Day 21: Last Day on the Ship

 It was kind of a rough morning for me.

We get off the ship tomorrow, and there are so many things to say goodbye to: goodbye to my routine of getting up and running on the track; goodbye to my plate of crispy bacon for breakfast; goodbye to trivia; goodbye to our stateroom; goodbye to the food and drink; goodbye to all the good people we've met (Pam, Di, Allen, Peter, Joanne, Bob, Brenda, Paul, Helen, Julie, Peter, Tim, Sylvia, Dennis, Ken, Steph, Jacinta, Michael, Patty, and more than a few others I'm neglecting to mention); goodbye to the evening hot tubbing; goodbye to the friendly staff we've made connections with; goodbye to the supper table that made us feel like part of a family these last 11-or-so days. But most of all, goodbye to the late nights on the upper decks, where it was just me, my thoughts, and this tiny speck of a ship in the incomprehensible inky vastness of an uncaring ocean stretching out in every direction everywhere forever.

The water this morning was different from what I was used to. A guy I spoke to called it oily, which wasn't that bad a description. It seemed thicker, maybe? A deeper blue. There were little waves on the surface giving it some texture, but overall it was behaving like a big rubber sheet: huge undulating waves that rolled out from the ship but didn't break.

The water this afternoon was a lot more turbulent. And my thoughts this morning were a lot more turbulent, too. Thinking about all the goodbyes put a lump in my throat so big it was hard to breathe. I went down to deck 5, the open-air deck closest to the water, to watch the waves and try to sort through how I was feeling.

There's a scene in Better Call Saul that rolls through my head regularly. Nacho Varga is a bad guy who works for the cartel, but ultimately ends up as a tragic character, used by both the cartel and by Gus Fring, through his love for his father. It soon becomes clear that the path he's on will end in his death, and he gives himself up in order to save his father's life.

Mike gives Nacho a final meal before he's to meet his fate with the cartel the next day, and he's seen at one point putting salt and pepper on his food. This wasn't a man eating for sustenance; this was someone who didn't lose his appetite (heh), but who loved life and wanted to savor his last moments.

And this was me, too. I had a wonderful time on this ship. Far better than I expected, to be fair. And while this chapter of my trip is closing, there are new ones beginning, and it wasn't fitting to end my time here sullen and closed off. I wanted to do the things I enjoyed in a way that reflected back the happiness they gave me. So I ran my 5k and watched the ocean while eating a big plate of bacon. I saw some dolphins in the wake of the ship. Somehow, magically, a monarch butterfly flew by me, some 400km from Australia. I ate a delicious salad during our last round of progressive trivia. I had a hot dog and gave my best wishes to Ati (the hot dog guy). I climbed the rock climbing wall and finally managed to make it to the top of the little kid route (which, regardless of what people said, is ridiculously difficult for an adult). I enjoyed our group's last meal together at table 210. I drank Mojitos and strawberry daiquiris and talked to strangers. I handed out Canada pins to pretty much everyone. 

I'm still a little sad to go. But today was a fine day. I'm taking a lot of positive memories with me. And I hope we managed to leave a few, too.

Day 17: On Eating Coconuts

On or about Oct. 22, the good ship Quantum of the Seas dropped anchor off the island of Raiatea. Raiatea is the second largest of the "Society Islands" of Polynesia, behind Tahiti, and is thought to be where organized migrations of Polynesians to Hawai'i, New Zealand, and the eastern Polynesian islands began. To put things in some perspective, it's about 4000km to both Hawai'i and New Zealand from Raiatea, and these people made the trip in tribal canoes, using the stars, ocean currents, and migratory birds as their guides. We're in a 170,000 ton ocean liner and we're still being tossed around like a piece of cork. I can't begin to imagine what their trip might have been like.

The harbour is not deep enough for the ship to dock, so the ship arranged to take tenders ashore. Apparently, this was the first time Royal Caribbean has visited Raiatea, and there was a small ceremony for the captain and some of the crew to mark the occasion. I guess they normally go to Bora Bora (the "Las Vegas" of French Polynesia, as one of our tour guides described it), but Bora Bora denied access to the ship this time. From what we were told, there were some issues in the past with too many tourists on the island and not enough activities to keep everyone occupied, and with a 4000-5000 person capacity, they decided Quantum was too big for them. I don't know if the ship running at half-capacity was a selling point in our favour or not. But that's the story of how we got to Raiatea.

Tamara and I wandered onto the dock with nothing planned, and were immediately approached by someone with an offer to take us to a small island for $25. "It's nice," he said. "Stay as long as you like, we'll have a boat coming every half hour or so. And there's a girl on the island selling coconuts if you want one." Big deal, I thought. I hate coconuts. But this sounded pretty reasonable overall, so off we went.

The boat ride was about 10 minutes, and the island was... just okay -- not much of a beach, lots of coral. But the water was clear and beautiful, and we spent a few hours just hanging out. It ended up being a pretty good day. There were a few chickens roaming about, and a cute cat, for some reason. At one point, Tamara asked me to buy her a coconut.

Now, I didn't always hate coconuts. When I was a kid, I loved coconuts. But one day, my mom came home with a coconut and asked me if I'd like to try some coconut water. Of course I would -- I love coconuts! She poured it out into a glass, and it looked gross as holy hell -- not clear like water, but kind of cloudy, with some chunks floating in it. I was immensely skeptical, but with some trepidation I took the tiniest sip, nearly threw up, and never ate coconut again. There have been a few exceptions: haystack cookies and pina coladas being two. But I've generally gone out of my way to avoid eating coconut for most of my life.

I walked over to the Coconut Lady. "Est-ce que vous parlez anglais?" «Do you speak English?»
"Non, seulement un peu." «No, only a little bit.»
"Bien sur! Je parles seulement un peu de français, mais je vais essayer." «Very well. I only speak a little bit of French, but I will try.»

I gave her three Polynesian Francs. She spent a couple of minutes expertly taking the top off the coconut with a machete, then jabbed a straw into the opening before handing it to me. We talked for a few more minutes about where I was from: she was surprised to hear Canada, as it was so far away. She asked if we had a lot of snow, and told me she'd never seen any. I told her winter was cold all the time and I was enjoying the weather here a lot.

I brought the coconut back to Tamara, who asked if I'd like to have a sip. Generally no, but I'm in Raiatea, so what the heck. And it turns out coconut water is refreshing and delicious! Then Tamara cracked the coconut open with a few sharp whacks on the concrete table, and we shared the coconut flesh -- which is a gross as hell word to describe something you're eating, but I can't do anything about that. And the coconut flesh is kinda slimy, kinda rubbery, slightly sweet, and nothing at all like the processed coconut you find in a store. I ate most of one half. And since Tamara didn't want the other half, we fed it to the chickens. Who also loved it.

The Coconut Lady came over to talk to us just as we were packing up to leave. We exchanged some pleasantries and goodbyes, then hopped on the boat taking us back to shore. I asked Tamara why she came over to talk to us. Tamara said she was happy to have some people to talk to in French. And then it occurred to me that most tourists would be English-speaking, and she wouldn't have many people to talk to with her limited English. She probably spent some lonely and boring days on that island.

Sorry for not being more talkative to you when I had the chance, Coconut Lady. I'll never get another opportunity to thank you for the first coconut I've enjoyed in over 40 years.

Day 15: This Post is Bananas

About those bananas.

Way, way back on Day 11 we were on the island of Moorea in French Polynesia. We bought a T-shirt, mailed some post cards, hung out at the beach. A stingray the size of an oven door swam lazily past us while we were in the water. I got sunburned, and was subsequently told this by literally everyone we knew.

We talked to some people from the ship who rented some scooters, and while there's a perimeter road around the island, there are few, if any, roads into the interior. But there are a number of fruit stands dotting the main road, and we passed these on our way to and from the beach. Each one appeared to have a healthy selection of fruit. I didn't see any fruit in the trees, but this was probably because the low-hanging fruit (heh) was already picked by the locals, leaving only the difficult to reach stuff. (I did find some mangoes smashed on the ground during my run the next day, making me think these might have fallen from higher up in the trees.)

On our way to mail postcards, Tamara suggested we should stop at one of the fruit stands -- which was awesome, because I wanted to eat a banana. I love bananas, and was excited at the thought that this would be the most amazing banana ever (spoiler: it tasted exactly the same as any other banana you've ever had in your life). So we go up to this stand and talk to this nice woman (in French) about buying some fruit.

"Je voudrais acheter des bananes, s'il-vous plaît." «I would like to buy some bananas, please.»
"Vous avez besoin d'un sac?" «Do you need a bag?»
"No, merci. Nous avons déjà un sac." «No, thank you. We have a bag.»
"Alors, prends ça. Je le fais ce matin." «Well, take this. I made it this morning.» And she handed us a lovely basket made from (what I assume are) banana leaves, and filled it with two big bunches of tiny bananas! Then she gave us a couple more underripe bananas for "le petit dejeuner demain" breakfast tomorrow. And handed us another fruit that we've been unable to identify, but that I think may have been some kind of guava. I thought it was okay, but Tamara did not like it.

Getting back to the ship, we tried to take our little cache of fruit onboard but were told no way Jose. Leaving us with a dilemma.

Now, Tamara has a story about a similar situation, that I love, and which I'm totally stealing for this brief interlude.

Some time ago, Tamara's grandparents were crossing the border from the United States back into Canada, following some vacation or something, and they had with them a sack of potatoes. I want to say it was a twenty pound bag, which is probably reasonable (and true). But the story gets better with an absurd amount of potatoes, so let's just agree on 50 pounds for the sake of your entertainment.

They get to the border station and are talking to the agent about what they're bringing across. Turns out they weren't allowed to cross with these potatoes. But Tamara's granddad really wanted these potatoes, and began arguing with the border agent. It turns out it wasn't the potatoes themselves that were the problem, but the potato skins. "So you're saying if I peeled these potatoes I'd be able to bring them across?" You betcha. So, like any completely rational person, he found a knife, sat by the side of the road, and peeled this big bag of potatoes -- probably at least a hundred pounds of the things.

Astute readers will see where this is going. Especially if you saw my last post.

Tamara and I sat on a bench in the shade and shared a feast of tiny bananas, while locals near us played ukuleles for the tourists from the ship. There was a mild breeze blowing through, just enough to blunt the afternoon heat. Maybe not the best bananas I've ever tasted, but easily the best I've ever eaten. A pretty spectacular moment overall.

We tried the guava thingy but didn't finish it. And the underripe bananas went to a lady who sold us some goods, because she was very friendly and kind to us. I think she was happy with them, but my French still isn't strong enough to know for sure. "Quel bizarre cadeau" must be good, right?

Day 11: COVID

Don't get too excited -- we don't have COVID. I've just providing a COVID update because the things I should be writing about are... hard to write about. And updates like, "We spent the day at the beach!" are boring AF. So I'm filling some space with something easy and hopefully interesting.

There's a COVID outbreak on the ship. Threads started popping up on the Facebook group for this cruise (there's apparently a Facebook group for every cruise) about an increasing number of crew members masking. Then we started getting posts from people being isolated on Deck 3 because they have COVID. Deck 3 started to have kind of an ominous feel to it. Like Room 101.

Reports of cases vary from a few dozen to a few hundred. The most recent information we heard (from someone whose reliability is hard to determine) is about 100. That's 3.5% of the passengers. Is that a big deal? I don't know. What I can tell you is that I have no interest in getting it again, regardless of how mild the symptoms are; and I don't want to do anything to jeopardize my ability to enter Australia. Caution is now the order of the day.

But Deron, I hear you say. Didn't everyone have to provide a negative test 72 hours prior to boarding? Why yes, that was exactly what people had to do. We managed to get a supervised test over Zoom with a company from Toronto. Plenty of other people had tests done at clinics in Hawai'i. These negative tests had to be shown to cruise staff before anyone could get on the ship.

But here's the thing: we know someone from Saskatchewan who tested themselves at home and came up positive, then went to the hospital for a second test and came up negative. The difference was that they swabbed both their throat AND nose at home, but the hospital only swabbed their nose. Apparently this might be a big deal.

Our supervised test was kind of a joke. I mean, both Tamara and I took it seriously, but there were lots of ways we could have scammed our way through if we wanted to. And we only had to swab our noses. From the reports of some people we've spoken to, no one has been asked to swab their throats. That, and a little less laissez-faire attitude from the testing companies, might have been the difference in preventing some COVID-positive people from boarding.

Since passengers are not being tested regularly, people are only being isolated if they self-identify, either with symptoms or through a RAT they administered themselves. It's impossible to know right now what passengers or crew are COVID-positive and asymptomatic, or have mild symptoms they're dismissing as unimportant.

Cruise staff have told a number of stories about operating during COVID -- how the ships were empty, how they had to deal with crew isolation and meal logistics, and things they learned from this ordeal. Very interesting stuff. Right now we're getting reports of how the crew is currently struggling with COVID cases, potentially indicating there are more cases than they expected to have to deal with. But like in the early days of the pandemic, there's lots of information out there, but the signal to noise ratio is low. It's hard right now to determine how much is valid and how much is speculation (and how much is just plain horse pucky).

We're masking in close quarters right now and trying to limit our contact with people. Tamara and I both knew we had COVID before we confirmed with a RAT, and I'm sure we'll know again if something suddenly seems a little off. I'll be paying closer attention to how I'm feeling. But I'm hopeful this is only a little blip we'll be able to skate on past.

The ship is currently anchored off the island of Moorea (mo-or-AY-ah) in French Polynesia. We spent the day here, and Tamara and I had to each eat eight tiny bananas before we could get back on the ship. Was this some kind of odd local custom or elaborate hazing ritual? I'll try to find time to explain this tomorrow. 

Day 7: The Galley

The first day of the cruise, Steve from Canada said that people have been known to gain a pound a day on the ship.

It's me. I'm people.

We went on a five-day Carnival cruise to Cozumel in 2015, and I gained five pounds. We then went on a seven-day cruise to Alaska in 2016 and I gained seven pounds. This is an 18-day cruise. Losing a day at the International Date Line never came at a better time.

We decided to spend some money and go on a galley tour yesterday. Not too different from any other industrial kitchen, but it was interesting to get behind the scenes and talk about the process of serving meals for 3000 passengers. Not surprisingly, a lot of time was spent talking about cleanliness and how they avoid contamination -- incredibly important, as it's probably ridiculously easy to spread food-borne illnesses across the entire ship if you're not careful.

But we also learned about the crazy scale the galley staff has to deal with. The main four dining areas on the ship seat 1800 people at a time. They bake 20,000 buns each day for the entire ship. They cook about 2000 pounds of potatoes every day. They also cook about 7000 eggs and about 500 pounds of that incredible bacon. It's madness. 

What most people don't understand about cruises is that the food is delicious and there's as much as you want. We go to sit-down dining every night for supper (there are lots of buffet-style choices for supper, but sit-down dining is where we meet all the people), and last night I had two entrees. I told our server that I wanted two entrees, and she replied, "Okay, order two entrees," with an air of nonchalance that implied this was the least intrusive request she'd had that day.

There's a pizza place on the ship that will serve me as much pepperoni pizza as I can eat. They will never say, "Sir, you've eaten too much pepperoni pizza." They might say, "Sir, you've eaten all the pepperoni pizza," but only to follow it with, "you will have to wait seven minutes while we cook you a new pizza."

There's also a hot dog shop that will serve me all the hot dogs I want. 25 hot dogs? Done. And a lunch buffet with a wide variety of foods, from curries and stews, to chicken and pasta. And a salad and wrap place that will give you as much Caesar salad as you want. And a breakfast place with perfectly-cooked bacon. Like, seriously: it is so crispy, if we were in prison someone would already be sharpening it into some kind of delicious shiv.

All of this is included in the price of the cruise. And there's just so much of it. I'm here for almost three weeks and I'm still not sure I'll get to eat all the things I want to.

I love the food. But I don't love the idea of bloating myself on every meal, every day -- which I continue to do because the food is right there! This reminds me a little bit of the talks we had about the all you can drink alcohol package. We opted for the virgin cocktails/soda/fancy coffees package, which is working out pretty well for us, and came in at about $20/day -- pretty reasonable for all the (virgin) frozen pina coladas I can drink. But the alcohol package was something like an additional $800 each, not including the mandatory 18% gratuity. And that's ridiculous. Like, we could spend $1000 on booze and still come out ahead.

Tamara and I batted this around a bit, especially when we learned that the passengers are going to be primarily Ozzies. But even with cocktails at about $20 each, we'd have to drink a substantial amount every day to get value from that package. And what we didn't want was to feel obligated to drink when we didn't really want to, just to try and justify the cost. And it's the same with the food: I don't want to think I should be eating pizza just because it's one in the morning and I'm blogging in front of the pizza place.

The lesson here is one of self-control: food might be available, but that doesn't mean I need to take it. So far self-control is losing heavily.

But I'm trying to take it easy. I'm running 5k on the track every morning. I'm more conscious about taking the stairs between decks instead of the elevators. And I'm skipping breakfasts (except for a plate of this amazing bacon every morning after my run). I'm still pretty sure I'm going to come out of this weighing more than when I came in, but maybe I can keep it to a reasonable level; after all, too much of anything -- even me -- isn't always a good thing.

Day 5: News from the Cruise

"How do you market a cruise to people? That seems kinda hard. Do you know what I mean? Like, 'Hey, do you like hotels?' 'Yeah.' 'How about one that could sink?'"
 -- Demetri Martin

So, obviously, we made it onto the ship. And here I am, late at night and all alone, window howling around me, finally providing an update.

On the ship there are port days and sea days. As you might guess, the port days are spent in port, and the sea days are spent SEAsoning french fries with many different and exotic salts. No, wait-- the days are spent literally at sea. This is a repositioning cruise, going from Hawai'i to Australia, to take advantage of the southern hemisphere's warm weather (or maybe to avoid the northern hemisphere's cold weather). And as such, there are A LOT of sea days. Of the 19 days we're on the ship, something like 13 of them are just us at sea, surrounded by the Pacific Ocean and not a whole lot else.

The point I'm trying to get to is that Steve from Canada, the Cruise Director, has to program a number of activities to keep people occupied, and these range from built-in things on the ship, like swimming and rock climbing, to trivia and bingo, to live music and other performances. And in fact, there's so much going on that I've been too busy to blog. Or relax, even. Which is not at all the state I want to be in.

We figured this out a couple of years ago when we went to Ottawa. Our normal mode is to plan our time pretty extensively. But on this particular trip we decided to take a day off to watch Iron Fist (do not recommend) and eat candy (100% do recommend). And having this brief oasis of calm in our otherwise full week of activities made a huge difference in our vacation enjoyment.

But right now, we've been on the ship two days and haven't even made it to a pool yet. A travesty! And one that needs to be rectified immediately. Or maybe as soon as the pools open tomorrow.

But if soaking in hot tubs hasn't been happening, how have we been filling our time? Meeting people, mostly. We were told by Steve from Canada that there are roughly 3200 people on the ship: 2400 of them are from Australia and 800 are from "other places". So we are meeting a lot of Australians. And so far they have all been delightful, friendly, and quite interesting.

We've mostly been meeting people at supper. We're used to being assigned a table with the same people the first day of the cruise. But this trip we get randomly assigned to a different table every night. You don't form those same friendships (we have people that we still talk to regularly from our Tampa cruise in 2015), but you get to spend time with more people. So this time maybe that trade is worth it.

We're still so early in the trip that it's difficult to tell what friendships will develop or who we're going to meet. There are still two weeks left before landfall -- an eternity! Maybe I'll manage to get my schedule straight just in time for the trip to end.

Day 4: Hawai'i, We Hardly Knew Ye

One of my more frequent sayings is that you can't unsee things. I usually use it in the context of the dark side of the internet, and how there are a lot of things I just don't watch because I don't want to deal with how they might change me.

But you can be changed by experiences, too. And I think I might have been changed a little the minute my feet touched the water on Oct. 11. Not at all in a bad way. It feels a little like a weight has been lifted, maybe? It feels a little like the island has embraced me and told me things are going to be okay. Like I'm leaving a little piece of myself here in its care for me to pick up at a later date. Or who knows: I may find out I don't actually need it and not even want it back by that point.

I really wanted to get a run in today, seeing as it's our last day here. I ran out toward Diamond Head, thinking I'd just end up doing an out and back. But I decided instead to just bite the bullet and do the full 9k loop. It was nice. Humid, of course, and not enough water. But I can handle 9k in this heat very easily, especially at the pace I was going: not trying to break any records, not trying to get lost, slow and steady. Another day and things would be a little faster and easier, I am sure. But I got a run in today and that's what counts.

Not sure what the first day on the ship is going to be like, or even what I'm going to have to post. But I will probably end up dumping some extra photos from Hawai'i a little later on tonight.