Day 10 - change of plans

Yay, we’re back at sea! We’re having pretty good wind and waves – the ship is rocking & rolling pretty good, which is what we like. Now that we’re back at sea I’m also changing back to my previous fitness schedule – breakfast at 8, zumba at 9 for half an hour, short break, boot camp at 10. It’s only me and Susan in boot camp, which is fine – we ran into Suzy last night and she said she wasn’t going to do it again – “I don’t need a guy half my age yelling at me”. Our breakfast partners this morning were a delightful couple from Virginia who had travelled all over & who know a ziplIne designer, so that was fun to talk about. We ordered breakfast at about 8:15, and the woman (we never got her name, but if you’ve ever seen the Garfield holiday specials, she was a dead ringer for Jon Arbuckle’s grandma) ordered papaya, if they had any, but not to get it if it was too much trouble. “Yes,” I joked, “don’t turn the ship around to go back and get some.”

After boot camp I showered up in the gym, which was nice – the showers are nice and bright, unlike the one in our cabin which has a very dark shower curtain. Unfortunately the hairdryer up there is useless, so that was too bad. Once I was clean and dry I headed down to the Queen’s lounge to meet Dave and see the Hawaiian cooking demo. The problem is that even though chef Pablo is an engaging teacher, sitting in a gently rocking comfortable chair after an half hour of intense exercise and a nice shower has a very predictable effect – I was awake for the mango salsa, the marinade, and the poke dip, (and the sample of the meat & poke) but pretty much slept through the chicken kabobs.

While we were in the cabin between the cooking demo and lunch the captain came on over the cabin speakers. This is unusual –generally the announcements are only piped into the public areas of the ship (and, of course, over channel 40 – nerd TV). Oh, and speaking of nerd TV, they finally put scale markers on the position displays. Anyway, my first thought (of course) was that the ship was in trouble and we’d have to get in the lifeboats. This, fortunately, turned out not to be true, but the real reason was pretty dire. Apparently a passenger was having a serious medical emergency, and about the time I was joking about not turning the ship around, the captain had been turning the ship around and heading back to Hawaii to get her to better medical attention. But then she apparently stabilized, and they decided not to head back. The captain’s announcement was really confusing, and about half the passengers still thought we were going to Hawaii (apparently they don’t watch channel 40). So at lunch the captain came on again and clarified that we were in fact not going back to Hawaii (which would at that point have delayed our arrival into San Diego until 4 pm on Saturday), and then the cruise director got on and said again that we were not going back.

Anyway, we had a nice lunch just the 4 of us, and then went as far forward as we could on the promenade deck and watched the bow of the ship throw 2 and 3 story waves into the air. We wanted to go hang out on the deck in front of the gym because when it’s windy that’s a fun place to be. Apparently there’s a limit to how much fun HAL wants you to have, because the door was locked with a note about high winds. So we went up to deck 10 instead, which was almost as good. Then we came back to the room and I had a nap while Dave wrote and read on the verandah.

Once I woke up I sat on the verandah for a while. Dave went to show the pictures he’s taken (like 800!) to Mama and Merna. Since we were still rocking and rolling I thought it might be fun to go hang out in the pool. It took a little while to convince myself get in – the midships pool isn’t cold by any definition, but it’s not warm either. But once I got in it was totally excellent – triple excellent! It was like having your own wave pool, or being in the ocean with no chance of FEET. The water was rolling back and forth and side to side – it would change height by 2-3 feet as it rolled front to back. The pool was empty except for me, so I could swim around without worrying about bumping into anybody. I hope the weather is even rougher tomorrow! Although not too rough – I assume at some point they’ll close the pool if it gets to where it would be too much fun, I mean too dangerous.

Then down to the cabin for another shower and to dress for dinner. It’s Halloween, but not many people are dressed up – it’s a lot to pack clothes for a two week cruise and a costume. Your lifestylist Louise is doing her best to stir up the Halloween spirit – she’s been dressed as a bumblebee since lunch. We’ll see what kind of costumes show up at dinner. I do have my pumpkin earrings and pumpkin vest. Dave and I should have gone into the Walmart in Hilo and gotten costumes. Oh well. At our table John was wearing his black gangster gear, Carol had as nice flapper outfit with her granddaughter’s too small headband and awesome dangly crystal skeleton earrings. Nobody else was dressed up, although with our table where it is we did see many costumes go by. One thing I noticed is that many people were clever – they brought a mask or a pair of cat ears or something small that you could put on and have it be a costume. Dinner for most of the table was broiled lobster tail. John, Rita and I had seconds.

After dinner we had some more verandah time. It had been partly cloudy all day, but things had cleared out and we could see the Jupiter off the front of the ship (this is important) and the moon to the west and behind. We came in and tamed our hair, then headed up to see if they’d taken the sign off the door to get out on deck 9. They hadn’t, so we headed up to the crows nest to do our usual listening to Chris. Tonight our invisibility shield was not working at all, and the bartender immediately came over and even remembered that we always have a club soda with lime. We settled in to listen to, and I looked out the front and was surprised to see that I could see Jupiter, even through all the reflected glare on the windows (this is important). Chris was wearing a Captain America mask that completely cut off his peripheral vision, and a captain America shield that cut off his circulation, and the ship was rocking and lurching so much that he was afraid of smashing his teeth on the microphone, but it was still an enjoyable set.

When he took his break it was time for us to change the channel, and we decided to call it an early night. We stopped at the paper compass, which we always do, even though through the long days at sea it doesn’t change. Well, it said we were heading southwest – that is, back towards Hawaii. We were very disappointed that it had stopped working… until we got back to our cabin and looked at nerd TV. We had in fact turned around, and as I write this we are heading back to Hawaii. Jupiter is now behind us, and the moon in front, and the ship’s ride has smoothed out considerably now we’re not heading in to the wind. We’re 12 hours (about 200 land miles) out from where they turned the ship around last time, which means that if we go all the way back we won’t get to San Diego until Sunday at the earliest. The captain hasn’t made an announcement yet, but we’re planning to head over to the show at 10 – Dave the cruise director usually makes some announcements before the show, so we’re going to go and see what he has to say.

Just before the show the captain came on and told us pretty much what we already knew – the passenger’s health had taken a turn for the worse and we are headed back for Hawaii. They don’t know exactly when or how the medevac will take place, but it will be some time tomorrow morning. Dave the cruise director didn’t have any more information than that, but it looks like we get an extra day at sea. We didn’t stay for the show. Tonight’s towel animal: sea turtle. We’d stopped at the front office to ask about the free bridge tour (doesn’t exist anymore) and they had a book of towel animals which we looked through. Otherwise we might not have known.

Another note: everybody knows the name of the humuhumu nuku nuku apua’a, but my personal favorite Hawaiian fish name is the longnose butterflyfish: lau-wiliwili-nukunuku-oioi