Btimmer

We enjoyed our free 5 StR dinner in the pinnacle tonight. The scallops and the ribeye were excellent as was dessert. sorry no pictures of the latter.

Thanks for waiting. Here are a few more pictures from our turtle snorkeling adventure.

Hold on. More are coming. I'm too busy to look at the images. I may be able to process some photos later today.

Today in his noon announcement , the Captain announced an uptick in Covid cases to 38 passengers and 4 crew. The cases are all asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic. He recommended masking, but it's not required. There was no nautical or meteorological information.

Today at Signal Island out of Noumea, we hit the turtle lottery. Here are a few pictures. Our route Resting turtle

Like light chewing. It didn't feel threatening. It was sort of like the fish in Japan used to remove dead skin on feet.

Here are a few images from our our snorkeling trip to Monuriki Island from Lautoka. Nibbling on my fingers Sargeant fish Replica from Cast Away

There were two very important pieces of information today: 1. At the coffee chat, the staff Captain volunteered that there are no more than 10 cabins locked down in quarantine and all the cases are mild. 2. The shore excursions manager noted that all NZ shore excursions are closed to new bookings by both passengers on board and on land until 11/8. Apparently they can either open excursion bookings to either passengers onboard or land based future passengers but not both.

Due to wind and sea conditions we missed Dravuni Island yesterday. Today, 10/23, we were in Lautoka ananda we went on a private shore excursion out to the island where Cast Away and Survivor 43 were filmed. We had 3 excellent snorkeling spots (pictures in a later post). I highly recommend https://cruise Fiji.com for great snorkel adventure here. In his departure message the Captain noted strongly that hand sanitizers were located throughout the ship and we should wash our hands frequently. I don't know if this means some form of infection is making its presence known. Here are a few above the water pictures from today. Boarding Underway Cast Away "Help Me" beach Our track (26 miles from Lautoka)

I've not been AWOL. CC has been difficult to reach. We are currently off Dravuni Island and this port stop was just cancelled due to gale force winds and unsafe tendering conditions. We enjoyed two nice days in Suva and did a jungle hike and waterfall swim and explored Suva on foot and thoroughly enjoyed two Indian curry meals at local restaurants. Bats at Thurston Garden Bird at Thurston Garden Smelling the roses Staging for a motorcade Relaxing after the swim Shipwreck while leaving Suva Second Indian lunch And if you've not been reading my daily blog, there's some pretty cool things there from the past few days including getting escorted back to the port in a police car in Apia. The blog is at HTTPS://timmer2020du.blogspot.com

Yesterday we enjoyed a private island tour set up by a CC member. We had a good day even though the snorkeling was not that good due to wind and tidal conditions. Robert Louis Stevenson's House Robert Louis Stevenson's bed RLS's wife's bed RLS' mother's bed Baha'i temple Let sleeping dogs lie Snorkeling beach - Valvua Ocean Trench (lava tubes) Lunch in my handmade woven plate Cultural dance Fire dance Cathedral Cat cuteness Dome inside the cathedral Asst Chief of Police gave us a ride back to the port

We made it to Apia, did a tour, and got brought back to the port in a police car by the Asst. Chief of Police. Details (the rest of the story) will be in my written blog tonight.

Thank you for following along. Mask wearing has been debated adnauseam on CC, and I'm not going to do it in this thread. I'm just reporting on what I see & hear. For the crew, they've been wearing them for over two years, and yesterday that ended for now. Passengers have been free to go maskless on the ship since Honolulu. We were informed tonight that the Samoan government has requested that we wear masks when passing through the terminal tomorrow. After that we can cease wearing them. You can count on more pictures.

Tonight while enjoying a Lido pool dinner the cloud formations were beautiful. Tomorrow we reach Apia, Samoa for our first port stop since Hawaii. Following the Captain's announcement yesterday, virtually all the crew are unmasked and about 95% of the passengers.

The Captain just announced masks are optional fleetwide for the crew. He just came through the Lido maskless with a huge smile.

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Today we had the shellback ceremony where the polliwogs (those who had never crossed the equator) were 'tried' by King Neptune and bowed to or kissed the fish. We were actually 4° north of the equator and are expected to pass it tonight at midnight. A marlin Polliwogs drying in the sun Kneeling before the 'jury' Getting the meringue treatment Judge, King Neptune, and his queen Washing off The King and his mermaid

In Kona, our zodiac driver said the first whale sightings were about 3 weeks ago but the majority were still in transit. On that zodiac trip, our guide spotted a spout off the Westerdam's stern, and we searched for it in vain. We did two ALaska cruises this past summer and I only recall that we only saw whales out of Juneau on a whale watching trip. On a repositioning cruise from Sea-FLL a year ago in September, we had several whale sighting in Mexican waters. As the guides always say, "Sightings are probable, but not guaranteed." We've also done a number of Alaska cruises, and the majority of the time we haven't seen whales.

Tonight was the Orange party. It was well attended in a packed BBKing Blues Club. our orange

I showed the track to the Captain and he confirmed what I thought.

Thanks, Pete!

I was reviewing my screen shot of the return track for the second medivac, and I can see where the course headed for Honolulu but altered to head for Kona.

Today the Captain held his "Ask the Captain" session. It was totally packed and he spoke for over an hour giving the typical electronic tour of the ship but also some photographs of the cleaning of the hull in a drydock session in Portland, Oregon before the resumption of its cruising. He then entertained questions. A young person asked a question that stumped the Captain. That question was, "Why is the bridge called the bridge?" He offered to research it and report back. Naturally a number of questions revolved around the two helicopter medivacs. He noted that he was in telephone contact with the US Coast Guard every 30 minutes as the evacuation plan developed. In the first one at Port Angeles, the helicopter was too small to take the companion of the medically challenged guest off the ship. For the second one at Kona, they first wanted him to return to Honolulu, but because of a shorter distance to Kona and less fuel consumption, he persuaded them to fly to Kona, refuel and then do the evacuation off the coast there. In this case both the wife and the patient were both evacuated by helicopter. Then, after the hour of presenting, he did a further Q&A session in front of the stage for another 40 minutes. This is the most time I have experienced having the Captain spend time like this with passengers on any ship we've sailed on. Tonight is the Orange party in the BBKing lounge. I've got a bunch of Orange to wear, so we'll see how it goes. Tomorrow is the Captain Neptune ceremony at the aft Lido pool and it should be a lot of fun. This is really turning out to be a fun cruise and we are totally enjoying ourselves.

I watched and filmed the first evac off Port Angeles in day 2 of the cruise. For this one, it was dark and a prone position was more comfortable.

As an update, we've made it past the turnaround point which took about 4 hours.