After the high of Easter Island, a place we never thought we'd visit, five days at sea seemed definitely (infinitely) too long. Too too and long long. I woke up with a sore throat on our first day in Easter Island and it was still raging 5 days later. Apparently not Covid (negative) and not viral as it should have been coming good after 5 days. It was keeping me awake and I felt unable to swallow, even water, without pain. Off my food. If that wasn't enough to raise alarm bells, nothing would be. Gave in on the 25th and started antibiotics - it is damn handy travelling with an extensive collection of pharmaceuticals. Of course I was on the mend within 24 hours.

24 Feb 2023 - The absolute highlight of these sea days? The 'Not-the-Visit' to the British territory of Pitcairn Island (a bit to the left of the middle of nowhere with 1900 odd km to Easter Island and another 1200 odd km to Tahiti). It was a blast from the past - a complete mind-flip - to see this craggy island rising up out of the Pacific Ocean - essentially unchanged since the mutineers from The Bounty, Fletcher Christian and company, settled there. There is a grand total of 47 people on the island and if you spread them equally - that would be 1 person per square kilometre. Diplomacy is no doubt the most important character trait on this little tropical paradise.

Of the 47 total population, 23 came out to the ship on a longboat to set up a small market on the pool deck. 23 stall holders, 3000 shopping-starved mainly Europeans… 2800 odd of whom simply don't speak 'queue'. Let alone an orderly queue. We took our cue from the tendering palaver at Easter Island and went up to the buffet for an early breakfast and to watch our approach to Pitcairn through the Bounty Bay passage. We stood in the 'queue' to the entrance of the bazaar area a solid 30 minutes as the stall holders unpacked stacks and stacks of sports bags and foot lockers - it was like watching Christmas getting unpacked before our very eyes. Then some fool started letting people in at the opposite end of the 'queue'. We were not having a bar of it. A tiny Asian woman standing next to me ducked the cordon. I followed. This was Russian Shopping at it's finest (if you see it, like it, like the price, buy it… because it won't be there when you come back - and we'd seen how much the vendors had brought on board… it was not limitless.) Chaos ensued. The ship's staff looked on. The Magnifican't (organise a piss up in a brewery) lived up to its name.

Funny story… Back in the 1990s, probably 29 years ago when James met me in Wellington, he used to stash any left over foreign currency in an old stamp album. We raided it a while back and have been carting about NZ$30 for a while (a bit like our 20 Brazilian Real found next to the River Seine in Paris). So we knew the currency on Pitcairn was the kiwi dollar and we were ready to spend up large. Sea days do that to a soul. Of course everything was priced in US$ and the yankee dollars and euro were flying about like a tornado ripping through a Foreign Exchange Bureau. We did very well with our shopping in the end - bought a cover with multiple Pitcairn stamps (they had a huge philately industry before 2004 which supported the island - but letters and interest in stamp collecting waned and the island went bankrupt in 2004). We bought a fabulous badge for the bags featuring Pitcairn and The Bounty, a small polished wooden tray carved by a Christian (they are pretty much all descendants of the original group one way or another) and a couple of postcards. It was essentially spending free money and we had a fine old time - especially given I'm the only New Zealander onboard and could relate to them. We also brought up a couple of 2022 paperbacks by James Patterson and Jeffrey Deaver - someone paid stupid money at some point for them - and donated them to the islander folks - both great reads. Love to share the love with brilliant books. We worked our way back and forth along the tables and were ecstatic with our shopping and the chance to actually be here. Spent the rest of the day relaxing and watching the ocean through the windows of the spa area. Spa access is definitely the best money we've spent on board as we are far, far away from the madding crowds and love the jacuzzis.

Two more sea days in which to recover from this throat infection and Tahiti - here we come again (last visit? A month in December-January 2010/11 when we discovered the joys of home swapping).