Day 20 - Monday Jan 16 at Sea day 5

Sea day 5 photos

position at 7:30 am: N1:59:51 latitude W134:28:04 longitude
(about 390 miles NNW of Nuku-Hiva, Marquesas Islands, our next port)
temperature: 78F and 94% humidity
distance since FLL: 7799 miles
blackjack status: -$112.50 (did not play - went to the movies)

Forgot to mention this in yesterday's entry. We received a World Cruise 2006 LA-FLL Guest Directory in our room yesterday. It contains names and home cities for (by our count) exactly 279 full world cruisers onboard, nine are children.

As requested, and just for the record, here is an explanation of Debbie's dietary requirements. Debbie does not eat anything that comes from the water. This obviously excludes fish, shrimp, oysters, etc. But it also excludes things like duck, frog legs, caviar, water buffalo and numerous other things. At the dinner with the Food & Beverage Manager, Laurens, (which we enjoyed immensely! Hi, Debbie & Russell!) when the Executive Chef, Mike Roemhild, came by to check on us, Laurens told him that Debbie did not eat anything from the water and Mike did not blink before asking, "Penguin?" Laurens was thrilled to have Debbie on board after quizzing her on her eating habits because Mike would make a profit in his per passenger food budget for her. In addition, Debbie does not eat lamb, rabbit, or etc. She eats filet mignon, chicken breasts, and pork. She does not eat fungi of any kind, or nuts for that matter. So, there are lots of things on every menu that she will not eat, and if the stars are right, there are things on the menu she does eat and enjoy. But she has eaten a lot of steak so far.

As far as the question of our enjoyment of this cruise, clearly there is much to enjoy and we have. While some people view the world in either black or white only, we are some of the shades-of-gray view people. This cruise like most other things in our lives has been a series of various shades of gray, none really all black or all white. We have had very few, if any, experiences that were all good or all bad. The same is true with this WC, it has been a mix of both. Overall, it has been an extraordinary and positive experience. Our casual, lazy, incomplete and haphazard reports here of the events of our daily lives is just that. We intended, if anything, to make a balanced report of our experiences, but in the main, just wanted to keep our families informed. If we comment on something that either we did not like or that was less than expected or was just not acceptable, it is just one observation of one facet of an enormous 122-day World Cruise. We are not formally keeping score or grading the thing and do not intend the journal to be used as such. Sorry to disappoint anyone, if we have.

Clay is having a good time (except for losing at blackjack). Both of us enjoyed the ports on the first leg for FLL to LA. And, we are looking forward to the future ports as well. We knew the long set of sea days out of LA would be the most trying time for Debbie, and hopefully that will turn out to be the case, and the biggest block of them will end tomorrow when we make it to Nuku Hiva.
(This is Debbie.) I awoke this morning alone, and in a lot of pain. The sunburn looks like boiled lobster and the broken toe is purple and now stiff. I slept alright with it untaped, hoping to not lose flexibility but also hoping not to unset it. I am colorful this morning and moving slowly. I took my morning overdose of meclizine and got my glass of cranberry juice and was ready to settle back into bed with all the pillows with the remote control to see what was new today, when I realized I was more alone than I have been in weeks. Clay's laptop is here, his camera, (gasp!) his Blackberry! I will not panic yet and assume that he is up on deck walking unencumbered. So, I have finally to check the balcony. I pulled back the curtains to the most sublime sunrise. It was a good 15 minutes without hearing the sound of another being, by the time I did the sun was too high and bright to be special anymore and in I ducked, very carefully. I hope I got some good pictures. Clay's camera battery died right in the middle of it and I had never changed the battery before, but I did well. We have not seen, or heard of anyone else seeing, any kind of sea life in days. We watch everyday for flying fish, dolphins, whale blows, other ships, or something, but so far we are just all alone with lots of water. They have been running a kind of joke weatherman by Shane, the Art Guy, on the TV, on Voyager Today. Every day he eventually, accurately, predicts that we will have waves and some weather. It sounds hokey but it is actually pretty funny. One day he did a sportscast of a passenger/staff water volleyball game. It rained really good that afternoon and I suspect it would not have been seen by many passengers at all if not on TV. Shane's sportscast was a gas. So, sometimes we go days without mentioning things because there is nothing at all to say, like no sea animals. Other times, we mention nothing and it is just because we forget, like Voyager Today on TV. Sometimes we don't mention things because they are just expected and it would become mundane to keep repeating them. Like the steaks are ALWAYS cooked as exactly as ordered on Voyager and they are extremely flavorful and nearly melt-in-your-mouth tender. I should note that either I or the steaks changed after LA because though it would not have seemed possible, they are even more delicious now than they were 2 weeks ago. So, while we may fail to mention things, I am not sure that anything can or should really be read into it. There may be a lot of reasons, primarily our incompetence and lack of discipline in journaling. Journaling like this is a fairly large commitment of time, effort and expense of Internet time onboard and we are, after all, on vacation. I apologize now on behalf of both of us. Please take this chronicle for what it is; the random, lazy observations of only 2 people aboard a shipfull. Gotta go check the exercise schedule now because the sun has gotten pretty high in the sky, still no Clay. It is 6:20am. We got an invitation last night for a galley tour at 5pm today, so I may have to rethink my exercise schedule today in order to make it. (I don't think Clay likes when I do this and I don't know if he is editing me out before posting entries, but ... Debbie out.)

(Debbie again.) I just saw that Clay is back and has inserted a paragraph above and had to comment. We knew when we booked that this would be the toughest bit. Of course, when a reluctant sailor sets out on any cruise it is fraught with anxiety. This stretch of seas days was what I most dreaded and it is nearly over and I am not psychotic. NOT PSYCHOTIC. If I say that, what does it really mean? Well, I THINK I am NOT psychotic and that is all that really counts, I think... I was really worried about going psycho on this long stretch of sea days, but I believe I have done really well. I did spend most of Friday in bed, but so did a lot of other people here. I feel like I have only to make it to tomorrow and land to have passed one enormous test of character for myself. I think I did a really good job. I will not only pass the test, but I have also managed to enjoy myself a bit while doing it. (Debbie out, again.)

It is a hot and sunny morning. We had breakfast in LaVeranda. Debbie had TWO chocolate croissants to make up for yesterday and 4 strawberries. Clay had his usual 2 eggs over easy with wheat toast etc. Clay sunned some this AM on the balcony and Debbie went to the early stretch class at 8:15 to fight for floor space since she will have to skip the hour-long yoga-style stretch this afternoon in order to make the galley tour. We had lunch in LaVeranda today for the first time because it was a burger grill at the pool deck and very hot and sunny out there. Debbie had the chicken curry with rice and papadams as well as some pepperoni pizza. Clay had some octopus salad and went out to the pool BBQ and brought back a burger. Contrary to the famous line in "Wag the Dog," we can state unequivocably that there IS a difference between good flan and bad flan. It was a dessert selection at LaVeranda and Debbie spit her bite out! Debbie had planned to go to the 1:30pm lecture (Daniel Aguilar - Top 5 SciFi films of the 50's) before her 3:30 circuit training class but we have run into some pretty big swells and are really rocking now. Jury is out for now.

We did go online and make a rental car booking for Papeete. The rate for unlimited miles in a manual, no A/C Fiat was 8,800 CFP. They do not charge your credit card until you rent although they do request a card number online. They say you can cancel up until the time of the rental. We tried to do one for Moorea, but Europcar does not have a facility online for requesting pickup at the tender dock. The Tour Manager and all of Debbie's research indicates that both Avis and Europcar make tender dock rental car deliveries anytime a ship comes in, but we could not find a way to select pick up there. Hopefully we will learn more from Europcar in Papeete and not be too late to reserve a car in Moorea. Debbie napped instead of going to the lecture. Clay went. Debbie overslept her nap and also missed the circuit training for the second time. Is anyone else detecting a pattern of avoidance here?

The top sciFi film of the 50's (according to the lecturer, Dr. David Aguilar, astrophysist) was The Day the World Stood Still. The showing of this movie was preceded by a talk showing clips from the top five SciFi picks of the 50's. The steady rock of the boat almost put Clay to sleep during the preliminary clips, but surprisingly, he was able to stay awake for the whole showing of the movie. (Clay has a gift of easily sleeping through about any movie shown in a cool, dark theater.)

We did make it to the galley tour with Executive Chef, Mike Roehild. He has a nasty-sounding cough and looked sick with a cold or something, but he carried on without commenting on it. He only took us through the Compass Rose kitchen, with the room service and pastry kitchens. He did have a request to take us to the provisions area and declined. He said the storage was not safe for a group of passengers (we were 15) because of the mass of stock taken on in LA. He said he would get fish in Tahiti for a deck BBQ of Pacific fish and was hoping for moonfish. (Thanks to Masaki, Clay will be looking forward to this and hoping for moonfish.) He said he would also take on stock in Auckland and in Sydney but he would not take on stock in Vietnam. He began the tour in the dishwashing area and was proud to report that while the Voyager will soon go 2 years without a US sanitary/safety inspection that it had received 100% the last 2 times. He joked that he thought he had gone almost 2 years without being inspected in the US because they were afraid they would have to give him 100% again. He was asked about repeating menus (not by us!) and replied that he had to repeat certain because of passenger expectations, but that he planned to go 60 days without repeating a menu on the the World Cruise. He said that he had finished the menus for this segment this morning and planned to start on the menus for the next segment soon. Mike also told us that after Hong Kong, in the third segment, and only for the WC, that Latitudes would be converted to TGIFriday's (another Carlson company division). Mike said he had gotten all the signage, decor and Friday's restaurant provisions in LA, like the Jack Daniel's bourbon BBQ sauce.

Tonight is a formal night and for the first time, we are ducking out on that. We did not see anything to tempt us on the CR menu and so we plan to go to LaVeranda which is serving osso bucco again, but which Clay has not had yet.

Debbie's Grandma had a bad mammogram in Dec. and had to have a follow-up with ultrasound. She had a needle biopsy the first week or so of January and has since gotten confirmation that the very small anomaly that was originally detected is indeed a small, fast-growing cancer. She is awaiting an out-patient appointment for an excision of the problem area. We hope that it can all be safely removed and soon, as is expected. We want to let her know that we are thinking about her and sending her all our very best hopes and wishes that it is over soon and with the best possible results and outcome. Good luck Lee!

For dinner in Laveranda, Debbie had Chicken with a Madeira sauce and Clay had the Osso Bucco Gremolata. For dessert, we had bananas flambe. When we got back to the room, we had different turn down chocolates and there was a Segment 1 Guest Directory in our room. It lists all passengers on this segment, by our count of names it is 622 with 10 children.

Sea day 5 photos