Wanderung 26

Although a lot of whitish fluid was accumulating under the waterproof bandage, the wound didn't hurt that often and I managed to get a decent night's sleep. In the interest of not exacerbating the injury, I forewent our daily exercise and settled in with the computer to select "best of" pictures (selecting, rotating, cropping) for each port we had visited. Processing pictures kept me occupied during any of the lulls in activity during the day.

We attended the morning lecture on the Polynesian seafarers who had colonized the wide-flung islands across the vast expanse of the Pacific. It is truly amazing what they did with stone-age technology and a whole boatload of courage. The lecturer correctly gave credit to the navigators who guided the ships and correctly illustrated some of the things we had learned from the Vaca Moana exhibit in Australia's National Museum in Canberra during a previous visit (Wanderung 22).

One thing the lecturer emphasized is that a navigator simply hates not knowing where he is, and I truly felt as if I were a kindred spirit to those ancient Polynesian navigators because I also hate getting lost. Both for those sea journeys and for my flights in my airplane, getting lost could have very serious consequences. Having had that unpleasant experience, I can testify that it creates a strong, visceral aversion to not knowing where you are. The Polynesian navigators memorized the names and positions of all the brighter stars in the sky, a truly astounding feat, whereas I simply purchase new GPS units every year, a much more mundane approach.

Rose Winters was also starting a new Pop Choir with a whole new set of songs, so we decided to participate once again in that. We found that having choir practice induced us to vocalize and practice our recital songs right before the ship's choir practice, and that was all to the good. Using the computer and earphones to play both vocalizations and the tunes meant that only the vocal aspect was audible to our neighbors and they never complained about it, possibly because we picked a time near lunchtime when our neighbors were most likely to be out eating, to do our practice.

I also started to catch up on my journal for the three islands we had visited in a row. Typically I am so busy when we are in port, and so exhausted at the end of the day, that the journal simply does not get written. Having "At Sea" days in between ports allowed us to slowly catch up on the journals and also processing the pictures we had taken. Monika's Olympus SP 800 UZ continued to be on the fritz; we even tried using a hair dryer on it to help dry it out, but to no avail.

After a pleasant meal with our tablemates, we attended the Country-and-Western themed production show that evening. The show was located in the Vista Lounge instead of the Princess Theater, so there was far less seating available. But this was the second evening for the show, so we did manage to find a seat. I thought the dancers were excellent, very athletic and always in step with each other through a large number of tunes with fairly complex choreography. The singers still felt just average to me, but the overall effect was a pleasant evening's diversion.