Back to Sea

With Hawaii behind us we began the 2260 nautical miles sailing towards Papeete, Tahiti in French Polynesia with our arrival scheduled for the morning of the 18th, so it's back to sea days!

Today provided an opportunity to work through our existing workload and try to make a plan to get ahead of the game. There's a bit of admin associated with each port of call, pre arrival notifications, some background research into the general security situation and making sure we're prepared for our official visitors and any of the crew who may have family and friends in the ports we visit that they want to bring on board for tours etc.

In short, it's back to daily business and where possible find some downtime. Get it where you can!

For the majority of the day, we sailed through tropical rain storms, the rain hammered it down in incredibly humid conditions. 

We've had some challenging ports recently, overnight calls and tendering along with quite a lot of significant maintenance whilst we've been alongside. The work never stops and in a nod to the hard work the Deck Department had a get together tonight! Food, drink and music.

Sailors Square is an area of the ship used by our sailors as an office, locker space and briefing area along with some stores. If you look at a picture of the ship, Sailors Square is right behind where the anchors are. The room adjacent to the square is where the anchor chains and winches are. There is no temperature control up here, when we sail to places like Norway you're sitting in your winter jacket if there's a tender briefing, today was like sitting in a steam room.

Usually a vacant space with only a few chairs and lockers, Sailors Square was transformed into a venue, flags of all our nations across the bulkheads, trays of byrani, curries, pizza, slow cooked pork leg, and noodles, bins full of beers and soft drinks. The obligatory karaoke set up and of course an entire band, drum kit, guitars, the lot!! Just a standard, thrown together at the last minute crew get together. The ingenuity of our crew never ceases to amaze. The pride they take in trying to better the last party is unrivalled!

I nipped along to share a beer and have some food, say hello to the guys and girls and then make a polite exit. It's nice to show your face and enjoy the hospitality but this is their space, their party and a chance to unwind. It's kind of like inviting your parents to your party, it's a nice gesture but you hope they can read the room and know when to leave.

Now that we're at back to sea days, the guest functions restart. Tomorrow sees two evening cocktail parties held to celebrate leg two of the world voyage. So it'll be into whites for the evening and some mingling with our guests!