Day 42 20th February 2011

We are still sailing towards Pago Pago. We will be arriving tomorrow morning. There are always various lectures and other talks when we are at sea. Chris went to hear the Ship’s purser being interviewed this afternoon and then attend a presentation on Gauguin. I went to do my daily 4 miles of walking around the deck. During the walk it began to rain. We occasionally get these showers which arrive quite suddenly with the breeze stiffening, visibility dropping quickly as the clouds close in on the ship. The rain then falls. It is normally a short event but it does rain hard. This afternoon’s shower only affected the starboard side of the ship and it was as if there were two climates with the sun shining brightly on the port side while rain poured down on the starboard side.  The whole incident was over in ten minutes with the sun returning. It is about 30c today and not humid.

We started to plan the visits to New Zealand but we were obviously too late since two of the trips we wanted to take are full and we have had to join a waiting list. Sometimes this works and they obtain extra capacity but sometimes it does not. However, we are content to do our own thing in a country where we speak the language. It did provoke us to look further ahead and book a tour on Apia which is an island on the way to Honolulu. This was good fortune since we discovered that the ship docks on a Sunday and almost everywhere is closed except for the trips.

The crew play cricket and have many different teams. They play on the forward deck which is cut off so passengers cannot go there because that is, where equipment and machinery for anchoring is stored. The rules for ship cricket are very different than the normal game since you don’t have to move to make runs. The game is based on a point’s scheme. If you hit the ball beyond set places you earn points, taking a catch is worth 3 points, blowing a wide gives 3 points away etc. The bowling of a

wide is often caused by the ships movement so many bowl underarm. Our waiter is a member of a team.

We got details of what we have to do to satisfy Australian immigration. This amounts to completing two forms and attending a face-to-face interview with the immigration officers who are sailing with us in order to do the job on the ship. We have to be interviewed next Saturday, 26^th February at 2pm. We were sent the forms today so I will need to complete them in the next day or so. It is a sad world in which we are not trusted to land in Australia for three days without this process. However, I know the same is true of overseas visitors to the UK. I suspect we will have similar procedures to enter New Zealand and the USA.

The ship’s shop stocks a small range of goods such as sweets, chocolate (e.g. Kit Kats), basic medicines and similar items. Curiously, it has run out of birthday cards and now the only place to get one is from the craft classes where they have been making them. This shows a bit of entrepreneurial spirit on behalf of the craft instructor.