Melsea's Adventures of South America & Pacific Adventures Part 14

#1

Melsea's Adventures of South America & Pacific Adventures Part 14

Day 43. Cook Islands, New Zealand. Tender service 8am - 4.30pm.
19th February Evening Casual.

Maiden Port for Aurora.

We woke to find we had arrived at the Cook Islands and drifting, as they have not dropped anchor due to the coral below. and the steep shelving of the seabed close to the shore. Both the Captain & Pilot deemed it too dangerous to use the anchors. So the biggest challenge of the day was to keep using the engines throughout the day to stop us drifting towards the shore where there were a lot of nasty looking rocks. This meant ship was moving all day due to the constant winds and sea currents pushing us towards the coast.
Tender service started just after 8am. We went to breakfast at our usual time. While there we heard the Captain say they will have to suspend the tender service for 25 minutes due to the fact the ship was drifting and so they had to reposition the ship for safety. It wasn't long before they restarted the service. By this time the numbers to be called was in the 200 to 300's. Once I had finished my breakfast I went to Masquerades to get a ticket which turned out to be number 778. I estimated I would get off until 12 or 1pm which wouldn't be much later than I usually get off. I landed on Cook Islands at just after 12.30 so not bad at all. The crossing was a little bumpy but nothing too bad. As I got to the road I saw a bus that was doing a circuit of the island so I hopped on and this cost me 8$NZ. The bus would take around 50 mins which was good. Had I got off the ship earlier I would have got off the bus somewhere and come back later. As it was I stayed on and had a whistle stop tour of the island which was rather good, even though it was very hot & humid, fortunately I was by the window which was a relief. When I arrived back at the port I went for a walk along the front and on the way back I went into a few shops and one of which I bought some more drinks and crisps for us. I found the Post Office and a shop next door where I bought a couple of postcards. I wrote two, both to my sisters and respective families. I also bought some stamps to keep & some for a friend who collects stamps, they were very colourful and big.
By about 3.30 I started to make my way back towards the tender station at the marina. Fortunately there were not many passengers waiting for a tender. Just before queuing P&O had provided a cold drink as well as a cold face cloth, the face cloth is something they have not done before and it was certainly a welcome cooling down item. I was in the same tender boat that I came across in number 8. I arrived back on board just after 4pm. As soon as I got back to the cabin Bill & I went up to the buffet so that I could get something to eat.
Evening entertainment was a singer called Peter Howarth who currently plays the lead singer of the The Hollies.

Day 44. At sea. Cloudy with thundery showers with lightning too.
20th February. Black Tie Dress.

Clocks go back tonight to -11 GMT.

Since we didn't go to sleep until 1am we overslept this morning.
Went to breakfast and at 10am there was a Crew Drill for just over an hour as they had not been able to do a drill during the last few ports.
It rained a lot today, no one was sunbathing today.

I went to Bingo which I have not done for a long time. Needless to say I did not win. In fact there wasn't that many of us taking part which I thought was odd as it usually is well attended on previous cruises and I was surprised as it was billed as being a big prize which I soon discovered it was not. The prizes started at £10 then rose to I think £50. So hardly big wins. When it finished a lady from the casino came round took our top sheet off and gave us a free single sheet for the next round tomorrow. When I was purchasing my bingo card I mistakenly said raffle which confused him when I changed it to Bingo! It turns out that the Casino are running a raffle whereby you can collect up to 3 raffle tickets for a final draw in a few days time. In order to get your three tickets you have to collect them on different days and have a card stamped with a different day to be eligible for three types of prizes.

I didn't go to the art class today.

Peninsular Drinks party in the evening where amazingly a husband and wife won both of the prize draws of the night.
We learnt tonight that we were the first ship in a year to have successfully disembarked passengers on the Cook Islands so they were very pleased for our custom.

Day 45. At Sea. A bit wobbly but nothing too taxing.
Warm and cloudy, the sun is hiding.
21st February. Evening Casual, Tropical.

Clocks were put back 1 hour last night at 2am -11 GMT

We went to breakfast as per usual and the Glass House was a little busier than usual, we had to wait for a table.

Collected Passports from reception, they had been sometime earlier in the cruise and we had to collect them for our arrival to New Zealand in a few days times.

I did the Bingo and won £23.00
I also did the individual quiz at 5.30 where I did not win a gold star.

The weather today was dreadful lots of rain and lots of high waves, the ship was going from side to side all day making walking a little difficult at times.

Evening meal we went to the The Horizon where the theme dinner was 'The Best of British.

Day 46. At sea. Crossed the international Date Line.
Clocks were put forward by 24 hours at 1am.

23rd February. Dress Code of the night. Smart, Jacket Required

As a consequence we didn't have Sunday 22 February

We are now ahead of London at +13 GMT. Our devices such as phones, iPads & iPods will have the time zone of New Zealand. For once I got a little confused as I didn't realised we would be using New Zealand and so had Apia which is one more hour ahead. I realised this was probably wrong as I don't remember having this problem before. By having iPads etc can make things not so easy.

Got raffle ticket stamped and saw the same guy at Casino asked where was I yesterday?! I had to think for a second before then saying I was no where, as yesterday didn't happen.

Lunch early then onto the Art Class the last one before the exhibition.
Bingo at 4.15, didn't win.
Saw some of the talk of guest speaker Steve Brooke's, Gardeners World fame.

We had a lovely meal in the main dining room.
I had melon with champagne sorbet.
We both had Tomato soup and the same main.
Our main was from the speciality meal section which was Fijian spicy prawn with almonds accompanied with plain rice. It was delicious. In fact our lunch was equally lovely & that too had prawns & rice (fried rice).

Saw the second show of Peter Howarth who does some good stuff but then he does some songs that wouldn't sound out of place at the karaoke.

Not long before we arrive in New Zealand.

#2

Enjoying the reports. Thank you.

#3

Two more great Reports Mel.

#4

Thank you. I'm getting there with them. I keep digressing to other things......

#5

I forgot to say in my report that we couldn't drop anchor in Rarotonga and that was why it was so dodgy getting on and off the tenders. We were all really lucky not to have missed that port. I'm enjoying reliving the cruise reading your reports.

Cruise Community Forum