The Club Restaurant was definitely the place to be this morning for breakfast. There are two groups of between 20 and 30 on board this cruise, one from Japan and the other from Norway, and they both meet for breakfast in the Club Restaurant every morning. The waiters, who were falling all over each other serving me breakfast on turnaround day in Papeete needed roller skates to keep up this morning. We had fruit plates and cereal and moved on.
We were cruising past the island of Makatea this morning, and we had mentioned to Douglas Pearson last cruise that more needed to be made of this island sighting. I'm sure Douglas was already working on that before we brought it up (the man could talk to a wall!) and in today's Patter was an event called Scenic Cruising: Makatea. Douglas was up on his pulpit...er, Deck 11 forward with a microphone in hand telling us all about it as we cruised by. Even more fun, he had a current French Polynesia phone book and asked G to look up the phone numbers listed under the island of Makatea. There are four: the town hall, the electric power station, a pay phone and the infirmary. That's it. Four phones on the entire island. Douglas then proceeded to use his French Polynesian cell phone and call the town hall, inquiring (in French, of course) about how many people are currently living on the island. The answer is 30, and, if I had left you with any doubt that Douglas is part enthusiastic lecturer, part showman, today's exercise should put that to rest. ;-)
As for the rest of the information about Makatea...well, you know it because I've already looked it up in my guidebooks and shared it with you!
I attended my first fruit and vegetable carving demonstration of the winter following that, but skipped the travel journal craft session. As much as I love the project, I really don't need another one (it's not compact enough to fit in my shoebox of life). Instead, I read a bit sitting in a lounger on the Promenade Deck and enjoyed what was probably the last sun of the day. By lunch, the skies had greyed over and rain started to fall. Well, it is a sea day en route to Rangiroa. What else can we expect?!?
Lunch in the Club Restaurant was back to normal, with no groups being served. We ate simply (salad and roasted stuff yellow pepper for me) and skipped dessert altogether (we really are slipping, aren't we?) before we went to a Scavenger Hunt activity, the first we've had this year. The most difficult item was an Indian coin, but we weren't allowed to ask a crewmember for anything. G didn't ask...exactly. He simply showed the list of items to our new cabin steward (Douglas, coincidentally from India) and pointed to that item and, like all of our other needs, this one was immediately met. (Temporarily, of course. It was a loan!!). We were all winners, and received Princess lanyards for our efforts. Go us!
We had just a short break then, until the 3:15pm BIG!!!!!! $500 Treasure Hunt Drawing*!!! (*must be present to win). Yes, hope springs eternal, in part because of what happened today...I was a WINNER! My prize was just what I didn't need, a free 8x10 portrait ('cause the seven we already have this winter are simply not enough). Deputy Cruise Director Jen was asking the winners where they were from, and I responded "Deck 3" and nobody laughed harder than the crew members because they knew how true it (temporarily) is.
We returned to our cabin where one of us napped and one of us read and went only as far as our own porthole when the bridge officer came over the PA to announce that we were passing by the island of Mataiva, as we did last cruise. It's like a mini-Rangiroa with a lagoon about 4 miles by 6 miles wide. I'm sure Douglas was once again holding court on Deck 11 but it was grey and gloomy and we stayed sequestered in our cabin.
So relaxed were we that we even skipped dinner in the Club Restaurant (that's a rare occurrence!) and eventually went to the Panorama Buffet for a small meal, enjoyed outside on the terrace, the only warm spot on the ship on a sea day(!!!!). Once again, between the afternoon rain and the cold indoor temps, it's easy to convince ourselves it's a winter day at home.
We will be going to the 8pm production show Cinematastic and then, not surprisingly, making it an early evening. We will arrive at Tiputa Pass on Rangiroa early tomorrow for perhaps the last time of our lives and will be front and center on Deck 11 forward to savor the experience. I must have a 'glass half full' attitude firmly on my mind as we enjoy a few of these islands for the last time this cruise.