{"id":14895,"date":"2018-12-13T22:15:37","date_gmt":"2018-12-14T03:15:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gallivantinggrandma.com\/?p=14895"},"modified":"2018-12-23T22:17:02","modified_gmt":"2018-12-24T03:17:02","slug":"five-days-at-sea-in-the-south-pacific","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gallivantinggrandma.com\/?p=14895","title":{"rendered":"Five Days at Sea in the South Pacific"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thursday – December 13, 2018<\/p>\n

The M.S. Amsterdam sailed away from Pago Pago, American Samoa as the sun set over the mountains. \u00a0I watched as the assisting tugboat tooted a few farewell blasts on its horn and then returned to the safety of the harbor. \u00a0Our cruise ship continued out into the open waters of the South Pacific Ocean. \u00a0In five days we would reach our next port of Honolulu, Hawaii. \u00a0So we hunkered down and kept busy and relaxed and were entertained for five whole days and nights at sea.<\/p>\n

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A team of Hawaiian cultural ambassadors were on board to teach us about Hawaiian traditions. \u00a0We had lessons on how to tie a pareo\/sarong for men and women:<\/p>\n

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They\u2019re very popular and worn everywhere. \u00a0Also a pareo is quite practical.<\/p>\n

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Captain Fred Eversen gave an interesting and informative talk about the ship and what makes it work safely and efficiently. \u00a0He\u2019s been captain of the Amsterdam since 2008.<\/p>\n

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There were lectures about the history of the South Pacific and where and how the people arrived on the islands. \u00a0We also heard about the English explorer Captain Cook and the other European voyagers who claimed the islands for their respective countries.<\/p>\n

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We had a Hawaiian language class. \u00a0This is \u201cMerry Christmas.\u201d \u00a0Mele Kalikimaka!!<\/p>\n

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And there\u2019s the ever-present Pacific Ocean:<\/p>\n

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King Neptune came on board when we crossed the Equator and presided over the ceremony of the first crossing of the \u201cpollywogs.\u201d \u00a0The \u201cpollywogs\u201d had to \u2018kiss the fish\u2019 and be \u201cslimed” before being pushed into the \u201cdrink.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Later that day, King Neptune, aka Jorge Alvarez – Cruise Director, led our Trivia Game:<\/p>\n

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We kept track of the days with the daily changing carpet in the elevators:<\/p>\n

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One day the kitchen staff poured out bags of fresh coconuts. \u00a0Two strong young men chopped off the top of the coconuts with big machetes. \u00a0Another man put in a straw and we drank cool refreshing coconut milk. \u00a0What fun!<\/p>\n

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There were different movies every day and many activities which we weren’t interested in (games, arts & crafts, etc) and good entertainment every night.<\/p>\n

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I took this photo from our 6th floor balcony on a particularly rough day as the ship rolled onto a wave:<\/p>\n

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There were also calm mornings to enjoy a leisurely breakfast:<\/p>\n

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Thursday – December 13, 2018 The M.S. Amsterdam sailed away from Pago Pago, American Samoa as the sun set over the mountains. \u00a0I watched as the assisting tugboat tooted a few farewell blasts on its horn and then returned to the safety of the harbor. \u00a0Our cruise ship continued out into the open waters of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14895","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cruising"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gallivantinggrandma.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14895","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gallivantinggrandma.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gallivantinggrandma.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gallivantinggrandma.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gallivantinggrandma.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14895"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/gallivantinggrandma.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14895\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14897,"href":"https:\/\/gallivantinggrandma.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14895\/revisions\/14897"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gallivantinggrandma.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14895"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gallivantinggrandma.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14895"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gallivantinggrandma.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14895"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}