Day 69 - 18 Sept - Ghizo, Solomon Islands

And the last shall be first. We started our day as 5 star Mariners by being escorted down to deck 3 (tender deck). We were at the end of the line and they decided to tender from the other side of the ship so we became the head of the short line of 9 or so people. It took the crew a bit to shuffle and set up all of the security gear and platform, but eventually we were motioned to tender. I got to be number 1 off the ship. The flip side of being number 1 off the ship on to the tender is that one then has to wait for the tender to be filled. And it gets stifling hot in a tender in the tropics.

The tender ride was about 20 minutes to the dock as the helmsman had to navigate around some reefs and through a narrrow opening. Once at the shore we left the tender and were greeted by native dancers. We made our way to the Ghizo Dive Shop to see if we could secure a snorkeling trip. A number of divers had pre-arranged their dive excursion, so they were processed first while we waited. Eventually one dive boat was filled included our friends Barb & Alex, but there were snorkel spots available. So we took them.

Our twin Yamaha 60 outboard powered boat swiftly took us to the first snorkeling and dive site which was the remains of the Tao Maru, a freighter that was torpedoed and tried to run up on an island, but failed and sank, rolling on its starboard or right side in about 100 feet of water. Angela and I donned our snorkel gear and snorkeled for the first time over a shipwreck. The ship was about 25-50 feet below us and is now covered in beautiful coral. The outline of the ship is clearly distinguishable and we had a couple of large angelfish that shadowed us throughout our snorkel trip. It was also interesting to have the divers' bubbles come to the surface around us.  

After the divers used up their air, we reboarded the dive boat and headed to a small island where we were served a barbecue of mahi mahi, chicken, rice, eggplant, squash, watermelon and pineapple. This shore time was important for the divers as they had to 'off gas' (get ride of gasses in their joints after being down at 100 feet for an hour). For us a snorkelers it was a good time to explore the coral just off of the reef. At times it was like swimming in an aquarium with all of the many colors of the small fish and the beautiful coral. Our GoPro and Nikon AW130 pictures turned out very nice.  

After the divers finished their 2nd dive, we reboarded our dive boat and headed back to the dive pier. We gathered our belongings and walked back to the ship exploring a number of the little shops in a quite rustic setting. We took what was likely the second to last tender back to the ship and the swells were pretty big and periodically the tender would dive into a swell and water would pass over the roof of the tender. At the tender platform we were in the lee of the ship which reduced the swell action on the tender operation.

Back on board, we took showers to rid ourselves of the sticky salt and perspiration from the heat of the day. We had a light LIDO dinner before attending the Space Rocks lecture by Greg Redfern. We went to the mentalist's, Ace McDermott, 7:30pm performance which was a copy of the one we saw on an earlier segment of this cruise. After Ace's show, we re-attended the Space Rocks lecture and finished up our evening watching the 1962 movie, The Thin Red line and having some tea afterwards in the LIDO before retiring for the night.

Tomorrow is a planned small private excursion to visit WWII Guadalcanal battle sights which should be interesting. Stay tuned!