Sunday 14th February

At sea for the day. As we travel west we gained an hour each day so we had a lie in. Went to the usual lectures, quiz & a concert from 'Rouge' the female duo. Dinner was 'Black tie' once again & d*** wore his lounge suit & tie which he found somewhat irksome. The show was by the ship's entertainment group about songs from English Musicals through to recent times. The group has 11 singers & dancers & the staging was most impressive, exceeding our expectations. We were amazed at the high standards of the work.


Monday 15th February

Still quite smooth travel with fine days & calm seas. Followed our routine for the day & enjoyed the presentations from the guest speakers. Sue Holderness was excellent in a Q & A session about her life & work & which has made us quite keen to see the series "Only Fools & Horses" when we get back home.

The evening show by Peter Piper, the comedian, opened with him as a tremendous Basil Fawlty. His ability to impersonate is remarkable as his powers of observation are very acute & his show was even better than his previous appearance.

Jane went on to the "Rouge" concert afterwards.

Tuesday 16th February

All at sea, as before, with us at the same group of lectures etc. Another concert from our Freddie Mercury impersonator which was a little bit weaker we felt.

Wednesday 17th February

The last day for this group of presenters, as they leave tomorrow. The computer guru was excellent & had good audiences for this leg which he deserved but the others' audiences have declined.

Georgiana Jackson presented a fine set mainly of 1940s plus songs from the swing era together with some Frank Sinatra & Peggy Lee classics. Her trumpet & flugelhorn solos were amazing but the band was not as tight.

Thursday 18th February

Sailed into Papeete, Tahiti at 6am, on a very grey morning. We left the ship after breakfast & walked off the quay at about 8.30am, into the town dodging a light shower. After wandering through the covered market in search of a wi-fi cafe but without any success, we returned to the information centre only to be told it was on the upper floor of the market. We took some money at an ATM & discovered it was from a credit rather than a cheque, account. In the market we found a very slow internet connection & transferred funds to cover the credit balance but Dick’s emails were blocked as Google thought his account had been hacked.

Leaving the cafe we stood around for a local bus going south away from Papeete & a battered old bus took us south to Paparra about 1/3 of the way around the island. This part of the coast is almost totally covered with houses built right down to the very calm sea as there is a reef about 500m out around this part of the island. The soil is dark, volcanic & obviously very fertile & the hills behind are densely covered in greenery into the clouds. Most of the passengers were women with a few children & the majority heavily obese, even the young. All were very friendly & tried to be helpful but they couldn’t understand that all we wanted to do was stay on the bus to see the countryside rather than go to beauty spots.

After 90 minutes it turned around & deposited us at a stop on the road back to Papeete where we waited for 20 minutes for the return bus. Luckily it had stopped raining so we sat & watched the world go by. Soon after we caught the return bus the heavens opened & it poured down but this stopped again before we were back in town. The roads are well kept & the vehicles are quite modern so that travel is easy but slow as there are many bends although the driving is not aggressive. Papeete itself has a fine busy harbour with several ships moored & 2 large catamaran ferries & smaller ones as well. The shops look pretty old fashioned but the market had a lot of handicraft items of shell jewellery some of which were quite well made. The people look pretty fit, if oversize & most of the housing we saw looked basic but well cared for.

Moored on the same jetty as us was 'Arctic’ a small ship like an explorer but with 2 very flash launches & several jet skis. Rumour had it that it is owned by Jamie Packer. (True, it is the world's 50th largest private yachts)

After a rest we walked back into town at 5pm but as it was all closing up we returned to the ship.

That night we went to the ‘Opera Boys’ concert by 2 tenors which was an interesting show.
The ship sailed at 9.30 on our way to Bora Bora.

Friday 19th February

Jane was up early today & we anchored at 6.45 to prepare for landing via tenders. As we were having breakfast the captain informed us all that we would not be visiting Bora Bora as the entrance to the lagoon through the coral was too narrow & with the wind gusting to 40 knots across the passage it was too dangerous to pass through to our anchorage. We then waited for the French authorities to clear the vessel before setting off for New Zealand in wet & squally conditions with a rising swell. Sadly we have about 7,000 French Polynesian Francs left from yesterday, which are now about as valuable as Albanian money.

Some passengers were very upset but his decision seemed quite reasonable as the pilot had told him that the wind speed was due to increase during the day, making it even harder to leave in the afternoon.

Instead we had a couple of lectures from new presenters & went to see the film “Kingsmen” a rather pathetic British spy spoof.

Went to a recital by 2 lady musicians who played violin & cello & alternated on the piano. All the music was of well known Baroque & Classical pieces which were very well received.

We dine at the open sitting restaurant each evening which means we meet different people each night. Although the majority are English there are quite a few Australians who joined in Valparaiso & a few New Zealanders so that the conversations tend to be quite varied. Most of the UK people are doing the 4 month cruise from Southampton to Southampton arriving back in May & we are about average in age with them.

On our way to New Zealand.