As usual on this cruise I woke up at 5:45am,same as I do on any workday. However, on a workday, when I sit up in bed I see the wardrobe on the other side of the room. Here, I see a big glass window and door opening out onto a balcony and then the sun shining on an apparently endless ocean. Beautiful!!
Here are a couple of shots coming into Lifou:
Went up to the Cafe del Sol - aka the buffet - for breakfast at about 6:45 and for the second time this week, found that Adam had gotten there first. I don't know what has happened to him - something about being on board has turned him into an early morning person. Don't see it lasting once we return to Canberra though!
We're now just waiting to leave the ship - we have no huge plans but we are going to go ashore to see the markets and then Adam and I at least will have a swim at the beach. Paul hasn't decided yet whether he'll stay for a swim or not.
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| The most unusual sight - Adam in swimming togs! |
We definitely have to leave our cabin this morning though, because the drama over the bathroom still isn't finished - there is still water under the tiles and it is still leaking out. We've told them that we're going to leave at about 10am this morning, and they're going to come and replace the grouting. I'm not convinced that grouting up the tiles and leaving the water underneath is really the best way to deal with this problem though, in fact I'm pretty much convinced that the dodgy state of the grouting and the odd stains on the tiles are likely to be a direct result of grouting over previous nasty leaks of the same sort. They really do need to rip out all the tiles and fix the toilet properly.
Lifou is a tender port - the ship's boats take you to the jetty:
This is a ship's photo of the three of us at the jetty at Lifou:
Later: Adam and I ended up having a short swim - the water was beautiful and I could have stayed in it a lot longer but the sunburn would have been a sad thing to see.
Paul didn't go in swimming, but he did stay on shore a little longer than Adam and I - he had a beer before he came back onboard. We had a look around the markets onshore and bought a couple of little things.
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| Pacific Dawn off the beach at Lifou |
Quiet afternoon with not much happening, although Paul did do a load of washing - he needed a couple of things washed and since the machines are so big he did a few things for each of us. I'm still sticking to my plan of not operating a washing machine on this cruise, although I've had to rinse out a few things :-(
We left Lifou on time, although again a couple of people only just caught the final tender off the island! This is a picture taken from our balcony as we were leaving:
Dinner tonight was at the Salt Grill. I cannot speak highly enough of this restaurant - the food and service were just excellent. If anything could get me back onto a P&O cruise, the Salt Grill would be it. Heaps of choices, proper sized serves - ie not monster American sizes but not 'thimble in the middle of the plate' either - all cooked exactly right. And, I discovered a new type of red wine which I've cleverly forgotten the name of - fortunately I'm sure my dinner companions will be able to remind me :-)
Later: it was a moscato, a sort of wine I hadn't come across before but that I really liked.
After dinner we lost some money on the pokies. I had a plan of going to the Pirates show, but I was so tired I just crashed. Tonight, the towel animal was a penguin:
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