Flying foxes

So here we are in Cairns (pronounced "cans" in Aussie). We are sitting on the deck watching the sunset, though we can't actually see the sun because the climate here is rain forest, and it has been raining on and off most of the day. This is also the season for cyclones (AKA hurricanes) and box jellyfish that can sting you to death, and it's always the season for salt water crocodiles around here, but that's just life down under, mate.

And a seemingly endless stream of dark flying things is moving over the ship out of town to the wild hills across the harbor. "Crows or ravens," I guessed, though they made no sound I could hear.

"Nope," said my tablemate Paul, "flying foxes. Fruit bats. They're not little twittering bats, they're huge, easily as big as crows . I saw a bunch of them hanging from trees in the center of town. The guide on my tour said they'd take off around 7 pm and fly right over where our ship is docked. " He checked his watch. "Which is right about now."

They kept coming for half an hour, hundreds of them, silent (at least to my ears, though maybe, if they eat fruit, they don't need to echo-locate it). Another guest with some birder credentials sat down with us and confirmed the ID. "Definitely bats," he said, "their tail configuration is wrong for birds." Six guys paddled an outrigger canoe past us heading out of the harbor, switching sides with practiced ease as they glided across the darkening water. The bats kept coming, as did the rain. Eventually, the light was gone, and all we could see was the deck lights reflecting off the raindrops as they slithered into the bay with a whispered hiss.

Some people have all the fun

I see via BBC News online that another Costa cruise ship is in trouble, this one drifting without power off the east coast of Africa in pirate-infested waters hours from help. The area they are in is also a place where rogue waves are relatively common. Without power, the crew can't prepare food. There are no internal lights, since the power from the generators is needed for critical functions.

Meanwhile we motor along the coast of Australia at a steady 21 knots en route to Cairns and then to the Great Barrier Reef. I think I'll go get breakfast. While I still can.

One last Sydney miscellaneous

In the middle of a traffic roundabout beneath one of the many rock faces in Sydney is a red car lying smashed beneath a big boulder. It is a sculpture, but apparently enough people thought it was a real accident that warning signs have been posted. As you drive into the traffic circle, the signs, which look just like construction warning signs, say "Start Art Work", and as you exit the circle, they say "End Art Work".

I Love Sydney #1

Sydney, Australia, is a great place to sail into.

From the time the sun was up, I was out on the bow with dozens of my fellow passengers (dozens more gathered on decks above us) to watch us enter Sydney Harbour. The weather was perfect -- bright sunshine, temperatures in the low 70s warming gradually to where the windbreaker I wore was too much.

Wild cliffs, a national preserve, frame the entrance to the harbor, but a modern skyline is visible beyond. You can't see the Opera House yet, but the bend of the bridge beyond it can be seen from the ocean.

Sailing into Rio is more dramatic ("Wow! That's Sugarloaf! Wow! That's the Christ the Redeemer statue! Wow! That's Copacabana beach!"), but sailing into Sydney is more beautiful. The Harbour reaches back into the land in finger patterns like frost on cold windows. Past the Headlands, it's trees and small beaches and low hills with attractive houses and apartment buildings and grassy parks. There's the Opera House, of course, and the bridge and the prime minister's residence (the Amsterdam gave her a salute on the horn as we sailed past) and the downtown skyline. And Sydney is a main port, so there must be ugly industrial sections somewhere in the Harbour, but we got docked without passing any of them. The feeling I got for the hour or so it took us to sail in and dock was "What a great place! What a beautiful place! I wonder what it's like to live here."

I Love Sydney #2

I am not sure whether I should attribute this excellence to the whole city of Sydney, but it came from officialdom at the Opera House, so a case could be made.

When I went to the box office to claim the ticket I had ordered online to see Magic Flute, the cashier said, "Oh dear", and went to consult the manager. It seems that I had ordered a ticket for January 25 instead of February 25. And the February 25 performance, a weekend matinee, was sold out.

The clerk managed to find me a seat with an obstructed view. "But I can still hear everything, right?" I asked anxiously. "Oh yes," she reassured me, "and at the intermission, you should find the theater manager and see if someone failed to claim a ticket, maybe we can upgrade you then. Oh wait, there she is."

So I repeated my sorrowful tale, and the manager was sympathetic but momentarily unhelpful, and I toddled off with my obstructed view ticket and hope in my heart. It was half an hour until the theater opened, so I followed an usher's suggestion and climbed four or five flights of stairs (the Sydney Opera House assumes one is not physically challenged -- maybe all Aussie opera lovers warm up by climbing the Harbour Bridge before breakfast every day) to find a pre-show lecture. Along with a dozen or so fellow audience members, I sprawled on the red-carpeted staircase and listened to the talk while admiring the sailboats moving past the Opera House on the sun-dappled Harbour.

After the lecture, I climbed back down to the entry to my occluded seat, but the usher had a handwritten sticky note. "There's been a double booking," she said, "You'll have to climb up this stairway, you're now in B14." "How much more occluded can I get?" I wondered as I followed the usher's directions.

B14, it turned out, was in the center of the second row of the balcony, a seat that probably cost more than twice what I paid and gave me a full, perfect view of the brilliant, colorful, enchanting performance. (Note to Nanette : the bass was nowhere near Rene Pape, the Queen of the Night sang quite well, though she tended to squeak a bit on the very highest notes of her arias, Pamino was actually better than the Met's, and Papageno did a good job, though without the heart-stopping sexiness of Nathan Gunn. The pre-show lecture explained that the guy who played Papageno in the very first production had a lot of input to Mozart as he was writing it, so that part gets a lot of audience-pleasing stuff.)

I have no idea why I ended up in the perfect seat. But I still get giddy remembering that afternoon at the Sydney Opera House seeing that glorious production. As happy as I look in the attached picture, taken for me by two ladies from Boston with British accents before I entered the Opera House, I was even happier afterwards walking back to the shuttle to the ship.

Note to Lizz : I can't say anything about the acoustics in the concert hall because (a) I was in the perfect seat where everything was guaranteed to sound good, and (b) I know nothing about acoustics. Love, Mom.

I Love Sydney #3

After dinner, a few of us went out on deck to watch the sunset. We're docked in Darling Harbour, which is past the bridge and kind of around the corner from Circular Quay where the Opera House is. From the starboard side of the ship, we looked west (a good direction to look at a sunset) away from the Opera House over a stretch of the harbor that seemed to be a major thoroughfare.

The sky certainly did its part: crescent Moon, evening star, brilliant red underbellies on the clouds spread across the skyline. But the show was on the water, where dozens of boats whizzed by in what looked like total chaos: little rowboats with one Evinrude engine, yellow taxi boats, sleek dark river cats, paddlewheelers (yes, just like on the Mississippi) and charter catamarans, their decks jammed with partying Aussies in dresses way up to HERE and shirts unbuttoned way down to THERE, sound systems providing heavy bass rhythms as the lights on the dance floors flashed red, green, blue, silver, and gold onto the darkening harbor water.

As the sunlight faded, the lights of the boats and the buildings along the shore came on, making a swirling carnival for the eyes. As I reclined on my deck chair, watching the river traffic on one February Saturday night in Darling Harbour, I was forced to the conclusion that Australians really know how to have a good time.

Sydney miscellaneous

1. As the Amsterdam docked, a band of bagpipes and drums in full regalia played to welcome the ship in. I really liked the steel drums in Barbados and the carved wooden drums in Tahiti, but nothing gets to my heart like bagpipes.
2. As I walked from the hotel where the shuttle bus dropped us off to the Opera House, I took a shortcut across a little park area. And there, grubbing for crumbs with the pigeons, were three ibises, acting as if it was the most natural thing in the world for them to be poking their long, curved black beaks into cracks in the sidewalk. Ibises!
3. As I walked back from the Opera House, someone started playing a digeridoo (sp?). It has a really eerie, deep sound, and playing one requires the player to practice a kind of circular breathing such that the tone is sustained pretty much indefinitely. I am sure there are people in Portland who can play one, but hearing one on a Sydney street en route from the Opera House is almost as cool as those ibises.
4. Although my cerebral cortex understands that citizens of the British Commonwealth drive on the left side of the street, some lower brain centers are pretty much freaked out about it. Even riding the shuttle bus over to Circular Quay, I kept wanting to duck behind the seat and yell at the driver, "Look out! That idiot is on the wrong side! HE'S GOING TO HIT US!" The curvy, non-rectilinear arrangement of the streets around here didn't help. And it's a good thing Australian drivers are kind, because I definitely looked the wrong way before crossing streets.
5. The Rocks, a trendy downtown area almost under the Harbour Bridge, has a weekend crafts market that includes jewelry in the thousands of dollars range (and that is in Australian dollars, which, at the moment, are worth more than ours), aboriginal art and art done in aboriginal styles, tourist crap and really nice tourist crap, and a glorious diversity of stuff that, had my sore feet not saved me, would surely have strained my credit limits.
6. As we sailed out today, dozens of Aussies came out in their own boats to wave goodbye to us and yell "Bon voyage!" I feel sadder leaving Sydney than any other port so far. Except maybe Papeete. Or Rio. Maybe Punta Arenas. Leaving Antarctica, knowing I'll never see it again. OK, so I'm a destination slut.
7. I have three or four more Sydney entries in progress, but I think I'll post this one so you can see the ibises.

Morning grumps

It is about the 50th day of the cruise. Later I will have several posts about Sydney, which I like a lot. But right now you're going to get a dump of all the ways I wish I were home.

I want to pet my cat.

I want to pop a Lean Cuisine meal into my microwave and pour myself a glass of milk and consume both in front of my TV, which has dozens of channels and doesn't show commercials for Holland America every ten minutes.

I want to walk on the Portland waterfront and see familiar sights.

I want to live in my own space.

I want to see Jeff and Lizz and Anne and not talk to them about this cruise. I want to know what's happening in their lives.

I want to take my shifts dispatching for TIP and help with the meals program at St. Stephens and go to church and worship in fine old high church Episcopalian fashion and sing hymns composed before 1900.

I wish this stupid cruise was over and all the "tell us about your cruise" conversations were over and my life was my own again, easy and casual and comfortable and MINE, to the extent anyone's life is their own. No more being waited on, no more four course dinners served by Iwan and Tika, no more twice daily room-cleaning by Achmad and Yudith, no more noontime announcements in elegant British tones of the latitude, longitude, and weather forecast.

Hmph. OK. Bloom where you are planted. But I still want to pet my cat.

Miscellaneous #3

1. More on Achmad and Yudith. I happened to see Yudith in the hall and decided to satisfy my curiosity.

"You and Achmad are both from Indonesia, aren't you?"
"Yes."
"And Indonesia is a Muslim country."
"Yes."
"Well, I thought Muslims didn't let men and women work together."
She smiled as one does when a child asks why the sky is blue.
"We are a democracy," she said proudly. "We have democratic laws."
"Not sharia?" I asked.
"No. I do not wear the... " and she pantomimed a headscarf. "That's the Arabs, not us."

And with another, brilliant smile, she moved on to do her work.

2. Along the same lines, most of the wait staff in the main dining room are Indonesian, but all the wine stewards are Filipino because they can handle liquor without transgressing religious standards.

3. Ocean color, it turns out, has to do with several factors. Water molecules tend to absorb everything but blue. Various kinds of plankton can modify what gets reflected so that there is more green. Best current guess about that striking mid-Pacific blue is that it happens over water that is two or three miles deep and relatively sterile, so that there is little affecting what we see but what the water gives back to the sky.

4. We had a hell of a Mardi Gras celebration with elaborate decorations, open bar, Louisiana food, and genuine New Orleans musicians flown into Samoa so that they could play for the party. One of them gave a talk yesterday on the origins of jazz. He had us standing up to learn to do the hambone, the percussive dance slaves used to maintain their African roots when they were forbidden to have drums. I don't think we showed much aptitude, but he was kind and praised us anyway.

5. I'm not in the brig. Australia will let me in. And day after tomorrow, I will be sure to rise early to watch our entry into Sydney Harbour.

Cautious Australia

We're still three days away from Australia, but we're undergoing the third set of procedures related to clearing us for arrival.

The first was the acquisition of an ETA, which, if I remember correctly, stands for Electronic Travelers' Authorization. You fill out a form online, authorize payment via credit card, and you're done. Following a recommendation in an online forum, I managed to get the whole process done for $10.99. It costs $35 if you do it onboard, though I don't think Holland America is making any money on it.

The second was delivered to my stateroom* about a week ago. It was a set of two questionnaires, one about arrival ("Are you bringing any plants into Australia? Are you transporting more than $10,000 in Australian dollars into the country? How long will you be in Australia? ", etc.) and one about departure ("Are you taking any plants out of Australia? Are you taking more than $10,000 in Australian dollars out of the country? On what day will you be leaving Australia? ", etc.) with dated signatures on each.

And today each passenger must appear in person before Australian immigration officials who came on board in Samoa. We must appear with our passports, which have been in Holland America's keeping since we boarded in Florida. So we have been assigned group numbers (mine is 16) and numbers will be called over the PA system, not in order. When they call "16", I will proceed up to a room on Deck 5. As I enter, I will be handed my passport, the Australian Immigration folks will decide whether I am indeed that person and whether they want to let me in, then, assuming a happy outcome, I will exit the room, handing my passport back to Holland America, and proceed with my day.

The interesting question is what happens if the Aussies find someone they don't like. Does ms Amsterdam have a brig? Do they clap you in irons? Will we get to see armed Australian police march on board at Sydney to remove the miscreant? And what if there's an international incident where the American government gets bent out of shape because one of its citizens was treated harshly?

I'd better get this posted quickly before they call "16". I don't think there's anything Australia could object to about me, but you never know.

Samoan miscellaneous

1. I did go back ashore after helping Sue to her stateroom. And the rain that had been threatening finally fell, soaking me to the skin. I have now officially been Soaked in a Tropical Downpour. You may kiss my ring.
2. Every time we leave a port, there is a Sail Away party on deck featuring a drink special for only $5.95 plus 15% service charge. This afternoon, for the first time, I decided to go and watch Samoa fade into the horizon. The event was a bit tattered -- the same nautical flags they string up for every other Sail Away party, and the recorded music was more Caribbean than South Seas -- but I figured what the hell and blew $5.95 plus 15% on a Tropical Lime Splash, which seemed to consist of a smashed lemon wedge, a jigger of banana rum, and some cranberry juice with a lot of ice. It tasted OK, and I found an empty deck chair from which to watch Samoa go by. I have now officially taken part in a Sail Away party. I feel more satisfaction in having gotten Soaked in a Tropical Downpour, but that's just me.
3. The CEO of Holland America came on board at Pago Pago and will travel with us to Sydney. The gossip mills are working overtime with details of his arrival, luggage, schedule, and personal qualities. I am just glad to be sufficiently humble that it probably won't affect me one way or another.
4. Thanks to the itinerary revision, we will not lose Mardi Gras when we cross the International Date Line tonight. Instead, we will go to bed tonight on Sunday evening and wake up tomorrow on Tuesday morning. I know I understand why this happens, but it still creeps me out just a wee tad. Where will my Monday go? Maybe someone traveling eastward will get it. I hope they have a good day.

American Samoa

Our stop in Pago Pago, American Samoa, was just about guaranteed to be a dud. The storm that held us up in Punta Arenas, Chile, required itinerary changes that got us here a day late, which means we're here on Sunday, when all the stores are closed. A lot of people were planning on sending stuff like their Antarctic coats home from here, taking advantage of the American Post Office, which, of course, is also closed. Not only that, but the need to get to Sydney, Australia, on time means that the gangway will be coming up at 12:30pm, cutting short opportunities for tours.

At the foot of the gangway was an impromptu tourist gimcrack market shaded by blue and yellow striped plastic tents, and just to set foot on land, I wandered that. The humidity must have been as close to 100% as it can get without actively raining, and it was mildly interesting to see all the virile immigration guys in their Samoan skirts, but I was disinclined to spread any of my dollars around. One booth owner took down a wilting lei for my inspection. "Smell these flowers. They will make you feel cooler," she urged, and I did, and they did, but who needs wilting flowers?

OK, freeze that frame for a minute. I haven't written anything about the people I have dinner with every evening. There are seven of us at the moment, all traveling single. This morning at breakfast in the buffet restaurant, I was sitting with one of them, Paul, a retired salesman now living in Owls Head, Maine, which is irrelevant except that it's such a great town name I can't pass up the chance to share it. He was worried about another of our tablemates, Sue, a very frail woman who will be 90 in September, is fairly deaf, and walks very slowly with the aid of a cane and the help of anyone nearby and relatively able-bodied. "Do you know that Sue hasn't been off the ship since we left Florida?" Paul asked me. "We need to see to it that she gets a foot on land." We agreed to work on it, seeking a port with interesting stuff close to a gently sloping gangway on a day with mild and reliable weather.

Now cut back to this morning on Samoa. I decided to take a quick stroll toward town, figuring there must be more to Pago Pago* than the shipside market, even on a muggy Sunday. I had gone half a block when there she was, Sue, walking slowly toward me on the arm of a handsome young Samoan man. Turns out she had hoped to renew her supply of Aleve at a convenience store a couple blocks from the ship that, true to the code of convenience stores everywhere, was open on Sunday. As she tottered off the ship, a substantial Samoan woman at a tour booth near the gangway had ordered her son (or perhaps nephew or grandson) to accompany Sue, which he did. (Sue said she had tried to give the woman money but was refused.)

Sue looked exhausted by the heat and exertion. I gave her my hat, but clearly more was needed. So, as the stalwart young Samoan helped Sue back to his mother's (or aunt's or grandmother's) booth, I ran back and bought heat-busting leis for Sue and me, draped one around her neck, then helped her back to her cabin, where she declared her intention to "lie down for a little while."

As I walked with Sue and the young Samoan man before I went to get the leis, we passed a sign that said something in Samoan. I asked the young man for a translation, and, after thinking for a moment, he said, "It means 'Samoa is hospitality.'" After their generosity to Sue, I could only add a quick "Amen, brother."

*There has been a lively debate on board as to how to pronounce this name. Chief competitors have been the phonetic "pah-go pah-go" or "pay-go pay-go", and the alternatives "pahngo pahngo" and "pango pango", like "tango tango". Turns out we were all wrong, though I am stuck for how to represent the native pronunciation. They definitely get an 'n' sound in there, but sort of swallow it, the way the French swallow that sound, and they mash the 'g' into the 'n' in the process. And no, I will not try to convince anyone on board that I know what I'm talking about.

Beaufort 1

The ocean is incredibly beautiful today. There is almost no wind, but fairly substantial swells -- there must be a storm south of us pushing energy outward. The sky is mixed sun and clouds, with some wisps of falling rain here and there that never make it down to the surface.

The surface of the sea is not smooth but calm. No whitecaps at all, and barely any waves, just ripples and shudders across the face of the swells. It makes everyone see like Monet, the colors of the day -- azure sky, white and grey clouds, tints of caramel and darkness I cannot account for -- fragmented on the surface, but, thanks to the relative lack of wind, retaining enough identity to let the onlooker recognize them before they transmute into one another.

The official definition of Beaufort 1 says "light air", with the sea showing "ripples without crests" and wind 1-3 mph. Just so you know.

Me and Marilyn with Tahitian flower crowns

Tahiti

Papeete, Tahiti. You say every last one of those vowels, so it comes out "pah-peh-EE-tay". Tattoo'd drummers with big carved wooden drums along the pier. Smiling dark-skinned young woman handing out little white flowers to everyone, men and women alike , as we step off the gangway.

Sharp-edged green-covered hills rise steeply only a few blocks back from the waterfront, but you will not mistake Papeete for a native village. The main drag parallels the waterfront, and the traffic -- cars, trucks, motorcycles, the occasional wailing ambulance -- is constant. There are painted-on crosswalks, but no traffic lights. Either Tahitians are inherently courteous, or they all know squashing tourists is bad PR, because both going and coming, there was no problem crossing six lanes of traffic with just a smile and a waved "Merci". (This is, after all, French Polynesia.)

I spent the morning with Marilyn, a Vancouver, BC, woman whose snorkeling excursion wasn't until the afternoon. She was looking for a black pearl necklace for her daughter, and I wanted some kind of trinket relating to Polynesian seafaring for Sandra, a dragon-boating friend. So we wandered the tourist traps within a few blocks of the pier.

I really should not be allowed outside with negotiable currency. Marilyn at least objected when offered an exorbitant exchange rate. I was just so charmed by the exuberant colors and loose cut of the dresses that I am lucky to have come back with only one, plus a shell necklace to go with it. And a little tiki god carved out of dark stone that I am sure must be lava. And a new set of sheets in red and blue that cried out to me from the sales table. Exchange rate be damned, I can look forward to sleeping between Tahitian flower prints when I can no longer sleep to the rocking of the ocean!

(I am coming to realize that there are actually three different and possibly mutually unrelated trips going on here. There was the one in anticipation, the image of which was me sailing around the world, one hand on the mast, the other shading my brow as I peer bravely ahead into the waves. There is the one I'm on now, the image of which is maybe me lying on a lounge chair on deck watching for flying fish or maybe me scrambling into clothing I hope is adequately "smart casual" and riding the elevator up two floors to dinner. And then there will be the one I remember and the person I will be then who does the remembering, who will not be who I am now.)

But my favorite acquisition in Papeete came as we returned. Marilyn, who had also bought a dress, wanted a flower headdress to go with it. She had rejected several we'd seen in the shops as too expensive. As we wandered through the final tourist trap before the gate to the Amsterdam, she saw one she liked on the head of the young Tahitian woman minding the till and asked if she could buy it. The young woman shook her head, but pointed over to the tourist welcome office, where a burly, tattooed Tahitian man was sitting on the ground on a tarp surrounded by hundreds of bright yellow flowers, which he was stringing into leis and headdresses.

Marilyn was soon fitted with a flower crown, and I took her picture with the young woman, getting the shot on my camera because hers needed new batteries. And when I turned around, the man crowned me as well, not only for free, but without my asking.

I know, I know, it's a gimmick to make tourists feel welcome, like the leis they used to hand out at Honolulu airport. And I don't care. I do feel welcome here. I do feel intoxicated by the colors and the beauty and the exuberance of the green-covered, cloud-wreathed hills. I don't care that the view from the other side of the ship is of an oil terminal with big white tanks and a grim military ship. If they are selling an illusion of a bygone era to ease the dollars out of my wallet, I am sold and have no complaints about the price.

On the other hand, if I go back into town later this afternoon, it might be the better part of valor to leave my wallet on the ship.

Weather

We're not talking big weather here. Not the stuff that throws the ship around like a beach ball or makes us hole up in port quaking in our metaphorical boots. We're talking small weather, the kind of thing that you landlubbers might mean by "partly cloudy with scattered showers". At home, I would ignore it, assuming I could always duck into a store if my timing was bad.

But out here I can watch a whole panorama of weather, from the bright sunshine over there to my left to the big cumulonimbus sheep's wool boiling up left of straight ahead to the dark clouds and downpour right of straight ahead to the oversized popcorn-shaped fluff cavorting to my right. The sea is calm and multicolored, depending on what the particular patch of sky overhead is doing.

Which reminds me. Does anyone know why the South Pacific should be a different color from the South Atlantic? The scientist at my dinner table insists it's just the reflection of the sky, but honest to Pete, the ocean here under a clear sky is a deeper, denser, brighter, more opaque blue, almost as if it were paint, not water flowing past. I will be grateful for any insight you can offer.

More on flying fish

A second man told me today that the walking deck, four levels up from water level, was too high to see flying fish. This was not an officer but a passenger, wheelchair bound, very thin but not old. He was at the handrail looking out at the ocean as I did my (should be) daily mile walk.

Thinking to be friendly, I stopped to ask him whether he had seen any flying fish.

"No," he answered in an accent that was maybe German, maybe Dutch. His tone was serious. "Too high here. In smaller boat, they come on deck."

He had once sailed, saw fish fly onto the deck at his feet, knew that the fish and the deck and the wind in his face and the sails overhead were an infinite distance away. And when he looked out from the lower promenade deck of the ms Amsterdam, he was not studying the waves flowing by below him looking for quick flashes.

I continued my circuit of the deck, and the next time I came by, a couple in shorts and souvenir T-shirts were helping him get his wheelchair back inside through the heavy doors against the insistent wind.

I stand corrected

In defending my sightings of flying fish, I said that, since we are waaaay out here in the middle of a very big ocean, the likelihood of birds was vanishingly small. Well, scratch that. Two definite birds flew over as I sat on the deck admiring the ocean. They weren't what I was seeing as flying fish. For one thing they were much bigger, and for another, they were flying over, not beside the ship. They had longer wings than gulls with a bend halfway along, and they kept aloft with what I can only describe as leisurely flaps of those long wings. At the noontime report from the Captain, he said we'll be passing Henderson and Pitcairn Islands over the next day, so the birds wouldn't have to make it back to Easter Island to touch down. It was very good to see them.

Flying Fish

I have turned out to be wrong about many aspects of this cruise. For instance, I thought I would be brave and energetic enough to stride off the ship at every port of call, exploring exotic locales and meeting exciting new people and buying lots of souvenirs probably made in China. Turns out I'm much wimpier than that.

But one thing I have been spectacularly right about. It is a total delight to just sit on the deck and watch the ocean go by. And today I saw flying fish! The first time, I wasn't sure what I was seeing -- it could have been a sheet of paper being blown across the waves, though where the paper could have come from remained problematic.

But the second one was clearly something winged, and it was moving into the wind. To find our present position, triangulate among Peru, New Zealand, and Baja California, in that huge empty space in the middle of the ginormous Pacific Ocean. The winged thing was pretty small and beating its wings fairly rapidly, so the chance that it was a bird was not great. But still, what do I know?

So when an officer (only normally handsome in this case) happened by, I stopped him and asked whether I could be seeing flying fish. He thought for a moment and said, "It would be difficult to see them from this height, but yes, you could be seeing flying fish."

And after that, I saw several more. They skim across the water like skipped stones except for when they kind of zoom above the waves, then they dive in, plop! and they're gone. You can't really look for them. You just zone out watching the ocean flow past the ship and every once in a while this glittery winged being flits across the scene.

It is conceivable that after four months, ocean watching, with or without flying fish, will lose its charm. But only barely conceivable.

The scary housekeeping crew

Normally, my room is cleaned twice a day by Achmad and Yudith, two Indonesian people in their twenties. Achmad is the very definition of mild-mannered, and Yudith, while there is an underlying steel in her spine, probably a defensive necessity because she is gorgeous, has a bright cheerful smile. Both of them strive to be as inconspicuously amiable as possible, given that they have to invade people's space mornings and evenings and deal with personal detritus.

But once I was put into isolation, no more Achmad and Yudith. Now it was a 3-man crew whose names I never heard. Headed by a grim man in officer's uniform, they wore plastic aprons, rubber gloves, and face masks, and I think they brought with them twice as much stuff as Achmad and Yudith. They removed every towel, including the folded-towel gorilla that has been danglng from a hanger on my picture frame for weeks. They sprayed something on my rug from a container that looked like it might contain a particularly effective bug spray. All in all, it was a very impressive display.

But I had to wonder. Anything I might be carrying is mainly carried by me personally. I can recontaminate anything they decontamination with a mere breath for the next two months, and then with me out of the way, they can and hopefully will do a thorough decontamination before the next passenger(s) move into Stateroom 3378.

So this procedure is not to protect me. Having thought about it a bit, I am forced to the conclusion that it's for Achmad and Yudith. If I had something contagious, what better carrier of that contagion than people who go in and out of 30 cabins every day?

I am out of isolation now, so apparently no more face masks and bug spray. But they sure were scary. I'll be glad to have Achmad and Yudith back this evening.

What I missed

If you can find a map of Easter Island, you will see that it is triangular. The town (speaking generously) is in the southwest corner, and that is where the "facilities" are -- things like piers where small boats like our tenders can dock. Unfortunately, at the time of our arrival the ocean swells made that option impossible -- imagine trying to get passengers to board and disembark while leaping up and/or down a foot or more from and to an unsteady surface. It would be a challenge for the physically adept, and many of my fellow passengers are far from that.

But there is a second option. On the northeast side of the island is a beach -- the only one on the island and probably where the original Polynesian settlers landed, since everywhere else the island meets the sea with distinctly unwelcoming lava rock faces that fairly scream, "Go away!" So the Captain pulled us around to the beach side and dropped anchor in the lee of the island where the ocean swells were somewhat tamer. The ever-resourceful crew created a makeshift pier, and started ferrying passengers across the water, about a 15 to 20 minute ride. Planned excursions were rerouted to start from there, islanders with souvenirs to sell drove over to the beach, and all seemed to be well.

But even the tamed swells were borderline manageable. Eventually, one wrecked the pier, one of the tenders missed the beach and smashed a hole in its hull -- remember that lava? and, despite pleas from the captain for passengers with "mobility challenges" not to go ashore, a few with canes and at least one with a walker decided to make the trip, complicating matters.

The crew were magnificent. They got everyone to and from Easter Island, though they had to carry some people onto and off of the tenders They got the wounded tender back to the Amsterdam for repairs, and no one fell in -- at least no passenger. I can't imagine that the temporary pier was constructed without someone getting his feet wet.

All in all, I suspect the decision to try the beach landing was a near thing, possibly influenced by a great uproar in Punta Arenas, where it was clear that not sailing into a hurricane would require some changes to the itinerary. The uproar consisted of several hundred people saying in unison, "But I booked this cruise to see Easter Island!" And so , come hell, high water, ferocious lava, and people with highly unrealistic estimates of their own capabilities, by God! the passengers of ms Amsterdam saw Easter Island!

Except me, of course. But I got a new, scary housekeeping crew, about which later.

No Easter Island, as it turns out

The ship will go there -- is, in fact, there -- here as I type this. But overnight I spent a dismaying amount of time barfing into the gleaming white toilet bowl in my cabin after tossing and turning trying to convince myself that I didn't feel nauseous. The seas were relatively calm, so I don't think it was seasickness.

The medical center nurse who returned my call said it's probably not norovirus, since that requires diarrhea as well as nausea. I will go down there when they open in half an hour or so and get what information they have on recovery from nausea. But I still feel woozy. And they just announced that getting ashore will be challenging -- high swells and having to move from bouncing tender to floating dock surface (just writing that makes the nausea return).

So I won't be joining the excursion I signed up for. We'll be here all day, and I will be able to go ashore later if I feel better. But right now, chances don't look good.

And now chances look nil. I went to the medical center and they gently confined me to my cabin for the next 24 hours, assuming the nausea doesn't recur. As it turns out, I can see several moai from my cabin window, which does you, my readers, no good, but is a considerable comfort to me.

And for the first time in my life, I am drinking Gatorade. It was the medical aide's concession to my objections to plain water. I have sailed 11,626 miles to drink Gatorade instead of looking up at Polynesian status symbols. Oh well, at least I will get my money back for the excursion I am forbidden to take.

Miscellaneous #2

1. Yesterday, we had a presentation from a criminally handsome navigation officer named Kees (and it is only thanks to Claudia and jno that I know how to spell that Dutch nickname for Cornelius). Among other fascinating information, he told us that the ship can be brought to a complete stop from a speed of 20 knots in just two-and-a-half ship lengths. "You wouldn't like it, though," he added, conjuring visions of smashed crockery, furniture, and bones as they yanked the ship into full reverse.
2. My friend Nanette said that on the cruise she and her mother took to Alaska some years ago, the library was always deserted and was a reliable place to escape. Not so on this cruise. I think I've already mentioned the soft leather chairs looking out at the ocean. They are almost always occupied. But what ticks me off is that half the time, people turn them away from the windows and bury their noses in some bestseller paperback, which they could do anywhere.
3. Virtual fellow traveler Doug Miller has found a site for people suffering from my photographic shortcomings. It's www.amazingvoyages2.blogspot.com by Jeff Farschmann, who takes and posts magnificent photos of this cruise. I haven't met him, but Doug is only the latest person to recommend this site. Jeff is a seasoned traveller, so he will do more adventurous things than I will, but we're on the same voyage, so there should be correspondences.
4. Our next stop is Easter Island, which we will reach day after tomorrow after five days at sea. Then we travel four days to reach our next port in Tahiti. Easter Island is literally way out there. I'm reading a book called "Collapse", which includes a chapter on Easter Island that pretty much demolishes Thor Heyerdahl's thesis that the island was settled from South America -- DNA tests link current day inhabitants to the Polynesian Islands, as do their customs, tools, and language. He even explains how they could get those huge statues across the island and how they erected them, though I need to read through that part a few more times before I'll understand it. The book is a survey of how civilizations make choices that do or don't lead to their collapse.
5. As usual, western civilization didn't do Easter Island any favors. The author of "Collapse" mentions three smallpox epidemics within 75 years after the island was "discovered", and Spanish slave traders from Peru grabbing a huge chunk of the island's able-bodied inhabitants.
6. In case Becky Elliott, beautician extraordinaire, is reading, it turns out that sea spray encountered during a windy walk around the deck perks up my curls even better than water from a spray bottle.

Conversations

I am currently fleeing (as best one can flee on board a ship in the middle of the ocean) from a poisonous conversation I couldn't not overhear in the library. Three people explaining at length to one another how all the problems of the world are the fault of people Not Like Us : the unions, the blacks, the poor, the Obama administration, the greedy foreigners. All in that tone of contemptuous self-righteousness that brooks no contradiction.

So as antidote, let me tell you about some wonderful conversations I've had on board. Yesterday, for example, I overheard a man quote to his wife a marvelous sentence from the book he was reading. Wanting to know the reference, I asked what he was reading, and it turned into a half hour discussion about what one can and cannot know about oneself. He is a retired neurologist/psychiatrist, he and his wife are Dutch, and they speak thoughtfully and listen carefully. If a class session in creative writing had not taken over the space, we might still be talking.

This morning, I sat down for breakfast at a table with a woman from Vermont who felt as I do about the need for personal space on board*. We sympathized, traded experiences and solutions -- she had found a place on my deck that is often deserted and has comfortable banquettes where one can relax, read, or get online.

*Because my cabin is cleaned twice a day, and because food requires that I go somewhere, I really can't hole up in there as I'm used to doing at home. Usually it's not too bad, but those people in the library made me realize how much I miss My Space.

Very early in the cruise, I sat at a table with a man who called both President Bushes by their first name and served on a a national commission on financial reform. He talked about the inside details of how it almost failed due to the computer illiteracy of one high administration official -- fascinating stuff!

A week ago, I met a woman from England who is traveling with her sister. They are straight out of central casting for cheerful British spinsters -- white-haired, friendly, gracious, ready to be delighted by everything and everyone they encounter, but with an underlying steadiness of mind that would let either one of them be Miss Marple should we have a complicated murder on board. And no, I am not going back to the library to commit one.

I was there!

You may have thought I was a serious person, someone concerned with the deep and profound issues of life. I blush to confess that is not the case. I am watching CNN coverage of the rising tensions between Britain and Argentina over the sovereignty of the Falkland/Malvinas Islands, a conflict that in 1982 led to war and the loss of hundreds of lives. And all I can think as they show background shots of Stanley, the main (only) port, is, "Ooooo! I was right there by that building! Ooooo! I stood under that memorial made of whalebone! Ooooo! I WAS RIGHT THERE LOOKING AT THAT VERY VIEW ACROSS THE HARBOR LESS THAN TWO WEEKS AGO! OOOOO!"

Taj tour canceled

I was signed up for a fly-in-fly-out tour from Mumbai to the Taj Mahal. Turns out that the runway on which our 737 was to land in Agra (where the Taj is) is undergoing construction, which was scheduled to be completed in time for our landing (yes, and takeoff) but alas! is only half complete. Nowhere to land the plane, no flight from Mumbai, no tour.

But, true to form, Holland America is offering a substitute. Now, for the same price, we can fly from what used to be called Goa, our stop before Mumbai, to Delhi and take a bus to Agra, spend the night in a hotel, then, the next morning, go see the Taj at sunrise! The bus trip from Delhi to Agra takes five hours to go 127 miles, which means we get to see a lot more of India than we would have during the air flight for the one-day tour. And the Taj at sunrise!

So I went down to file my acceptance of the new tour and encountered a woman I know who was just leaving the excursions desk, clearly mad as a hornet. "Can you believe they're trying to fob us off with only two and a half hours at the Taj?" she fumed. "But the Taj at sunrise!" I exclaimed. "Bullshit!" she answered, and stormed away.

She gets her $2500 back. I get the Taj at sunrise. You say "potato... "

Good movie line

Last evening the usual live entertainment show (Grace Trio, "blending beautiful vocal harmonies, strings & guitar") was canceled due to rough seas -- they didn't want the entertainment pitching off the stage into the audience. Instead, they showed "Tower Heist", an action comedy that hit theaters some time in the last year. This would not be worthy of note except that the plot involves a Wall Street scam stealing people's pensions, and as part of the setup, one character asks another what he's going to do when he retires. His answer: "I'm going to join all the other old farts and take a world cruise." That got a good laugh and was so much funnier than the movie that I left to go watch the waves out the window from the soft leather chairs in the library. God bless, but the ocean is beautiful!

Forward motion decided

The Captain just announced that we will proceed from here to Easter Island, even though the after effects of the storm will make the ocean "a bit lumpy" for the next several days. Rearranged itinerary gets us to Sydney, Australia, on schedule, pronounced "shedule", February 25. It's their language, his pronunciation is therefore probably more defensible than ours, and it just charms the heck out of me. Several days of "lumpy" seas will probably lose their charm quite quickly, but that's then, and this is now, and I take my charmednesses where I can get them.

Patagonia miscellaneous

En route to the penguins yesterday, we got lots of random information about Punta Arenas and Patagonia.

1. There are a lot of Croatians here. They immigrated during the gold rush in the 19th century, but when that ended, either they liked it here or they couldn't afford to go home. Amid all the Spanish street names, you occasionally encounter one with way more than its fair share of consonants. Of course, one of the founding fathers of Chile is Bernardo O'Higgins, so they are clearly cosmopolitan in their European connections.

2. Life outside Punta Arenas "in the countryside", as our guide put it, is very isolated and on the edge of survival. If someone comes to your door, it is considered very rude to ask what they want. Custom says you must offer three days hospitality, no questions asked, after which the guest should either leave or ask for a job. "Turning someone out into the countryside, particularly at night during the winter, would be the same as killing them," she said.

3. I don't know if it's common, but we've seen half a dozen rainbows here, bright and complete, some seemingly ending within a stone's throw of the ship. The wind is constant, but the sky goes from gray overcast to bright sunshine almost hourly. It's the equivalent of our August here, maybe summer is having a remainder sale.

4. Punta Arenas is very proud of being the southernmost city in South America . "Yes, we know Ushuaia claims that honor, but they are on an island. We are on the mainland of South America," our guide proudly informed us. They have their own flag, bright yellow and blue, that flies beside the red, white, and blue Chilean flag, and our tour info handout says they consider themselves Magellanic first and Chileans second. The immigration building we passed through when we left the ship is so affirmatively yellow and blue that one of my fellow passengers said she was expecting to see an IKEA sign on it.

5. To alleviate the isolation of life in the countryside, the guide told us there is a radio program every evening at 8 pm that broadcasts messages. She said no one in the countryside goes to bed until after they hear that program. It might just have general news or weather forecasts, but it will also have messages for individuals, from the estancia manager telling his sheep shearers that they should report to the shearing shed the next day, to a lonely woman in town telling her gaucho lover she's tired of his broken promises and she's leaving him for another man. Sounds better than many soap operas I've seen.

6. Huge fortunes were made in Punta Arenas before the Panama Canal provided a shortcut between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Other huge fortunes were made during various natural resource booms, though less by those seeking to find the ore than by those selling food and supplies to the seekers.

7. Both Ushuaia and Punta Arenas started out as penal colonies. Sort of like Australia: if you've got people who you would just as soon not have to deal with, send them off to the end of the world and forget them. And then they and their descendants turn around and build their own world.

8. As we drove to the penguins yesterday, at one point we had to stop the bus to let a couple of mounted gauchos and their dogs drive a herd of sheep past us along the road. Those dogs really knew their business, including one who was clearly working with only three good legs. They were not clearly identifiable breeds -- just mutts smart enough to make a living bullying sheep. I noticed a lot of stray dogs around town as well, usually traveling in packs of two or three and looking, if not sleek, at least reasonably well fed. Unclear whether town strays find their way to jobs herding sheep or herder dogs decide to give up country life and wander into town.

Penguins!

It took us an hour-long bus ride, half over washboard gravel roads through bleak Patagonian pampas dotted with heavily wooly sheep and the occasional rhea (like a grayish ostrich) but we finally arrived at the Otway Penguin Reserve. But you don't just drive up to see the penguins. There's a kilometer-and-a-half hike from there to where the actual penguins are, and, as is apparently typical of Patagonia, there's a stiff wind blowing off the bay to keep you from getting uppity.

But oh boy! Was it worth it! I saw probably two or three dozen penguins, magellanic penguins, a picture of some of which accompanies this post. (I apologize for the crappy quality of the photo. It is so not my medium!) Magellanic penguins make burrows in which they incubate their eggs and raise their chicks. February is at about the end of the process, so there were no cute little penguin chicks, only adolescent chicks the size of their parents, moulting grey fluff in preparation for their first trip into the ocean.

We were as far from the penguins as the penguins wanted, which in most cases was maybe ten to twenty yards. But one pair came waddling over toward the boardwalk where visitors can walk. They looked us over for a few minutes, apparently decided we weren't leopard seals or orcas, and waddled right past us across the boardwalk and snuggled down out of sight into their burrow on the other side. I was too thrilled to remember to pull out my camera, unlike the half dozen other people within sight who rushed over clicking as they came. Close enough to penguins to see the fine detail on their feathers! By the penguins' choice!

Damn I'm glad I'm doing this!

Colonialism is alive and well

The young Indonesians who serve our meals and clean our rooms twice a day are casually referred to as "boys" (there are occasionally young women on the cleaning teams, but the usage is still "cabin boys"). One woman on the excursion I took today to see penguins bought a couple bracelets at the souvenir shop "for my boys' wives". It took several more sentences before I realized she wasn't talking about her sons.

This evening, one of my tablemates, a very elderly woman, needed help cutting her meat. Our waiter Iwan sat down in an empty chair next to her to cut it for her. Of course it was much easier for him to cut the meat sitting at the table than standing, it was what any of us would have done, but even I could feel the social shock of his going from standing behind us to serve to his sitting in the chair as one of us. So could he. When he stood after cutting the meat, he said, "Next time when there is someone sitting next to you, ask him to cut your meat for you." The woman is quite deaf. She probably didn't hear him. But she did leave the table early.

There is a young Indonesian woman among the passengers. Just about every day she has to explain her status to someone who orders her to fetch something or clean something.

It feels like there should be a concluding paragraph here providing meaningful insight into this. But aside from a sense of discomfort and impotence, I got nothing.

Another, bigger storm

The Captain just informed us that there is a storm blowing in the Pacific right now that makes the one we just went through look like spring breezes on an April mud puddle. This time he is not apologizing for possible discomfort, he is telling us flat out he won't sail into it. We will spend an extra night in Puntas Arenas, Chile, hoping the storm blows itself sufficiently out to allow us to head out into the Pacific. He even said we may have to curtail our itinerary. (If something has to go, I really hope it's not Easter Island.) He is in communication with Holland America headquarters in Seattle and will keep us informed. (All this announced in his elegant British accent which, to American ears, makes it sound like everything is completely under control.)

I wish I had civilized Internet access so I could do my own research into this storm. If anyone is so inclined and can email information to me or add it in comments, I would be grateful.

Meanwhile, we're sailing away from Ushuaia, the tail end of the Andes flaunting snow-tipped peaks in the sunshine as the wind whips little whitecaps in the water of the Beagle Channel. Life is good.

Landsickness

I had been at sea for five days when we docked here at Ushuaia, Argentina, which proudly bills itself as the end of the world. We are allowed to walk from the ship to the downtown area, only a few blocks, and it seemed like a pleasant way to spend the morning, so off I went with a friend, Connie from Michigan. I was barely off the ship when I started to feel light-headed, woozy, even a little nauseous. "Must be the fuel fumes," Connie suggested, which made sense, since the Amsterdam was refueling with the heavier weight diesel forbidden in Antarctica. But the effect persisted as we walked into town. If we hadn't been at sea level, I would have suspected altitude sickness -- same general malaise and dizziness.

Apparently one can get landsick just as one can get seasick. Some constellation of internal meters gets used to slightly unsteady floors and ceilings overhead, and an unmoving surface under foot and endlessly open sky above discombobulates it. Pride (in not getting seasick in a Force 9 gale) goeth before a fall (or an almost fall as I staggered along the fiendishly steady sidewalks at the end of the world). If we weren't leaving at noon, I would be tempted to go ashore again to see how long it persists.

Five sea days before Easter Island, if the seas allow us to land there. I have signed up for an excursion. I hope they walk slowly.

All is well

No seasickness. No waves breaking over the bow. Nothing falling off tables in my cabin, a mercy, since I am as disorderly at sea as on land. Impressive swells tossing the ship right to left and back, such that every passenger walks as if they were drunk (not sure how the staff manages not to, just another secret of seamanship, I guess). My cup of coffee slid to the floor at breakfast with a showy smash, but the stewards had it cleaned up and replaced (with paper napkin underneath for traction) within seconds. We are in a Beaufort Level 9 gale, which impresses the heck out of me, though a seasoned fellow passenger rated our current state as a mere 3 out of 10.
We'll be more or less like this until we reach the shelter of the islands outside the Beagle Channel just west of the tip of Tierra Del Fuego, and I will be loving every minute of it, especially the minutes I get to spend in the comfy, leather-covered chairs in the library looking out at the ocean with my feet up. Our original itinerary called for us to sail around in the islands of the Cape Horn National Park, but the Captain announced , "for obvious reasons", that we will instead make directly for less turbulent waters.

I try and fail to imagine what it would be like to be sailing this passage in a relatively small wooden ship without benefit of stabilizers, GPS, satellite weather data, and the engineering advances that permit, for instance, elevators to function flawlessly while being tossed randomly to and fro.

Plus which I may have seen an albatross winging with wonderful grace along the tops of the swells.

Damn I'm glad I'm doing this!

Stormy weather

It should, I suppose, inspire confidence when the Captain apologizes 24 hours in advance for the bad weather we'll be running into as we sail from Antarctica to Ushuaia, Argentina. "20-foot swells and 50-knot winds", he said over the PA, to which someone near where I was sitting scoffed, "On my last trip around the Horn, we had 35-foot swells and 75-knot winds." My fellow passengers immediately began exchanging stories.

"One man I know spent the whole storm in fetal position on the floor of his cabin."

"What you need to do is make inside-out loops of duct tape and stick all your drawers closed so they don't slam open and spill everything when the ship rolls."

"Be sure not to have an empty stomach, that makes the seasickness worse."

"Remember those photos of the ships that got their fronts torn off by storm waves?"

"It's all mental. I keep a positive attitude, and I never get sick."

One thing I am learning on this cruise (among many) is that the confidence with which an opinion is stated has zero correlation with the reliability of the information conveyed. Some time tonight we will sail into relatively stormy weather, which will peak mid-morning tomorrow. Most likely we won't sink. Stay tuned for my version.