We are enjoying our last few “sea days”. We read more,
stretch/nap more, and gaze at the strangely calm Tasman Sea as it rolls towards
and away from us, making the boat pitch and roll, and occasionally shudder. We
had been led to believe the journey from Melbourne to Tasmania and then from
Tasmania to New Zealand would likely be rough, and we were not only preparing
ourselves for this but looking forward to it! However, it is been as calm as
the entire journey across the Pacific. No one who has done the journey before
can believe how calm it is, and we are oddly disappointed even as we gaze out
and see the odd flock of birds slipping over the water’s surface, rising and
falling with each wave and swell. There have been a few flying fish, and Beazy
was lucky enough to see whales one afternoon, slapping their tails and fins.
Cloud cover casts a steel grey colour to the water and the white caps look
cold, whereas blue skies make the sea a navy blue with white caps looking
cheerful and jaunty. The air is brisk and cool – too cool to sit outside long,
and yet we do it with our 3 daily New York Times Newsheets (International/USA,
Canada and Britain).
Yesterday I went to a spa event: the women’s pamper party,
which Beazy at first misread as the women’s “pampers” party, which could have
been a potential given the age of many of the women on board. Today we did our
own “clean up/paint up” which was a family euphemism for self-indulgence:
exfoliation, body lotion, and doing our nails while finishing our last gin and
tonic, with our last lime bought in the Suva market in Fiji, and polishing off
the last chocolate toffee macadamia nuts that we bought in Honolulu. Tonight is
a “gala” night and Beazy is going to wear her new purchase, an amazing piece
she bought in Hobart. Tomorrow we glide through Milford Sound which we hope we
can enjoy from our deck, as we continue to rest up in anticipation of 7 solid
days of ports and then the end of the cruise in Auckland.
It is these last few sea days that we use for reflection and
confession, sharing thoughts and feelings, as we dopily register two time
changes in a row. Two days ago it was 3pm – now it is 5pm and we are confused
and ill prepared for dinner. But everyone on board is the same, and breakfast
was eaten well on in the morning and our cabin cleaning fellows were late and
tired themselves. It took a good ten minutes this morning for me to register
that the sun was coming from the bow, and not from the starboard as it has been
for the last month, now that we have turned around and head east towards the
southern coast of New Zealand. This is the last day we will see just a line of
sky meeting sea in a flat horizon. As we are on the port side, we will be
following the coast of New Zealand northward from tomorrow on. This will be
lovely, but I will miss this view of ocean, ocean everywhere, filling my eyes
and ears with its immensity, our magnificent, unchanging, constant companion
that hides so much within its depths, and can be so inhospitable and terrible
from within but so comforting seen from our balcony. I have a feeling that I
will need to see this view again someday – it could be a different sea, and a
very different balcony on a very different vessel, but I think my soul will
need to be refilled by the sea’s insistent intensity again.
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