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!
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