Today is another tender day so of course we were woken quite early with all the mystery noise...


We'd had breakfast and were on the tender by 9am.. Mystery Island is a tiny little place that you can walk around in about 45 minutes and it's absolutely gorgeous. No-one actually lives on the island but on cruise ship days all the locals from a nearby island come over in their boats with the whole family and set up a market. They have lots of souvenir (y) stuff with Vanuatu written on and also lots of homemade clothes, dresses, sarongs, tops etc… all quite reasonably priced. There were some tops that had "Mistry Island" written on them… their spelling may not be the best but they are lovely happy friendly people. The only downside to this day was that it was drizzling all day, it made the water beautifully warm but not so pleasant once out as there was no real shelter anywhere and hiding out under the trees resulted in being dripped all over!! Never the less it was another great day and the snorkelling here was amazing, every time I thought I’d seen all the possible types of fish I’d see another new brilliantly coloured one. Our camera was still turning on at this stage but you couldn't see anything at all and the photos were rather dark.... so p'd off!! At one stage we started talking to a bloke that we'd seen around a bit and he said he'd bought an underwater camera from the photo shop on the ship for just over $200 and it took really good photos so we decided to pack up all our stuff and get the tender back to go and buy one... problem was once we got back on board we found out that none of the shops are open whilst the ship is in port!! DOH. Oh well, we got dried off and grabbed the rainproof jacket we'd bought and headed back to the island. Before we left our cabin though we stuck a towel to the window so we could tell which cabin was our from the tender boat.. yeah, small minds, but we were amused!! On the tender back we ran into a girl called Gail that Rodd had apparently spoken to the night before while I was dancing... we had so many people all day say "aren't you dancing still" and " I enjoyed watching you dance last night"!! Anyway her friend wanted a lazy day reading on board so Gail came with us off the tender over to the spot we were sitting, she went off snorkeling and Rodd and I took it in turns while the other tried to stay warm and dry. It started really raining at one stage and so we had to put all our stuff under the jacket to try to keep it dry.. so even though it's a gorgeous island and the fish are amazing it was a little miserable!! After about an hour we'd had enough so packed up and made our way back to the tender jetty however everyone had the same idea and the line was just too long for us ( I know... but we just don't like waiting in long lines!! ). We had an even better idea.. the ship had a bar set up on the island that you could just use your cruise card for payment so we did the sensible thing and had a drink, or two, or three while we waited for the tender line to dwindle to a manageable size. It was around 2 when we got back to the ship so a pretty full day out.

Once we were showered and dressed we went up to the Connextions bar to watch the Jive Dance class, it's pretty funny watching all the unco-ordinated people. It's getting a bit scary now cos no matter what bar we go to the bartenders or waiters will say "hi.. VB and a margarita?" While we were sitting there Gail turned up with her friend Kelly so they came and joined us for a drink, or two. Kelly works for the St George Illawarra Dragons football club so was full of stories about the team etc... no.... unfortunately she didn't divulge any secrets!! By this time we were a little hungry and there was a Stir Fry BBQ up on the pool deck so we thought we'd go up and have a look. They already had a BBQ full of beef stirfry so Rodd went to get a plate and I was just hanging to the side waiting for him.. Sandy, the cruise director was the "chef" and he looked up at me and said "you just looking or are you eating" to which I replied " I'm a vegetarian... so... " he then generously offered to make me a veg stir fry!! Wow, thanks I'll just wait over at the bar, about 8 mins later he brings me over an enormous plateful.. that's service with a smile!! All fed so we decided to spend some time in the casino, I played roulette and had a really good run. Last stop of the night was the Atrium where once again Valerie and the Pacific Showband were playing, they were joined tonight by Peter Dean playing harmonica and singing jazz.... he's awesome.. he's also a comedian but for some reason we missed his comedy show! There's just so many things to see and do on board I reckon you could do the same cruise many times before you did it all.