What Happens Next

Dearest Rachel –

After that long wait to get myself on a tender, several of the crew came up from the gangway deck to let us know that tender #15 had space for just ten more people. I was among the ones who volunteered, and literally was the last person on.  It was either that or become the first person on my regularly scheduled tender.

Not that it made all that much difference.  I’d given myself way too much time, considering that, once you’re off the pier, there really isn’t that much to see “in town.”  And the pier was simply full of people touting their artwork, guided tours, and the occasional foodstuff.  Most of what was on offer seemed like it could’ve been imported from somewhere else, which begged the question; why buy it here?

I did walk for about an hour in several different directions before returning to the pier, drenched with sweat. I don’t think I’ve worked out that much of a sweat in the gym on the days I’ve gone there.  Then again, they have towels to wipe myself down with, so it’s not as if I could figure out how much I have accumulated (not that I’d ever want to).  At that point, a liter and a half bottle of what they called citronade was actually quite welcome.

With nowhere else to go for the moment, I basically rested in what shade I could find as I waited for the hour to pass before we were to board our 4x4s for the trip into the Mo’orean interior. I chatted with a few people I hadn’t met on the trip thus far – which, despite this being such a long voyage, isn’t as hard as all that; there are over two thousand of us, and the odds of me making everyone’s acquaintance here is next to impossible.

Although, on the subject of odds, what are the chances of running across folks that I’ve met on previous shore excursions? Surprisingly good, in fact; the kind of folks who take such trips tend to take them on a regular basis on a trip like this. It’s like cliques in high school; you have the folks who go to the dining room, others who frequent the Windjammer, and others who plunk down for the specialty restaurants. You have those that hang out on the ship (which I can’t fathom at this point, since we’ve spent so much time here as it is, but whatever), you have those that wander into town (which doesn’t seem to be much of an option here), and you have those that take shore excursions. Maybe it’s how I was raised as a cruiser, but I’m generally part of the ‘dining room’ / ‘shore excursion’ clique, whether I want to admit it or not.

And so it was that I ran into the same couple I found myself talking to while we were making our way around Oahu’s east coast. Considering that he was the only one in the group willing to interact with the eels when we got to the river (I’m not about to claim that I would had I realized what was going on; I would have had difficulty stripping off socks and shoes in order to do so, and he got flack from his wife for doing so once he made it back into the 4×4 afterwards), I think you would have seen him as a kindred spirit.

But you might guess from the length of the videos, and from the fact that this is Monday that I’m writing to you (and we arrived in Papeete this morning), I’m already writing way too much to you about what’s already happened; I need to finish catching up, so you get to find out what happens next. And while I’m already halfway through that day, I still need to go through the city and get some footage and impressions of the place for you.

But until then, keep an eye on me, and wish me luck, honey. I’m gonna need it.