Day 6 Math at Sea!

We woke up early on our last sea day for a while, and I decided to take it easy – catch up on the blog, practice my ‘uke and hula, not rush. I sat at the desk with the verandah door open while I wrote, which is one of my favorite things. It was really nice not to be still. Meanwhile Dave did his morning walk and breakfast.

At 8 I went up for Tai Chi, then breakfast, and then there was a choice to make - as there so often is – Coffee with Dario the cruise director, where he’d be interviewing himself, or Reconnecting Joy & Mathematics with Frank Farris, husband of lecturer William Beerman. I ended up with Frank; Dave went to Dario. Frank’s talk was wonderful. It tied in with the thinking I’ve been doing about being good at and not good at things, and he also just did wonderful things with shapes and numbers that were kind of like going to a really geeky magic show. Did you even know that there is an online encyclopedia of integer sequences? Me neither. Dave learned many good things about Dario, but also was there when Dario said he was looking for an amateur astronomer to lead some stargazing. So Dave will be doing that sometime after Hawai’i.

We decided to do the scavenger hunt, which this time was getting signatures from various ship’s personnel. We didn’t manage to snag a deck officer or a security person, but we had a great time going all over the ship for half an hour.

Then it was 11, time for hula for me and relaxing time for Dave. It was our last lesson until we leave Hawai’I, so I recorded it on my phone so I can practice. After Hula I met Dave and we went to lunch, where we got a two-top in the hopes of being out in time for a 1:00 talk. It worked out well. We ended up sitting next to another two-top and having a nice chat with them about the HAL wine tastings, which are a good time if you get a good table but aren’t very well taught. I tried the sugar free dessert and it was surprisingly ok.

The talk at 1:00 was called Under the Jarvis Moon, a movie about the US government sending a group of young (18-19 year olds) Hawai’ian boys to live on 3 remote islands in the South Pacific to claim them (the islands, not the boys). It was an interesting movie but that 1:00 hour does not work for me to sit still and listen, so once again I did some napping until Dave woke me up to go to ‘ukelele class.

Again, our last get-together until after Hawai’i which is too bad because we’re all starting to get it. Fortunately we can practice on our own over the break. I’m sure if you stood outside the room we’d sound very slow and ragged, but it feels like playing music. Except that G7 chord is just not working out for me! After class I went over and talked to my Kumu Hula, my hula teacher, to ask if there was a Hawai’ian sign language and if it was influenced by or related to the very descriptive hand gestures during the hula. Unfortunately both she and Kainoa know nothing about sign language so they were not any help.

I headed back to the cabin and blogged until about 4, when Dave came back to the cabin and we headed up to the Lido for the Aloha Sunset Hour, an excellent tradition, even though it’s an hour early for sunset. I have remembered that asking for sparkling water gets you the imported stuff (same price), so that is my fancy drink for the day. Dave would like you to know that we officially crossed into the tropics at 4:37pm today

Dinner was good again. This time Louise and Dennis were the ones with the excused absences, but the table still hummed along. I ordered the giant prawn for an upcharge, and it took a very long time to get there. But when it did there were two of them and they were super giant, on a giant bed of vegetables. I’ve had a bit of a veggie deficit and this solved that problem.

After dinner we hung out in the cabin, then went to the show. It was the World Stage team doing “Feelin’ Groovy”, a 60s themed song and dance show. We didn’t get there in time to get a good seat, but the show was good natured and enjoyable. After the show we went out to 6-Forward and looked at the stars and clouds. It’s warm out.

We’re tired tonight, so it’s going to be an early bedtime. Tomorrow we are back on land – Nawiliwili Kauai. We may be the only two people on board who are disappointed.