So many people (well, two) have asked us to resurrect our blog that we’ve decided to comply, mainly because it means we won’t have to buy people postcards and try to send them from places in Mexico that we’ve never heard of and which will probably be populated by gap-toothed men in massive sombreros who sneer at us, fondle their six-shooters (this is no longer an offence under Mexican law) and address us as ‘feelthy gringos’.
So… Here we are, one day out of Auckland and sailing through something that can best be described as ‘an awful lot of ocean’. The skies are amethyst blue and the sun wraps you in a toasty-warm embrace as soon as you step outside. Yes, it really is like that somewhere in the world. Just here, though, it’s overcast, breezy and not remotely warm.
Still, over the next seven or so weeks we will be in lotsa hot spots and we’ll visit a bunch of places we’ve heard of and, as intimated earlier, a bunch more that could be on Mars for all we know. These include the South Pacific islands of Samoa, Papeete and Bora Bora (so good they made a typographical error when they typed the name). Then we sail past Christmas Island (we can’t go ashore as we’ve been naughty, not nice), land in two ports in Hawaii and slog across the rest of the Pacific to San Francisco, where we hope the army of demented panhandlers we told to **** off in 2005 don’t remember us.
If, by chance, we haven’t all got swine flu by then, we’ll put that right by visiting the Mexican ports of Acapulco (which we’re heard of thanks to Elvis Presley – see, all those terrible movies had some value after all), Huatalco (which we’d never heard of) and Cabo San Lucas (oh, come on, we’re not that gullible).
Still with us? After hopefully dodging modern day versions of Pancho Villa (a legendary sharp-shooter who used to play centre forward for Birmingham City, boom, boom), we sail through the Pamana Canal and visit Cartagena (we’d heard of this place and we even guessed correctly what continent it was on) (after three goes), Aruba, which is an island somewhere in the Caribbean, and Bermuda.
We then meander up the Eastern Seaboard, take a bite of the Big Apple, visit Boston and Newport and retrace the course of the Titanic. A quick stop in Ireland, then Le Havre, then Southampton and on to the real geographical highlight of the trip, Stoke-on-Trent, the Venice of The Midlands. (Well, it’s got canals.)
So much for the future. Back to the present. The trip to date actually started on Tuesday, when we flew to Auckland and spent the afternoon and early evening with our old friends Nina and Pat, plus family. Wednesday morning we met more old friends, ex-neighbours Kath and Frank, who delivered us to Princes’ Wharf in time for our 1pm boarding. We then discovered that the 1pm boarding time had become a 3pm boarding time, which was great news as the Auckland drizzle had just set in and we didn’t want to miss a minute of it. We took ourselves off to a bar, drank beer and told ourselves we’d be warm in a couple of days.
At last we were ready to embark. Although boarding ships is much easier then getting on planes, we found ourselves near the end of a lengthy queue. We were soon distracted by a sweet old lady from England who, with her husband, was standing behind us, clutching the handlebars of her wheeled zimmer frame. She prattled happily on about her life and times and then said, ‘look over there!’. When we looked back, she’d somehow managed to get the wheely thing, plus her confused-looking husband, past us. We watched in admiration as she continued in like manner until she was at the front of the queue. Never underestimate a little old lady with a cute smile.
(Later on, she materialised at the first-night cocktail party just as Jasu had managed to score us a couple of glasses of complimentary champagne at the bar. ‘Where did you get those from, dear?’ she simpered. As Jasu nodded towards the counter, the old girl tried to relieve her of the glasses. This time, though, J was ready for her and managed to hold them out of grasping distance. We’re really looking forward to seeing how this one gets on at the lifeboat drills.)
Anyway, we finally got on board and were able to unpack our bags in cabin 318, our home for the next 50 days. The ship, eerily, is identical to the one in which we circumnavigated Australia last year, so we know our way about and don’t have the usual period of new-ship disorientation, which is mostly good but also a little disappointing.
Day Four
We didn’t get Day One posted as there was a problem with the blog site. If you’re reading this now, we have found a way to overcome it.
We are now an hour away from Samoa. The weather is brighter and today’s temperature should hit 30 degrees. I had my first dip in the pool yesterday.
We have been meeting more of our fellow passengers. They are very pleasant on the whole. We’ve also run into a few people who we’d seen or met on previous voyages. But… Those who can recall our 2007 blog might remember we had a problem with a grumpy old man who was on our table for dinner: we got so fed up with him we demanded to be moved to another table and the other couple at the original table said ‘if they’re going, we’re going too’. Well, we went to the Captain’s cocktail party the other night and guess who we ran into?
**********************************************************************************
So that’s it for 2009 blog entry number one. This entry is dedicated to our beautiful, smart, funny Auckland-based friend Nina, who has recently joined me in The Club That No-one Wants To Join and is facing a spell of chemotherapy with cheerful courage. This dedication is made with whatever passes for prayers amongst heathens like ourselves and Everest-sized quantities of love and good wishes.
No comments:
Post a Comment