February 12 - Bora Bora, French Polynesia
This morning was another excursion similar to yesterday. We tendered in, got onto a catamaran type motor craft and sailed to a shallow area where we got in and mingled with manta rays and sharks. We were instructed not to pet the sharks (no problem here) and don't grab the manta rays by the tail - "they aren't cats y'know mon". Again, no problem here. I remember what happened to Steve Irwin. Then off to a small island for a while with snacks served on a big leaf of some kind. Fresh fruit, which was nice, and cheetos and pub mix, which was odd. The music they guys played was ukelele and drums playing some typical island songs as well as Folare, La Bamba and Hotel California with the words changed to Hotel Bora Bora. Sort of surreal again.
At one point while looking through my brown tinted glasses, the low clouds were actually tinted green which I assume was a reflection from the turquoise water below. I tried taking a photo through my sunglasses to see the effect, and if you squint you can almost see it.
And so it begins - Captain Palm announced this afternoon that Samoa will not be allowing cruise ships to enter until the end of March. We were supposed to go to Pago Pago, American Samoa and Apia, Western Samoa. The hope is that we will add another stop in Fiji, but that of course assumes Fiji will allow us to enter at all. In some ways, this really seems like overkill. We've been at sea for about 18 days with no illnesses. Those who got on yesterday were all vetted for their previous travel and physically tested for signs of disease. But I guess they have to have a blanket policy or else it becomes a nightmare of trying to decide which ship is safe and which isn't.
Jan, Tom, Michael and I played trivia and we added Leona to the group. We did a respectble 10/15. Tonight was the block party for this segment. All of our immediate neighbors are doing the whole cruise so we didn't meet anyone new, but it was nice anyway. We went to the buffet which was French food instead of the usual Italian.
At one point while looking through my brown tinted glasses, the low clouds were actually tinted green which I assume was a reflection from the turquoise water below. I tried taking a photo through my sunglasses to see the effect, and if you squint you can almost see it.
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| Slightly green tinted clouds |
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| Hanging with the sharks |
And so it begins - Captain Palm announced this afternoon that Samoa will not be allowing cruise ships to enter until the end of March. We were supposed to go to Pago Pago, American Samoa and Apia, Western Samoa. The hope is that we will add another stop in Fiji, but that of course assumes Fiji will allow us to enter at all. In some ways, this really seems like overkill. We've been at sea for about 18 days with no illnesses. Those who got on yesterday were all vetted for their previous travel and physically tested for signs of disease. But I guess they have to have a blanket policy or else it becomes a nightmare of trying to decide which ship is safe and which isn't.
Jan, Tom, Michael and I played trivia and we added Leona to the group. We did a respectble 10/15. Tonight was the block party for this segment. All of our immediate neighbors are doing the whole cruise so we didn't meet anyone new, but it was nice anyway. We went to the buffet which was French food instead of the usual Italian.
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