In the “it is better to be lucky than smart” department, yesterday we managed to get on the first tender so we could meet our great guide on Easter Island at 8.30 a.m.
Just before leaving our cabin, we confirmed with Guest Services that the last tender back would be 5:30 p..m. We told our guide that he could plan the day, including our taking him to lunch, to have us back on the pier by 4:30.
We had a great morning seeing several sights on the island. I doubt any other passengers did as much in the time we had on Easter Island as Barbara. Our guide, besides being very knowledgeable, is an experienced hiker and my beloved Wife, getting ready for the Olympics, matched him step for step over some really serious terrain. There was no damn way I would even try to do what the guide and Barbara did.
Someday I might tell the story, really quite hilarious, about the time when Barbara’s Mother and Father chaperoned our son Charles’ trip to Europe with Rhoda Radow when he was a senior at Nova High School. Bernice, my mother-in-law, could, 100 pounds soaking wet, drink a Marine Corps under the table. She had a bunch of kids begging for a night off from partying with her.
I am sure our guide yesterday was thinking, “Where did this little lady, no spring chicken, come from that she could match me step for step for several hours?” I was having a great time just watching our guide’s bewilderment.
Anyway, back to our luck. For some reason, Barbara got a bee in her bonnet that our ship could be leaving early, and at 1 p.m., before going to lunch, she insisted we swing by the pier to see if the schedule remained the same and that we had not her four hours on Easter Island. Sure enough, the schedule had changed, an announcement was made we never heard, and the last tender had been moved up to 2 p.m. Our touring was over. We said farewell to our guide and got back to the ship before it left.
We now sail for a week before reaching Papeete in French Polynesia. Had we missed the ship, we would have been stranded on Easter Island for a long time with no clothes, none of my medications and no way to get back on the ship for a week.
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Lots of shipboard activities are planned now and I have the playoff games to watch today.
Seabourn is having a party at 12:30 for those passengers taking the entire around-the-world cruise. Last night Barbara and I listened to music. Then she went back to the cabin and I had dinner with two couples that I really like. One couple is from England and the other originally from South Africa but now living in Boca Raton.
I expect you have heard the expression, “I married him for better or for worse, but not for lunch”. Here we have the converse as Barbara really does not like to eat dinner, but lunch is often okay. She likes these people and they like her, but for lunch not dinner. This is a cruise where a good many passengers are simply going to roll off the ship when the cruise is over.
The ship’s time went back an hour last night. I believe the time will change several times over the next few days as we travel to several ports in French Polynesia.
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I read about Trump’s kickoff. The man scares me to death, but to borrow a punchline from an old joke, “His brother was worse”. I think DeSantis is worse than Trump.
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See you tomorrow. At least that is my plan.
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Go Ukraine