Day 4 of Our Very Flash and Totally Luxurious Pacific Island Cruise

Saturday 28^st April - Our first day at the Islands!

I woke up, rolled over and looked at our window – and saw lights!  OMG what?  The Captain had promised me we wouldn’t be arriving until 7.30am, and I had set my alarm for 7.00 – we must be a teeny bit early!  I raced to the window but it was still dark outside so I couldn’t see much.  I pressed my nose hard against the glass and I could see, well, not much more.  Figuring I still had a few minutes, and not wanting to miss anything once it was light, I raced off to have the quickest shower known to mankind.  I think 8 drops of water may have touched base, and I was out again. 

Yep, still lights.  Yep, still dark.  Yep, boat was still moving. 

I resumed my window-side vigil and watched more lights go by.  I was trying to not wake Neil for a few more minutes, but I heard him stir, get up, then come join me at the window.

“…mumble mumble what are you doin babe…?”

“We’re here, it’s the Isle of Pines, it’s a pacific island, we’ve arrived!!”

“Babe it’s twenty past five.”

Sooooo… *cough*  ah, turns out we’re still two hours away from our wee island, but never one to waste an opportunity, I decide I will now make a list of “Pacific Islands I Have Seen In Real Life But Not Actually Been On”.  Here it is:

• Long Island with Flashing White Light
• Little Island Just to the Right
• Medium Island to the Right with Green Light
• Big Island with Lots of Lights in the Background
• Little Tiny Island That Looks Like a Cupcake
• Island With Big Pine Trees and No People

This list is solely owned and operated by me – after making some derogatory grumbles and snorts about the state of my sanity, Neil had hopped back into bed and was asleep again in seconds.

As the Islands starting running out, so did the dark.  I was cursing the cloud cover, begging the little ray of sunlight to try a bit harder to shine, then realised something odd.   I could see that little ray of sunlight.

Our room is on the Port side of the ship.  Last time I checked, that meant left. 

And last time I checked, the sun rose in the East. 

And to the very best of my knowledge, the Pacific Islands – The Isle of Pines to be more precise – are to the North(ish) of Sydney.

Convinced I was having another “Rangitoto Island Has Moved” episode, I watched out the window for the next two hours, with the sun maintaining its accusatory glare, just to make sure the Commodore wasn’t playing some sick joke and sailing us all the way back to Australia.  Turns out if I’d read my “Pacific News” properly I would have seen the bit that said “as we approach the Isle of Pines, we’ll be turning onto a South Easterly heading

The very split second I heard the anchor splash into the water, I gently woke Neil from his slumber.  “Get up, we’re here, we’re at the Isle of Pines, GET UP, GET OUT OF BED!!!”  I think he thought I was being funny when I ordered him out of bed and told him that I’d had breakfast hours ago and that he needed to shower and get dressed and have breakfast and pack his bag and put sunblock on and get down to the disembarkation area NOW but I didn’t find it the least bit hilarious.

FINALLY, what seemed like hours later, we were waiting in the lounge for our number to be called.  Not in a “your number’s up” way but a much nicer “it’s time to get on your boat to sail to a tropical island kind of way”. 

We were both lost in our own thoughts about the lady we saw at breakfast – Neil’s breakfast, not mine – who we’ve kindly labelled “Lady With Not Disfigured Yet Oddly Shaped Jaw”.  We first noticed her because her and her husband looked alike.  So much so that I swear they could have been twins.  Naughty twins because they were wearing wedding rings.  As we were discussing the incestuous relationship that we’d decided they were having, Neil became fascinated with her chin.  Or lack of it.    It’s pretty hard to describe so I’ve drawn a picture.  I’m no artist, but turns out this is an almost genetic clone of what she looked like:

My imaginary dabble into plastic surgery was interrupted by the PA system.

“Those passengers holding ticket Green 8, ticket Green 8, you are now asked to make your way down to the loading bay to board your tender”.

This was it.  40 years in the making.  My first ever visit to a tropical island paradise.  My first visit to any kind of island actually, if you don’t count the North or the South.

As we made our way down through the bowels of the ship, I thought out loud about how hard it would be to find your way to any kind of exit should the boat capsize and the power went out.    I’m unsure if Neil heard me, but the little Pilipino woman beside me needn’t have look so worried – her kids looked like they were all old enough to hold their breath.

Stepping on to the tender reminded me of being on dive boats when I was a kid.  Minus all the divers in wetsuits and crayfish wriggling around everywhere.  And this had a roof and lots of little seats.  And a driver with a uniform.  Other than that it was exactly the same and I wondered if I was going to have to pee over the side of this as well.

Fortunately the trip over only took about 10 minutes so I was spared the humiliation.

As we pulled up to the dock, I cursed the stupid ladies beside me who spent the entire ten minutes discussing what would hurt most – been eaten by sharks or stung by venomous jellyfish.  This was not the same as telling Philipinos their babies’ were going to drown – this wasn’t even slightly amusing.  Assuring myself they were uneducated Tasmanians, I thrust shoulders back, lifted my chin, told myself to HTFU, and grabbed Neil’s hand.

Off we stepped, and within about two inches I was crying.  But you have to give me a break here – this was a lifelong goal being achieved.  The only thing that could have made it better would have been the three girls standing beside us arguing over which beach to go to first, how stupid the other one’s sarong was looking, and who started the why-don’t-you-shut-your-pie-hole-and-your-arms-are-hairy fight.

As we walked over to the little map of the area, I was feeling a little down that it was so cloudy for my first-time-in-my-life experience, and then suddenly became aware of how hot it was.  And it dawned on me that we were it sunny, I would have been whinging my ass off by now about the heat.  Poor Mother Nature just can’t win.

We decided that our first port of call would be the sacred rock, or as the local call it, Le Rocher.  I had made a point of reading our bulletin, after Neil’s embarrassing geographical blunder, and it informed us of the local Dos and Don’ts.   Don’t climb on the sacred rock, don’t pick or take coconuts, don’t walk the streets in swimwear, don’t swim or sunbathe topless, do wear reef shoes, do pick up your litter, and do bring your towels back.

Oh and something about disturbing and touching the poisonous water snakes, but I can’t remember if that was a Do or Don’t.

Our first stop was at a little tent filled with local wares.  I fell in love with the first sarong that I saw, but not wanting to make a hasty purchase, I dragged Neil off to the second stall to check what they had.  Then straight back to the first stall to buy the first sarong that I saw.  On the model (two coathangers wired together) it looked like a beautiful and elegant dress, and as the lady took it down, I asked if she could show me how it had been tied.  I don’t speak much French, and she clearly didn’t speak much English, so when she showed me how to tie a granny knot, I smiled, said “merci” and told myself I’d Google it later.

We walked on further in the direction of the sacred rock and I was awestruck by the scenery. Golden sand, coconut trees, crystal clear water.  As we got off the road onto a little path, I looked at the ground and all around me.  “Oh my god babe, look – real coconuts!  There’s heaps of them!!”

“Babe”, he said.  “You should stop being so racist.  I think they’d prefer to be called ‘locals’.”

Neil went to sit on a log to get the camera out, and was back over by me before you could say ‘scary looking insect’.  He described something to me that sounded like a large ant with tribal paint on.  “What do you think it was, what did it look like, how big was it?”  I asked.  Turns out it was big enough for him to not hang around and establish the answers to my questions.

I was worried that we might not recognise the sacred rock, or get confused which one it might be and accidentally sunbathe on it or something.  Surely there’d be a sign, I think.  We walk through a clearing in the coconut trees and I see a beautiful little islet and wonder if the rock is on there?  Um, nope.  We discover that the beautiful little islet IS the rock.  I’m not sure if the locals use Webster or Collins, but by my definition a rock is a little brown thing with jagged edges.  Not something with trees growing on it like this:

We found a little spot to sit on to prepare ourselves for our adventure.  For Neil that meant applying sunblock so thick he gained a couple of kilos, for me it meant checking the waxing was up to date.

While I waited for him, two families with a total of four girls came and sat beside us.  The Mums had never used masks and snorkels before, and the dad had already thrown himself off the edge into the water and was off looking for mermaids.  The girls were a bit wary about getting in and the Mums were too busy smoking and checking their hair, so I jumped in and coaxed them in the water.  The girls, not the Mums. 

After the first unsuccessful attempts at breathing underwater, I had to attach all their snorkels to their masks, and tell them to try again; assuring them that this time, I PROMISE their snorkels won’t flop in the water and they won’t breathe in a lung full of sea.  Mission achieved, I walked the girls out to the Dad and felt pleased that I’d done my good deed for the day.  When I got back to the shore, the Mums thanked me, saying they had no idea how to put the gear together and I said “that’s OK, I spent my childhood on a boat.” 

In hindsight, I probably should have elaborated a little and saved Australian Immigration all that unnecessary paperwork.

Finally, Neil was ready to get in the water.  I donned my goggles (he had intended to buy me a mask and snorkel but the shop had run out), made sure I knew which rock to avoid, made a note of where our stuff was, and mentally looked forward to the next two hours in the water.

My first ever experience of swimming in crystal clear waters, looking like a beach goddess, mingling with the sealife lasted about 43 seconds when Neil spotted a stingray; at which point I became less beach goddess and more god as I sprinted on water to the nearest sandbar leaving all the nearby mothers and young children to fend for themselves.

Asking him if he was sure, and where exactly had he seen it, hearing “right underneath you and I saw it’s little stinger tail” made me thank the Karma Gods that I wasn’t a Zoo owner with a penchant for excitement.

I wallowed on my little sandspit for about five minutes, too scared to get back in the danger-infested waters, but too reluctant to end my exploring so soon.  I wandered over to the rock where people were snorkelling around the edge, and peered down at some fish.  There.  Now I could go.

We decided to wander over to the beach on the other side of the spit, assuring each other than stingrays wouldn’t DARE go there and we’d be quite safe.  On the walk, we passed a stall run by the locals.  They were selling coconuts, raw fish salad, crayfish, fish fillets, cold drinks, chicken kebabs, roast veges, and Arnotts Pizza shapes.

On the other side we had a beautiful beach to swim at, the clouds had disappeared and it was scorching hot so we didn’t waste any time.  Well, I didn’t.  Neil reapplied sunblock. 

Not one stingray in sight, and there were fish everywhere to be seen, it was amazing.    Again I thought how cool it would be to have the girls here, right up until Briar yelled “shark” and Ty would leave the water never ever wanting to get wet again.

While we played at being Jacques Cousteau, we noticed that someone had taken a seat right by our bag.  Not beside it.  Not in front of it so we couldn’t see it.  Right behind our bag so that our bag was sitting between their legs.  I tried to convince Neil to go and grab it and make the person feel stink for encroaching our bag’s personal space, but he was having too much fun looking for Nemo.

The last tender left for the boat at 4pm, and worried that we might get caught in a crowd at the wharf and get left behind, we reluctantly decided to head back a bit early.  2.30pm was being slightly pessimistic, but at least we got back in time to still get a BBQ lunch.  After eating it in loungers beside the barside pool we decided to take our first dip – I’m ashamed to admit it was only to get all the salt water off us, but it was a lovely swim.

It meant we now had plenty of time to get ready for out big night out.  

I was a little alarmed when I saw the night’s show was called “Pirates”… I’ve heard about this from some guys at work, but guessed that maybe they’ve toned it down a little. 

After showering and making myself beautiful, I donned my sarong and was ready to go.

OK, that’s a lie.

After showering and making myself beautiful, I spent 35 minutes trying to work out how that stupid French-speaking lady had made the sarong look so awesome on two coat hangers, yet I only managed to make it look like a tablecloth gone bad.

When I finally rustled up something worthy of going public in, we headed off to the Marquee for the Pirates show.  Unfortunately we had a repeat of the “Liar” show – all the good seats taken and there were only seats at the end of the rows by the side of stage.  Not happy with this – and the amount of children in the audience given the show’s content – we decided we should go and eat first, and come back for the later show.  In a more suitable time slot…

So off to dinner we went without a reservation.  Luckily there was room for us at a shared table,  and we followed our waiter to meet our prospective dinner-mates.

I found myself sitting between two lovely looking couples who started off to be rather quiet.  Using my gift of the gab I tried to elicit conversation out of them while Neil sat there daydreaming about his chicken wings.  The couple to my left were parents of a 14 month old whom they’d left with the in-laws while they were cruising.
 

“Wow!” I said.  “You’re very brave leaving her for ten days!  Is this the first time you’ve been away from her?”

“Yep” said the Mum.  “Not really.  We’ve got another two weeks of holidaying when we get back from this, she’ll be fine!” as she gulps down another mouthful of wine.

“Yeah… I miss her..” the husband says while looking wistfully into his glass.  “But I’m gonna get to go DIVING!!”

I think he meant scuba diving.

The couple to my right were ball-park in their 60’s, the hubby was Caucasian the lady Indian, and they were grandparents; so this opened up the discussion to them as well.

And then I kinda wish I’d stayed quiet.  I’m not normally one to stereotype, but something that I can only guess was curry was OOOZING from her pores.  I don’t know how this was even possible given that this was our fourth night at sea.  

From that point on, dinner became a game to me.  Not a fun game, where you have some wines then try and draw something for your partner to guess in under a minute; or where you roll the dice, dress up, and eat lots of chocolate.

This was more like Hunger Games.  I had to devise several different discrete ways of hiding my nose from her breath without repeating one too often or giving away my game plan.  If I put my tissue up to my face too often I’d end up being quarantined in the hospital room with suspicion of SARS; if I put my hand over my face too often they might think I was playing peek-a-boo (and again I’d get sent to the hospital room); and turning my back on her was just too rude.  

Burying my face in my glass of wine turned out to be the most effective way of relieving my nostrils but even that was fraught with risks.  Drink it, and have to be carried to the Pirate show by Neil; or not drink it and look like I’m using my newly-found wine-tasting skills to be a fuckwit.

Finally, the torturous meal was over and I whisked Neil away before you could say “lovely to meet you!”.  I ran out of there with so much enthusiasm he must have thought we were off to make our own version of Pirates.

We arrived at the theatre in plenty of time to secure our usual seats.  We were joined by another couple we’d never met, and the standard “is this your first cruise?” conversation began.  Neil was starting to get a bit of a reputation amongst the ladies for the way he surprised me;  once word had got out what he’d done he had several pairs of eyes following him longfully around the ship. 

That’s right bitches, I saw you.

I’ve named this particular lady “Dumb Stupid Indiscreet Lady” for what is about to follow.

“Oh, really, he surprised you?!  Wow, that’s so romantic.” 

Nice words but she’s frowning.

“Yes, yes, I was quite surprised too.  The most romantic thing he’s done before this was paint my toenails ha-ha-ha-ha-laugh-laugh-laugh”

Funny look.

“I’m kidding.  He’s taken me out to dinner before, but not ever ten nights in a row, ha-ha-ha-ha-laugh-some-more”

“Are you not married?”

I glance down at my bare fingers.
“Um, no, nope, no we’re not.  How about you?”

“Yes, this is my husband.  So you didn’t know anything about this trip?”

“No.  Complete surprise.”

“Not even a clue or a hint that you might be coming..?” 

“Nope.  Even when we got on the train I thought we were flying to Rarotonga or somewhere like that”. 

I wasn’t going to waste the Zombie story on this lady.

She’s looking at me suspiciously now, like for some reason I’m lying to her in the biggest conspiracy known to mankind since the moon landing.

“It’s expensive you know.”

“Um, well, yes, I didn’t think it was cheap.”

“Like, quite expensive.  Especially for two of you.”

Cough.  “Um, yes, well, I don’t really know how much given that it was a surprise.  I think there’s a reason he hasn’t told me, and I don't really want to know. “

“It’s over $1,000 you know.”

Neil is oblivious to this whole exchange, I think his head may have been buried in another Toblerone cocktail, but I’m desperately looking for a way out.  Making our own version of Pirates was starting to look like a way more discreet option that this conversation. 

Thankfully at this moment the lights went down and the show began.  Dumb Stupid Indiscreet Lady quickly became a forgotten pest as I got into the show – I have not laughed so much since the comedian juggler two nights before.  And then in ages before that. 

The cast were a crew of pirates, and the 2IC lady decided she was going to – mutiny? mutinise? mutiney? – against the captain to get her share of the treasure.  The rest of the pirates divided their alliances evenly and two teams were formed.  As well as singing and performing, they played several games that involved participation from the audience. 

I don’t mind admitting that it was at this point that I developed a huge crush on the gay male lead of the show.  He. Was. Hilarious.  Pee-my-pants hilarious.

One game was a question/buzz-in-for-the-answer set.   Each team had three contestants, he had the only girl.  Him and the 2IC had turns at asking questions.   Her questions: “what is the name of this ship?” and “how many pools are there on the ship?”

His questions? 

“What is your bra size?” 

Only woman buzzes in. “12B!”

“Correct!!  One point to my team.  Next question.  What is your name?”

Everyone buzzes, he picks another member of his team.

“Michael!”

“Correct!!  Another point to my team.  Mmmmm… 12B. Next question.  What is your favourite food?”.

Needless to say, his team won.  At the very end, after they get attacked by circus-performing Ninjas and decide to work together as a team again, he came out in a Sumo suit to fight the Ninjas.  Watching him sing and wave his arms around in the suit nearly killed me, especially at the end when he fell over and couldn’t get up.  Everyone left the stage and he was calling them. 

“Guys?  Uh.. guys?  A little help here?  Uh.. I can’t get up.  I need help.  Guys?”

He’s waving his little arms and legs around to no avail, so he starts bouncing up and down.

“Guys?  OK this isn’t funny you guys.  I’ve fallen and I can’t get up”

His bouncing is getting higher and HE BOUNCES OFF THE STAGE!!  In a warped-looking caterpillar type motion, but still manages to get all the way off the stage.  As he disappears from sight, his final mumblings..

“I hate you guys.  Hate you all…”

If we had been allowed to video anything, this would have gone viral on Youtube.

Although probably not as much as the original Pirates show.

After the show, we went to the Orient for a quiz called “Majority Rules”.  The idea is not to answer what you think is correct, it’s to answer what you think the majority of people would say.

I can’t believe the majority answer to “what is the average bra size in this room?” was 14D.   We also answered “what celebrity would Australians most like to be their Prime Minister?” with Matthew Newton but turns out we were alone on that one too.

After nearly derobing myself every time I got up to give them an answer – remember I’m wearing a sarong that I don’t know how to tie – and losing the quiz by a very long margin, we decided to gracefully call it a night.

I wanted to get back to our room and see what this “Pirates” fuss was all about.