twangster

Another sea day, another beautiful sunset.

Day Sixteen
The Crossing Ceremony
Technically we haven't crossed the Equator yet and won't until around 4 AM the next morning, but who wants to get up at 4 AM to look out at a dark sea?

This is the busiest I ever saw the pool deck get on this cruise.


In maritime folklore, a Pollywog is a sailor who has never crossed the Equator on a ship while a Shellback is a sailor who has.  This ceremony is to graduate Pollywogs into Shellbacks.  

First some guest Pollywogs are initiated.  They caught anyone cutting the line in the Windjammer and forced them to participate.  Just kidding.  Participation voluntary.

King Neptune required they kissed the fish.  Some cruisers embraced this, a little too much.   You can stop now.

Next crew Pollywogs would get much it worse than, but including kissing the fish.

Eggs on the head.


Followed by pasta.


Then sauce and flour.

For the crew it's as much a team building exercise as it is anything else.


Proof of life:

CrossingCeremony.mp4.87e8c1c644adc4994a94471378e11ec1.mp4
 
 

Day Twelve
Papeete, French Polynesia
While Tahiti is the island we will visit today, the capital city is Papeete.  
As the sun started to illuminate the sky my first glimpse of land from my balcony was that of Moorea, the island next door to Tahiti.  This was pre-dawn so the sun wasn't fully awake yet.


We will visit Moorea tomorrow but they are that close to each other.  Up to the Suite Sun Deck to see things from the other side of the ship.





Despite the inadequate lighting of these early morning photos it was quite stunning.  

Day Eight to...
The first of a number of sea days on the way to French Polynesia and Tahiti.

In case you are wondering what the seas were like, this was typical, sometimes with cloud cover, sometimes with full sunshine and sometimes partially cloudy.  Slight swell on some days, pretty flat on other days.  Strong headwinds much of the time but not many waves to speak of.  Enough winds to coat the ship with a layer of salt though.  

I'm going to gloss over a few sea days here because I was pretty boring, working in my cabin mostly and when my work day finished I was exercising my fingers pressing the spin button in the casino where pictures and videos are frowned upon.  It was a smoke free casino and I couldn't let that rare opportunity pass me by.
The ship had plenty going on with lots of activities offered by the cruise director and his staff.
The day after leaving Auckland we crossed the Antemeridian.  That magical dotted or solid line in the ocean depending on the map you use, where East meets West.  
/cruisegeekon
Up until this point our longitude had been increasing meaning the second number in the top left corner of the map display had been going up.  Duh!
Our position around 15:14 was longitude 179° 58.49' East.

Not long after I took this photo I heard a blast of the ship's whistle and shortly after that our longitude was now decreasing, counting down from 179° 57.16' West.

Pretty exciting times here on Quantum of the Seas!
Note the bridge crew were either premature horn blowers or the map display lags reality.  I'm betting on the latter.
Also note this isn't the international date line which is influenced by other factors beyond simple longitude and latitude. 
There was no fanfare.  No balloon drop.  No champagne toast.  A simple blast of the ship's whistle and we had crossed from East to West.  
It's all downhill from here, at least for our longitude.
/cruisegeekoff
I took in Starwater in Two70°.

I liked this how because it wasn't about a bunch of weird antics or disjointed skits.  Core art on display.

Many nights in the pub to catch our pub singer.  He's quite good.  

On these sea days i've been working.  Like really working, not fake work from home at another job kind of working, actual work.  
The frequent time changes and being one day ahead has made this interesting.  I found an app that would post a clock for my home time zone and my local time zone in the menu bar.  I became accustomed to thinking a day off.
"It's tomorrow here, so this meeting request will work best for me yesterday in two hours time."
Having two April 16 days on the work calendar was interesting.  "Are you available for a meeting on April 16 " - my response... "Yes on both days".
I have to admit it became much easier once we crossed the international date line and I only had a time difference to contend with but once I was in the swing of things it wasn't that hard to manage.
Apparently it's true... time is relative.

But wait, there’s more…. The transportation company forgot about us.  
To be clear I booked this excursion through Royal Caribbean.  We met in the theater as instructed.  They provided the transportation to the activity.  
The folks at the activity company were great but this was out of their hands, they weren’t responsible for the transportation part as the port is a cargo port and only ship provided busses can pick up and drop off guests within the port.
After 60 minutes of hearing mixed comments from the receptionist...  “They’re sending taxis”, “…maybe they found a bus”, “No, taxis are coming”  but nothing was happening.  So I emailed the HD back on the ship.  Francois replied immediately and he got working on it from his end.  Around 90 minutes after we were supposed to be picked up a bus finally arrived.  There goes my free time to explore Auckland.  
This is why I always like having a data plan for my phone no matter where I go.  I am so glad I had data coverage in New Zealand.  Even for a ship provided excursion, the ship uses local operators who sometimes screw up.  
Despite the break down on the part of the transportation company it was still a great excursion that I’ll remember fondly for a long time.  Now I have an excuse to book another visit to Auckland - to explore the city.  The ship did provide a partial refund as compensation.  

Today we would be berthed at a cargo pier with massive cranes hovering over us.


Now if they offered driving this shipping container mover as an excursion I'd sign up in a heartbeat.


My excursion today was the Auckland Bridge Climb.  Now seeing the bridge in the distance it didn’t look that impressive.  Oh well, might as well go with it.



During my 2020 visit to Australia I did the Sydney Harbor Bridge climb and thoroughly enjoyed it so this looked like a great excursion to try for this visit.  I booked the 8:30am time slot hoping to have free time in the afternoon to explore Auckland on my own but that wasn’t how this day was going to play out.  I received a letter moving my meeting time to 11:30am.  Okay, no big deal, I’ll still have a few hours to self explore.

Day Seven
Auckland, New Zealand.
Auckland is located deep within a broad bay of sorts so we are within New Zealand's territorial waters for many hours before arriving to and after departing the city.  As such many onboard retail and casino venues are closed long before we arrive and well after we depart.
Our progress so far...


We arrived early in the morning to the bright lights of this big city on the horizon.

Raiatea is said to be the cultural center of Polynesia.  Another stop on our tour was a stop at Taputapuātea.  

From the UNESCO World Heritage website describing Taputapuātea:
Taputapuātea on Ra’iātea Island is at the centre of the ‘Polynesian Triangle’, a vast portion of the Pacific Ocean, dotted with islands, and the last part of the globe to be settled by humans. The property includes two forested valleys, a portion of lagoon and coral reef and a strip of open ocean. At the heart of the property is the Taputapuātea marae complex, a political, ceremonial and funerary centre. It is characterized by several marae, with different functions. Widespread in Polynesia, the marae were places where the world of the living intersected the world of the ancestors and the gods. Taputapuātea is an exceptional testimony to 1,000 years of mā'ohi civilization.

It was fascinating to listen to our guide describing the different marae and what types of activities each was used for.  Some involved human sacrifice since that was part of the culture going back a very long time.  No sacrifices today.  
A pearl farm.  This area in general is a large source of pearls.


Some local food items were available for tasting including the fabled chestnuts our driver yesterday in Moorea had also mentioned.   Apparently his mother would prepare them and when consumed in quantity they are known to create significant amounts of gas, which didn't work out too well on a visit to the local movie theater in his youth he said.

We were unfortunately a little rushed as we tried to make up time and to make it back for last tender at 4pm.  Back on the bus to a pearl shop.  

Honestly, I'm kinda okay the last stop to a pearl shop was in a blink of an eye.  We didn't have time for the full "factory" experience.

Fifteen minutes before the last tender time and some folks on the bus were freaking out.  
Fortunately I had obtained a cheap eSIM for data coverage in French Polynesia and I could see we were literally 5 minutes from the dock.  Plus I had Francois in my back pocket if needed.  🤣
We made it to the dock with ample time and there were several tenders after the one we used for any other late running excursions.   
At least word is getting out not to be late returning to the ship 🙂

The morning version of this same excursion, Raiatea East Coast Highlights, had run late because tenders were late bringing guest on shore very early on today.  The guides and bus drivers were trying to make it a quick turn but everyone has to eat and there is only so much they could do to get back on schedule for our afternoon version.
Yes, another dreaded bus tour but given the weather and my goal to gain an overview of the island this fit the requirement.
Those are pineapples in the foreground.

Stunning views that I am confident would be outstanding on a better day.  


These photos do not convey the beauty of the island.

We continue around the island to a Polynesia Village complete with a band playing drums with our driver's brother and cousins.

We stop at an overlook for a great view of a five star hotel that offers overnight, overwater accommodations.  



Trying to impress us our driver tells us these rooms go for $1,200 USD per night!
I'm thinking to myself if he only knew what Royal Caribbean charges for an overwater cabana at CocoCay for 8 hours!

You could see rays moving in the water even from up here.
I have to come back here to stay for a few days.  It's so beautiful.

Since everyone is related on Moorea our driver's wife is from nearby Bora Bora.  "There is nothing worse than bringing a girl home only to have your parents tell you that she is your cousin." He tells us. So most people look for a spouse from another island.    
So lush and tropical.

Our tour continues descending down the narrow mountain road.


From Cooks Bay I referred to earlier.

Today's excursion is the Moorea Island Tour.

I generally despise bus tours but for a first visit they do have value in covering a lot of ground so you can better plan a return visit at a later date.



The driver is a colorful character who makes this tour so much better.  The scenery is incredible.  Pictures do not do it justice.
He tells us there is a street race planned for today so everyone is gathering for it.  Racing is strictly illegal yet everyone knows when they happen and the local police somehow don't.  show up.

Our driver tells us it's so small that everyone knows everyone.  There is no crime because everyone knows everyone, and everyone would know who did it.  "If I fart" he says, "my cousins on the side will smell it in 30 minutes and call me".
We make our way up a small mountain road way too small for our bus to the Belvedere lookout.  We will visit that harbor in the distance later, named for a famous explorer who never used that harbor we are told.


Another bus has made it to the top.

My turn!













 

Fortunately the weather forecast was off today and we had an unexpected sun break out of the clouds.
My excursion was after lunch so I had some time to enjoy the views in sunshine.


The tenders make their way to the town dock inside the coral reef in the dead zone where coral can't grown close to land.  Those waves breaking to the right of the tenders is where the coral reef has grown to reach almost to the surface.











 

It's our first tender port!
The ship has a number of double duty lifeboats / tenders.  These are not regular lifeboats and not all lifeboats do double duty like this.  It's easy to spot which are plain lifeboats and which can be used as tenders once you look a little harder at them.  






 

It turns out these deep water channels through the reef area are a natural phenomenon. 


When the volcanic islands grew out of the sea millions of years ago there was no coral reef around them.  Slowly over thousands of years coral has grown around the islands.  Except coral doesn't tolerate fresh water so close to land due to rain runoff from the island, coral doesn't grow.   



Fresh water runoff from the mountains has to flow out to the sea eventually so over those thousands of years an area where no coral grows is formed and that is where freshwater runoff flows out to the sea.  That leaves a natural deep water channel that ships can use to penetrate an otherwise impenetrable fortress of coral.  



Creating a natural harbor for boats and ships.


We will see this even more dramatically tomorrow at Raiatea.

After breakfast I went back to the sun deck for some arrival photos.




Real overwater cabanas!

I knew we were tendering today but it wasn't clear where we would anchor.  Yet we were slowly getting closer and closer.  Water breaking over reefs on both sides.  
So I looked in a nautical app to see what was up.  Sure enough there was deep water straight ahead through a tiny gap between very shallow reefs on each side.  We would be threading a needle with the largest cruise ships to ever visit French Polynesia.
CMAP:

Day Thirteen 
Moorea, French Polynesia.
OMG, the cruise is more than half over!
Dramatic sunrise in the channel between Tahiti and Moorea.

Our departure from Papeete was scheduled for 11:30pm since Moorea is very close by.
Whenever I get the chance I like to see the ship at night and these late night port calls are the best way to do that.





The break in the rain was short lived so I hurried back to the ship.

The ship brought on some local performers for one night only so this was a must see event.







They were very good and the theater was packed.  

PapetteDancers.mp4.5526481e0a5c79d2770392c2ee3c2ba7.mp4  

Many other species here as well.  

There are some weird looking animals in Australia!








We did some other Brisbane sightseeing as well.

Later that evening it was off to a Broncos game.  The Brisbane Broncos in the NRL that is.  




Still not fully on Australia time it was late but a thoroughly enjoyable night.  Broncos won!  Time for bed.

I love how your photos always paint such a detailed picture. Australia and New Zealand are on my bucket list.

Since everyone is related on Moorea our driver's wife is from nearby Bora Bora.  "There is nothing worse than bringing a girl home only to have your parents tell you that she is your cousin." He tells us. So most people look for a spouse from another island.    
So lush and tropical.

Our tour continues descending down the narrow mountain road.


From Cooks Bay I referred to earlier.

Today's excursion is the Moorea Island Tour.

I generally despise bus tours but for a first visit they do have value in covering a lot of ground so you can better plan a return visit at a later date.



The driver is a colorful character who makes this tour so much better.  The scenery is incredible.  Pictures do not do it justice.
He tells us there is a street race planned for today so everyone is gathering for it.  Racing is strictly illegal yet everyone knows when they happen and the local police somehow don't.  show up.

Our driver tells us it's so small that everyone knows everyone.  There is no crime because everyone knows everyone, and everyone would know who did it.  "If I fart" he says, "my cousins on the side will smell it in 30 minutes and call me".
We make our way up a small mountain road way too small for our bus to the Belvedere lookout.  We will visit that harbor in the distance later, named for a famous explorer who never used that harbor we are told.


Another bus has made it to the top.