Not a bad sleep and still up early enough to warrant a visit to deck 5, where loads were waiting for the first tender boat. At this point, the weather was fine.
A raspberry jam doughnut (counts as one fruit serving in my book…) with the cuppa and after a while, I went out onto deck 7. Fortuitously as it happens, I bumped into the IT Manager. Knowing that yesterday’s email from the ASB had been passed on, I innocently asked if there had been any progress on access. Much to my surprise and bearing in mind he doesn’t really know me, he claimed it had just been fixed… I wonder if that information will get passed on to me officially, as at the time of writing, I’d heard absolutely nothing, despite the lodged formal complaint? Did my email trigger a resolution, or just co-incidence?
Anyway, I watched and waited awhile on deck 7, away from the air-con, as they launched the tenders.
I couldn’t wait to check the ASB access, so gave it a try even before we went up for breakfast. Yup, it worked – and I also found out that I’d set up a payment for my tax, that Julie paid by cheque a couple of days ago… Oh well, at least I won’t have to pay the next instalment.
Breakfast was another light affair, with hot water and lemon and fruit – though the banana supplies seem to have been exhausted.
As previously, we waited until they made an announcement that there was no longer a queue for the tender. We stepped aboard in sunshine and before we’d reached the shore, it was raining – and we, stupidly, hadn’t packed our rain gear.
The rain didn’t last long and after braving the usual shore side crowd of tour sellers, ukulele players and souvenir sales, we hit the main road. Main road? Single lane in each direction with no pavement and puddles of sandy water everywhere.
Eurocar rentals had reasonably solid looking buggies for rent, and had the seats not been puddled with the recent rain and had I remembered to bring my driving licence ashore, maybe we could have hired one and toured the island. It wasn’t to be. Once again, grossly overpriced local ukuleles for sale and nothing caught the eye. We briefly considered an island tour by road, but hard looking bench seats in the rear of a ute for 2 hours plus, didn’t appeal. A boat tour including snorkelling was the other option, but we weren’t prepared for that either – and I don’t swim in water deeper than 5ft anyway.
So, back to the ship, somewhat relieved that we had survived all ports and that soon, we’d be heading for home, despite the oncoming cooler weather and reports of high winds in Auckland.
As we were aboard early and I hadn’t eaten much, I had a snack of 2 link sausages from the buffet and a spoonful of coleslaw out on the terrace – then they brought out the fresh chips…
Back to the cabin for a computer catch up then a latish proper lunch – of, yup, chicken curry again.
Sailaway at 6pm and there were some very, very tired snorkelers around, so dinner was just Ian and Mary and ourselves plus Ed and Bev from the other table.
The late show was another by production singer Andrew Geater. Not too many people and another good show, though some numbers he’d done in his Hong Kong show.
Bed at 11:30 and the next time we hit land will be in Auckland. Between then and now, we have four sea days to enjoy. Need to get my head clear though and hopefully, Paula will stay well.
With just the 4 sea days and a bit of pressure on time, this may be the last post for a while, but if I can keep up, I will, even if it means foregoing some cabin ukulele practice.
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