Luganville is the last stop in Vanuatu for this cruise. Tomorrow is a Sea Day, so that means bridge! We started the day as usual with breakfast, but this time Kevin joined us. Gay is the only one who has any plans to go ashore today. Kevin, Joe and I are just going to relax on board. The stop is a lot like the Port Vila. In fact if you just looked at pictures, you couldn’t tell that they weren’t the same place. Lush green tropical rain forests with buildings along the shore. When I get to a decent WiFi connections, I’ll upload the pictures so you can see how similar they look. I may go ashore, but only at the dock. Still looking for a spoon for you Shyrl.
Turns out that there weren’t any shops at the dock. I decided not to get off the ship. Gary went on an excursion and said it wasn’t much. I did see some local dancers that were at the dock. I took a video from the ship. Not very impressive, but I got to see the grass skirts on the men and women. The music was MUCH better than the dancing.
I went back to my room and rested from an exhausting 15 minutes of taking pictures. I just had to take a 2 hour nap…well almost 2 hours of just laying on the bed watching the shoreline. Kevin called about 2:15 and found a fourth for bridge. A man from Brisbane, he has a farm and they have 8 kids. We nicknamed him Santa Clause, for obvious physical reasons. He wasn’t a great bridge player, but it was fun to play this afternoon. I had stopped at the Neptune Lounge and had a thermos of coffee and hot chocolate delivered to the Hudson room (that’s the card room). We broke up around 4:15 and went to the Ocean View bar for Happy Hour. It was just Joe, Kevin and I. Kevin left to go for a walk with Jim (he’s one of the guys that live in Uptown area of Hillcrest in San Diego).
After we finished our drinks, Joe and I went to the casino. He had MUCH MORE FUN THAN I DID. Around 7 we came back to our staterooms to dress for dinner. We are supposed to go by a double cauldera volcano (probably a collapse volcanic peak with a new peak in the center) around 8:00 PM that is supposedly active. I hope we get to see some volcanic action.
Dinner was at our usual 7:30 in the Vista Dining Room. We all listened for the captain to announce that we were going by the volcano. However, it never happened. We finished dinner around 8:45 and we all went back to our rooms. Joe and Kevin were going to go to the casino because it is gentleman’s night, meaning they have a raffle at 10:30. I doubt that I will go because I have had enough of the casino for today. I went back to the room to get out of my ‘business casual’ dining clothes.
I went out on my veranda to check to see if I could see anything. I was hoping to see more stars tonight. I had looked right before dinner and saw a few, one was very bright. But, to my surprise, it was raining. I am thinking that’s why the captain didn’t announce anything. We couldn’t have seen it anyway. So much for my geology experience today.
