Cruisin' Pacific Ocean - February 5 & 6

Our room

Dressed up Guy

Sundays on the ship are always less hectic.  Of course, after leaving San Francisco last night, the new people are wandering around with their maps in their hands, attempting to determine where everything is on the ship.  With new people on board, new rules in the buffet again.  The servers serve you and they won’t let you help yourself, probably for the next three days.  This is one of the sanitary precautions against the norovirus and whatever other germs might have been brought on board by the people who just got on in San Francisco.  No, Cunard is not discriminating against people from the west coast; similar precautions were taken when we departed New York.

Needing to do laundry, we take our clothes to the launderette on our floor.  There are two washers and dryers and an ironing board and iron in this very small room.  Lots of people have the same idea today.  Lynn has figured out if you stay there you can 1) meet new people, 2) watch people struggle with the machines and 3) see some interesting personality interactions.  Steve laughs because I end up directing the ‘queue’ because I stay with our clothes the entire time.  Some people load up the washer and take off thinking they will just come back whenever.  Needless to say they are shocked when they learn that someone took their clothes out of the washing machine and put them in a basket instead of the dryer and now they are back in the queue for a dryer.  My most fun is explaining to the Germans who barely speak English how to use the washing machine.  Thank goodness people are using the laundry is all I can say!

The waves have been transforming to big swells and then to huge “moguls” as the wind has increased and rotated180 degrees.  Then huge bowls and surfing-like waves and swells form.  Storms generated by northerly weather are creating these rough seas.  Sunday they were 8 feet and rocking and rolling us.  Right now they are up to 15 feet and expected to continue to get bigger through the night.  Can’t wait to see the waves on the famous beaches in Hawaii!  The server at the coffee bar makes the statement to us, as we sit by the port window watching the huge wave’s crash, “we are dry-surfing.”

What else have we been up to? 

The Maritime Church Service includes several prayerful moments intermixed with some good hymns:

            Be Thou My Vision
            All People That On Earth Do Dwell
            Praise to the Lord the Almighty
            Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken

Next, we attend a presentation on what to see and do in Hawaii.  They include a bit of history, including repeating four times that our president was born here.

There is an overview presentation all about Australian Opals.  97% of all opals come from Australia and there are four types – white, crystal, boulder and black.  The presenter stresses that opals are not bad luck contrary to the popular belief that you have to be born in October to wear them.  Apparently the diamond merchants in the 1800’s people weren’t selling enough diamonds and started this myth to curtail opal purchases for engagement rings.  Early viral marketing?

An overview presentation is given on Pago Pago, America Samoa, what to see and do.  Following this is a lecture by Charlie Urbanowicz, a Professor of Anthropology from Chico State in California about The Islands of the Pacific & Who ‘Discovered’ Them.  He crammed more information into 45 minutes than any of the other lectures we’ve been to.  In summary, the Polynesian islands were populated by people who came from Southeast Asia.  Polynesia includes everything in the triangle created by Hawaii, New Zealand and Easter Island.  Most of the people on these islands speak an Austronesia language, which is very familiar across all the islands.  All this has been proven through archeological finds.

The Murder lecture today was about Julius Caesar’s murder: who did it, how and why.

The Super Bowl was broadcast live in the theatre – no commercials because it was on a satellite feed by ESPN.  Hope there were some good ones.

Today we attend a classical concert on Piano by Simon Weale.  He is very good and will be playing several more afternoon concerts over the course of the next several days.  There is something special and relaxing about, inside, a mid-afternoon piano concert of Viennese music while, outside but in view, the Pacific Ocean rages.  We are quite sure the shaking and rolling also made it “special” for the performing artist, although probably not so relaxing!

In the evenings, after dinner, there is dancing, music and shows.  Last night we went to the SING show:  Four singers performing popular music from the 60’s and 70’s.  The players did a nice job accompanied by the two Cunard orchestras combined for the evening show.  Tonight’s entertainment is a musician.  With the seas being so rough, I think there might be some technical difficulties.  The Royal Court Theatre is at the front of the ship and right now that is the area that is really feeling the humongous waves.  You can actually hear them crashing against the hull when you are seated in the room.  One of the speakers this afternoon almost fell.

The clocks are turned back an hour tonight as we move closer to Hawaii.  The ship is two more days at sea until we dock in Hawaii.  Sorry, not too many pix -- we aren’t even allowed to go out on the decks because the wind speed is 50 knots and, along with the waves someone would definitely end up overboard!  Steve believes someone should take an ocean swim to help provide visual perspective regarding the size of the waves and the ferocity of the sea.  Any volunteers?

Nautical Info:  The ship is sailing today in the part of the Pacific Ocean that has seamounts.  These were formed in the Cenozoic period when the continents moved into their current positions.

Cruise Musing:  People make up stuff.  A lady asks her husband this morning about the waves.  He tells her the waves are from the boat’s wake because the ship is going about 5-10 knots.  I guess he didn’t look at the TV where it said we were going 19.2 knots and the waves were ‘large rollers.’  And, our own observations tell us that this ship has no wake, believe it or not!

P.S.  Lynn’s sister Cindy is back in the hospital as we write this blog.  Please pray for the Doctors to find out what is wrong and help them remedy it.