs.
Sailing into the harbor of Noumea is absolutely gorgeous and hard to describe. I’m sure the pilot on board was working overtime as we went very close to many areas. This is a peninsular area with high mountains around, say 1500 meters. These are covered with a thick layer of green foliage. Fishing is good they say. And they are able to grow many of their fruits and vegetables.
In colonial times, lovely little colonial style homes were built but numerous cyclones (hurricanes) and these would totally destroy these wooden buildings. So after such destruction in early 1970s, a rule was passed forbidding wooden buildings. Thus most of the buildings here, except for a few ruins, are concrete and in the style of the 1970s. It’s all pretty ugly imho. We walked around downtown area and were very unimpressed. It is a very modern, urban city but not one where I’d care to spend any time.
Our tour
We met at 1 pm after lunch for our wine and cheese tour. Our original choice of the cultural center was cancelled for lack of interest! The wine and cheese makes it and the cultural center bombs? I don’t get it. But…this tour took us on a circle around the area where we went to the two highest sites. Our bus was an air conditioned “motor coach” as we red hats advertise them. These busses do double duty as school busses on this island. Pretty smart I’d say as it would cost too much to have both.
One hill top has a large statue of the Virgin Mary that rotates on a ball bearing base. There is an open area church there. Actually, only a flat table that is obviously the altar when Mass is held. No overhead protection from the sun, no pews. It is a beautiful area though. The other hill has cannons mounted by the Aussies at some point in the past to overlook the narrow channel into Noumea. No Japanese attacks were every known here.
So finally they took us to the Ramada where we had wine and cheese. Three French wines were served: two white and one red. One of the whites was tolerable to my palate (my favorite wine is Beringer white Zin so you get the picture). Ed liked the “bouquet” of one of the whites, but not the taste. Anyway, it wasn’t a total loss as the cheeses were fantastic! The ones labeled or I recognized were Brie (I took two servings), a goat cheese, a wonderful, creamy blue cheese, and several others I never got names for. So that part wasn’t a total loss.
Dinner
Full table this evening. One couple rode the tchou tchou train around town and they really enjoyed it. It was a 2 ½ hour ride on this darling train. We would have considered it and now I’m sorry we didn’t. Barbara and John went swimming again. They said the male part of the exhibitionists was bit by jelly fish. He then went into the bathroom and put urine on the stings (don’t laugh. And urine is sterile.) Nancy and Bob did the city highlights so they got the cannons also but not the statue of Mary. The latter surprised me.
Only 71 one days left
It doesn’t seem possible. We’ve completed a month on the ship (well not counting the minus 6 days we had to miss). We started our malaria pills last week and we are clearly into full on malaria territory though some finite places assert they don’t have a malaria problem.
More laundry tales
This one was apparently verified with the purser of the QEII where it happened. Two men got mad and turned on the irons in the room and then tried to burn each other with the irons. Another unverified story says a woman left her clothes in the dryer for 4 hours and some guy threw them over the edge. He was ejected later. I wonder if this is a mix of previous stories I’ve heard and chronicled.
South Pacific
Frankie did a special event where he had several oid Moviola stories about the making of South Pacific. He included films of the Broadway and film versions of South Pacific and a 60 min. interview of James Michener by Diane Sawyer. We have seen Frankie do this before but it’s always interesting. Much of the film was done in Kauai in Hawaii. But Michener’s duty during WWII, which provided the stories in Tales of the South Pacific, was on the island of Espiritu Sancto in Vanuatu. Now that we’ve been there, this was even more meaningful. He also went into the controversy about casting Mitzi Gaynor instead of Mary Martin in the film and other stories like this.
Other oddities on board
We now have two folks running around in a cast on their arm: the astronomer and a passenger. I don’t have the full story on the latter except that she fell.
There are so many observations I think of as we tour and travel but I never remember them long enough to include in the blog.
ON THE OPEN SEAS….again
Most of us look forward to sea days. I know many folks who haven’t experienced this might find this strange. Even folks who thought they’d have to endure the sea days have changed since they’ve experienced them.
VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol)
Ed set up his iPhone to call folks from some areas by going over our internet connection here on the ship. That is such a treat. So far we’ve had no luck calling non-USA sites though and we’re not quite sure of why. And Ed still resists setting up Skype. I’d be willing to try it but he keeps digging in his heels, soooo
Catch up stories of interest: Tsunami preparations on land in Suva
One of the comedians who was flown into Suva to join the ship, said that he was eating eggs in the hotel when the woman cooking the eggs said to him: “When you are finished with your eggs, we are going to take a walk.” He thought she was coming on to him. It turns out that when he finished, a large group of people walked about a mile up the hill in case a tsunami did arrive. I mentioned the sirens we could hear around 9 am in a previous blog.
We are seeing the story about the wave that hit the cruise ship in Europe. It will be interesting to hear the reactions of passengers on here.