Day 76 - 25 Sept - At Sea to Sydney - 2

It seems like yesterday when we boarded the Maasdam July 12, 2019 in Seattle. Tomorrow we leave the ship in Sydney for the time being and spend some time in Australia before flying home.

Our day started with a group coffee chat with all of the EXC presenters. Greg Redfern then gave his last talk on NASA which was followed by an excellent remembrance service led by Lance. He read a prepared speech, George, a retired chaplain in our Interdenominational Bible study gave a prayer and all veterans were invited on stage and recognized before they individually gave their name and branch of service. There was even one veteran of WWII in the group!

Our interdenominational Bible study group met for lunch in the Canaletto private dining area. Afterwards Lance presented his last port talk on Sydney, Ron Orenstein presented a talk on what birds and other critters can be seen in and around Sydney. And Terry Greenberg terrified everyone with his analysis of China and what holds for the future.

Our last interdenominational Bible study was good and we finished Mark 6. Several of us then attended the Catholic mass before we enjoyed a final leisurely Lido dinner.

The evening entertainment was a variety show with the mentalist, Ace McDermott, working his magic for the first half hour while Darren Sanders, comedian, gave another flat performance but he was highlighted by a surprize show ending performance by The Other Guys for a final song. We then did our final packing before starting our final sleep on the Maasdam this trip. It's been good. Thanks for coming along.

Day 75 - 25 Sept - At Sea to Sydney - 1

Two more sea days and it's over. The reality is sinking In especially now that we have received our disembarkation paperwork. The day started with a coffee chat with Ace McDermott, the mentalist. He was followed by Ron Orenstein's excellent presentation on large extinct prehistoric Australian mammals. Lance gave a long and interesting presentation on Sydney. Because we've visited Sydney so many times, nothing was new in that presentation, but it generated fond memories.

For lunch our new friends this cruise, Roger and Caroline joined us for our 51st wedding anniversary in our the Pinnacle Grill. After lunch Terry Greenberg presented 5,000 years of Chinese history in 45 minutes. John Shively then presented part one of his battle for control of Papua New Guinea in WWII. We wrapped up the afternoon participating in the interdenominational Bible study. 

To celebrate further our 51st wedding anniversary, we once again had dinner in the Pinnacle. One year earlier, off the coast of Peru on the Maasdam we celebrated our 50th and my wife wore her wedding dress to dinner.  

We went to both shows of The Other Guys who did boy bands from the 60's to the present. They were great! I still liked their West End/Broadway show the best. In between the shows, John Shively presented part 2 of his Papua New Guinea war talk. I really liked his presentations for his attempts at accuracy and clarity in presenting the battle situations.

We have a final sea day tomorrow before reaching Sydney. Stay tuned for more.

Day 74 - 23 Sept - Kuna, Île des Pines, New Caledonia

We woke up to Lance's very early PA announcement that the ship was cleared and tendering could begin. Since this is such a small place, that was our signal to roll over and get a few more winks in. Who wants to go ashore at 7am on a sleepy little island! So by 8am we were ready for some breakfast and following that we headed to the Wajang theatre where 4 & 5 star Mariners are assembled for tendering. We were immediately assigned to a tender and escorted to the tender platform.

The water was a beautiful greenish blue with very little litter washing up on shore. We were greeted shoreside by native dancers.. we walked toward the snorkeling beach but came across a local tour operator selling two hour bus tours for $20pp. So we made a reservation for the 9:45am tour and continued our walk to the snorkeling beach. 

The water at the beach was a bit chilly with air temperatures in the high 60's. So we decided not to snorkel and walked back to the bus tour start. Our driver didn't arrive until close to 10am. The tour covered the main items of a tourist interest including beautiful beaches, the former prison, a village, a convict cemetery, a Catholic Church, a missionary/WWI memorial, and a few other things. It was definitely worth the $20. There was another bus tour that lasted an hour and made a few different stops but added the caves. Friends took that bus trip and really liked the caves.  

Back at the beach area, we walked to the restaurant and hotel and to the ceremonial rock. About that time a rain squall blew in and it was umbrella time. We wandered our way back to the tender port with a stop at the Portico (arts & crafts area), and the police station. These two sets of buildings are located within the ancient walls of the old prison administration area.

We tendered back to the ship and ate a late lunch before adjourning to the Crow's Nest to watch the sail away. Since we were at anchor, 'all' that needed to be done was to retrieve the tenders, raise the anchor, and pivot the ship to the open sea. In his sail away announcement Captain Jutten noted that in order to reach Sydney in time it will require a high rate of speed. Another passenger and computed it would need to be over 17 knots. Later I looked at the course video screen and we were traveling 17.2 knots.  

Tonight was the guest chef's dinner in the Pinnacle Grill. We were seated with a wonderful couple from Australia, Michael and Susan. The conversation flowed especially when Michael and I learned that we had a common interest in vintage cars. The dinner was excellent with kimchi and variants served in several of the courses.

We wrapped up our evening watching a Karen Carpenter tribute show put on by Sharon Calabro from Sydney. It was very nostalgic.

Two sea days are ahead of us and our 75 day cruise will be finished. The astute reader will note that today is day 74 with two days to sail until Sydney. Back around day 50, I got out of synch, but it's two time consuming to fix. So I left it alone. It's been a wonderful cruise and the opportunity to visit two new countries: Russia and Papua New Guinea. Our health has been good despite a major pre=trip scare. We've renewed friendships with many cruisers we've sailed with and we've met a bunch of new friends. That for us is a major part of cruising and it's gotten so much better as we've sailed more in recent years. Seeing old friends is a real treat and catching up on where in the world they've been is special.

What's ahead? We're home a for a short while and then we leave on another extended cruise ending on January 5, 2020. Stay tuned for details about that. I'm not prepared to share details just yet, but it promises to be a good one and is on another 'dam' ship we love to sail on.

Day 73 - 22 Sept - Noumea, New Caledonia

The Maasdam approached the dock and rotated 180° before using the thrusters to gently approach its berth at the container terminal. I led my final interdenominational service at 8am in the Wajang theatre.

After church and before our LIDO breakfast we came back to our room to a note that our snorkeling trip had been cancelled. So we put plan B: do a virtual snorkeling trip by taking the Hop On Hop Off (HOHO) bus to the aquarium. But rather than wait for the HOHO bus to fill we took the shuttle from the container dock to the cruise terminal. We then walked a few blocks to the morning market and toured it before catching the HOHO bus to the aquarium.

Being seniors, the entry fee was 2250 CHP or about $22.50. The aquarium was very nice and we learned the names of fish that we had seen on our snorkeling trips. It was especially poignant to see the sea snakes in action up close. After visiting the aquarium we walked a couple of miles back to a shopping mall which was now closed as it's Sunday. There we caught the HOHO bus back to the aquarium (it only runs one direction) and then back to downtown where we got off at the New Caledonia Museum (currently closed for renovation). But nearby we went to McDonalds for a late lunch and to use their WIFI as our GlocalMe didn't work in New Caledonia.

We walked back to the cruise terminal and caught the shuttle back to the Maasdam. As we entered the container port, we noticed that there was a ship berthed in front of us: the Pacific Aria, a P&O Cruises ship which was the former Holland America Ryndam. In 2015, we sailed the last westbound Ryndam sailing from Europe to Tampa before it was sold to P&O. In his sail away announcement Captain Jutten said the Ryndam was the first ship he sailed on.

The sail away just after 4:30pm was nostalgic with the Maasdam and Pacific Aria exchanging horn toots. We enjoyed dinner with Alex and Barb in the LIDO and they shared their day using an electric car to drive to all of the high points in the city. Ron Orenstein gave a talk on the New Caledonia Crow and in the Majority Rules Game Show, our team won 1st prize which yielded a DVD of the Crew Shows. For us, that's a treasure. Afterwards, we watched Rocketman on the Showroom big screen.

Tomorrow we are supposed to be at Île des Pines, but we'll see if we can tender. It's quite windy tonight with lots of ship motion. Stay tuned!

Day 72 - 21 Sept - At sea to Noumea - 2

Today's EXE programming was limited due to a Mariner's award presentation. We and another couple received our Gold Medallions for having sailed over 500 days. Personally I never thought we would reach that milestone, but something happened and we started spending more time on ships. The next level is Platinum (700 days sailed) and we'll be well on our way to that level by the end of next year.

The coffee chat was with Patrick Roberts, violinist. It was an interesting interview. In the afternoon, Ron Orenstein presented a lecture on New Caledonia. Terry Greenberg spoke on East West differences. And we enjoyed the interdenominational Bible study. 

After a light Lido dinner, we attended Greg Redfern's talk on his top 13 space movies and then we saw the comedian, Darrell Sanders, from Melbourne. I personally didn't care for his humor or presentation style. Greg then told his travel story in the Crow's Nest.

Tomorrow we're back in Noumea which we visited 3 years ago on this ship. We were unable to snorkel due to winds. Would that happen again?

Day 71 - 20 Sept - At sea to Noumea

Throughout the evening before and today, there was motion to the ocean. But it wasn't too much. The pace today was pleasant. We started with a terrific coffee chat with the Band members (4 guys) followed by an EXC lecture by Ron Orenstein on Coral. Lance presented his port talk on Noumea and Île des Pins. After lunch, it was Ask the Captain and a Future Cruise presentation by Joanne on South America cruises. The interdenominational Bible study was rich as we finished Chapter 5 of Mark.

We enjoyed a Lido dinner with Erik and Marilyn before watching The Other Guys perform Broadway and West End tunes. This was their best show so far as they are all actors. Greg Redfern then spoke on topics related to the Moon. We finished up our evening watching a documentary Pavarotti on the life of the legendary tenor.

Tomorrow is another sea day with light programming due to a major Mariner event. Stay tuned.

Day 70 - 19 Sept - Honiara (Guadalcanal), Solomon Islands

6:30am came early, but we had to meet our tour group of 7 at the gangplank at 8am. With the group assembled, we walked out of this container port and met our contact who took us to our van. There we waited for over 1/2 hour as the tour company tried to put others with our group. We had paid for an exclusive private tour and stuck to our arrangement. Our tour guide eventually became a tour guide for a single person and we were given Michael who could speak a little English but whose father had been a Coast Watcher in WWII.

We visited Bloody Ridge, Alligator Creek, the mouth of Alligator Creek, Red Beach, the American Memorial, Henderson Field (now the international airport), the Memorial Garden next to the Airport, the original control tower built by the Seabees, a former Marine Hospital on the grounds of a Catholic boarding school, and a small museum at Betikama Adventist College. At the Adventist college there was a small outdoor and indoor museum of WWII memorabilia including a partial fuselage including engine of a P-39 Air Cobra plus a dive bomber they didn't know the model # of. Several in our group thought it to be a TBF Avenger, but I knew it wasn't that. Then I realized it was a Dauntless DB5 dive bomber and passed that information on to the docent. In the back of the museum they had an American 6 cylinder bulldozer made in August 1942 with the brand name Cletrac made by the Cleveland Tractor Company. There was another one in the field next to the first. They also had a piece of nose art from a B-24 (Goldie) which is submerged off the island. It was a pleasant little stop.

We drove back to town and 3 of us got off at the Central Market to look around and walk back to the ship. The Central Market was packed with primarily all types of produce with a few handicrafts and clothing. There wasn't much if any meat for sale. The walk back was hot and crossing the crowded streets was an interesting challenge. At the port, there was a building materials business called Bowmans and that required a selfie. There were still local vendors selling their wares alongside the ship and we found a beautiful block print postcard being sold by the artist, so we bought it for our stateroom door collection.

Back on board it was once again shower time to cool off and get rid of the perspiration. Since we didn't have lunch we ordered food from the Dive-In as it was the only thing open. This eliminated the need for dinner! We watched the sail away and the Maasdam steamed away from the port and out into Iron Bottom Sound (so named for all of the ships that were sunk there during the war. A passenger, Dan, organized a small remembrance ceremony on Deck 11. There were more sailors killed in Iron Bottom Sound than soldiers on land in the battle of Guadalcanal.

Our evening entertainment was a variety show with our pianist, Patrick Roberts, and violinist, Stephen Kane. Both were excellent! John Shively, our Battle historian, told a travel story about visiting a Russian/Japanese battle site in Mongolia where the Japanese were decisively defeated. He entertained a number of questions. And we wrapped up our day at the 10:30pm feeding.

Tomorrow is the first of two sea days before we reach New Caledonia. Stay tuned.