Aussie, Aussie, Aussie - Oi, Oi, Oi!

The cruise ship started another cruise from Honolulu to Tahiti, New Zealand, and Sydney yesterday. There were 900 Canadians on board from Vancouver to Hawaii, but now there's 60 of us. The number of Americans has diminished quite a bit as well. The big change for this cruise, however, is the Australian contingent. There are now 1600 paying class aboard.

So this next bit may seem a bit chauvinistic, but I started to list the changes I've noticed on board. I'm writing this on Day One of the actual Hawaii-Sydney leg, so you know that these changes are really obvious to me. If you're an Aussie and you're reading this, don't be offended - I mean to imply that, although we come from basically the same stock, our cultures have diverged.

• There's a giant TV screen by the pool on Deck 11. For the last two weeks, it's been tuned to NFL Football whenever it was on during the day (they sometimes showed movies at night). Now they show Cricket. I have no idea what's going on.
• There is a cold drink dispenser that Laura and I would get Lemonade from for the last 11 days. It's now "lemon-lime flavored water".Maybe it's just coincidence, but maybe it's on purpose.
• The no smoking rules have changed. Now you're only allowed smoking in one very small, outdoor, public place (before, there were  indoor "smoking areas" scattered about the ship). Unfortunately for us, it appears that you are allowed to smoke on your outdoor stateroom balcony - and we have smokers on both sides of us, so outdoor/balcony time is limited. It's amazing that, when you're a non-smoker, you can smell burning cigarettes from a thousand yards.
• Australians don't drink Foster's Beer. They hate the stuff. It's what they ship overseas to all of us. We had a pre-cruise meeting the other day for people continuing on from the Vancouver-Hawaii leg. A couple of the Aussies on board asked "are we gonna get some real beer in when we reach Hawaii?".
• Australians do, however drink. A lot. The bar staff have huge grins on their faces - they probably sold more yesterday afternoon than they did for the entire Vancouver-Hawaii cruise.
• The "hours of operation" for the bars have been expanded/extended. The cruise line knows where their bread is buttered.
• There are lots more kids on board. Every second Australian couple seems to have brought their kids.

These next two points I'm sure are unfair generalizations, but I'll write them down here just because Laura thinks it's rude:

• The Aussies seem much more "in your face", "direct", and "forceful" than North Americans (and especially Canadians). I've watched the wait staff look somewhat surprised by the lack of "please" and "thank you" they now get. Many are now treated like second class people. If you were Canadian, and you were served a steak that was underdone, you'd likely say "oh, that's all right, it's really OK" to the waiter. The Aussies (generalization, I know) would say "this steak is garbage, get me a new one". He might add the word "boy" to the end of that sentence too (I did here this last night).
• Young women in their 20's in Vancouver (Laura says it's purely a Vancouver phenomenon) generally look healthy, body conscious, dress conscious and well put together. On the cruise from Vancouver there were maybe 20 girls of that age aboard, and they all fit this description. There are now about 100 aboard of that age group, and none of them fit that description (shallow, I know). When they get older (30's, 40's) things don't improve.

So that's my initial take on things from my balcony on out first sea day out of Honolulu. As I get to do more thinking and observing, I'll be sure to write some more. I know you can hardly wait.

Aloha

So we made it to Honolulu. We've been off the ship for two full days, and depart at midnight tonight bound for French Polynesia - which should take us another five full days at sea.

Since almost everyone I know has been to Honolulu several times, I thought I'd give you my "virgin" first-time impressions:

• Honolulu is a big American city that has nice weather and a nicer beach.
• Traffic in this city reminds me of LA. It took us a half-hour to travel about 10 blocks on a bus yesterday afternoon (a Monday, at about 2pm - so not rush hour).
• The place looks like Banff - there are more Japanese here than anyone else.
• It's expensive - but I knew that it would be. $27 for a hamburger in Tahiti, though, puts it all in perspective.
• We were going to go to see Pearl Harbor, but were warned that if we weren't part of a tour, or arrived very early in the morning and were willing to wait for a few hours to get in, don't bother. We'll have to come back to do that.

We did venture down to Waikiki again today, and ended up spending a few hours at the Honolulu Zoo. We'll see about hitching another bus ride around Diamond Head as soon as I finish syncing my email.

The next dispatch will likely be from New Zealand in a couple of weeks, as I have no idea about WiFi in Tahiti and Bora-Bora.

Hopefully, some of the photos we've taken have uploaded here.

Cruise to Hawaii (and eventually Australia)

I have to admit, especially to myself, that I'm a hypocrite. For a guy that swore he'd never "cruise" again, I'm on my second (actually second and third) cruise this year. Laura and I left Vancouver on September 16th bound for Hawaii - a nice little eleven day affair over to and then in and around the Hawaiian Islands. Then, because we're greedy, all of us are on the same ship (Royal Caribbean Radiance) bound from Hawaii to Tahiti, then New Zealand, and finally to Sydney. I found out later you can stay on the boat for another month and circumnavigate Australia if you'd like as well. Unfortunately (or fortunately), David comes home from Korea at the end of October, and the extra cruise would double the costs - so we're hanging around in Sydney and Cairns for ten extra days and flying home on October 24th.

This cruise so far (I'm uploading this dispatch from Hawaii - the first chance to get reasonably priced (ie: free) WiFi) has been very nice. Laura's mom (Cathy) and husband (Frank) are on the boat all the way to Sydney with us, and so far nobody has thrown me overboard. It's a bit boring during the days at sea (there were five sea days enroute to Hawaii, with twelve more at sea to go), and you tend to eat too much, but it's easy and convenient to eat healthy and get in plenty of exercise.

As we booked so late, we couldn't get an assigned dinner time - so we're on "my time, where you just show up whenever you want and get put at a table. Ordinarily you'd think I'd balk at this - me too. But it's turned out to be the most enjoyable time of the day for me. We get to sit with and talk to new people every time.  A really interesting gay couple from Tampa are extending their trip to include an entire circumnavigation of Australia, with Tasmania and all of New Zealand included to boot. They'll be on board for 62 days.

Many we've sat with at meals have been from Vancouver (one couple even from Shaugnessy Square in Port Coquitlam - less than a mile from our house) - but many others are from all over the place. There are lots of Aussies and Germans on the boat, and every age (except schoolage kids) is well represented. I am certainly not the youngest or the oldest on this ship. I'm sure I'm close to the average age.

A striking part of this cruise for me has been the transition to semi-tropical weather and the deep blue (almost indigo) colour of the ocean. It's been quite calm during this passage, and the big, big ocean looks quite inviting to go sailing in (although I know it can be dangerously inhospitable too). I want to do this trip in a small sail boat! Much to the chagrin of friends who've done this cruise before, and talk about the vastness and the dark cloudy nights, it just seems to stir up even deeper conviction in me.

As of Wednesday, September 21 (today) we had a talk from the Captain who said that the low pressure systems that have helped "push" us to Hawaii have now become a hurricane in the North Pacific. Feel kinda bad for my mom and dad, who are cruising to Alaska this week - I suspect their weather would be the exact opposite of the stuff we've been having.

All four of us have been visiting the gym every day, which partially offsets the pre-dinner bar rendezvous and the post-dinner pre-bedtime calorie free dessert bar. Laura attempted the rock climbing wall today - and got about half way up until her legs gave out. I'm a bit afraid that my "looking up" and "balance" skills aren't where they need to be for me to attempt it - but I may try if it's not too crowded one day.

More to come during our next leg ... going to try and upload this in Kona.

Photos available here.

Great return on investment

A few years ago, after some careful thought about the best ROI for a charity of some sort, I came upon Nothing But Nets - where for a small donation they would provide anti-malarial mosquito nets through most of Africa (they have a neat distribution map on their web page). I've pretty much forgotten about that decision, though I do receive regular emails from the Nothing But Nets folks.

Today when I opened my email, there was a message from Seth Godin (kind of a thought leader in the techie world). He's been working for the last several months on something he calls the Domino Project - the aim of which is to stand traditional publishing on it's head. With all of the new tools we have available (computers, the Internet, Amazon.com, social media and others), why is it that we are doing things the same old way?

The message Seth had this morning is my first real indication of what his project is attempting to do. A group of A-list authors has gotten together and collaborated on a book called End Malaria. $20 from every book sold ($25 is the cost of a paperback and $20 is the cost of a Kindle version) will be donated to Malaria No More, who use the funds to distribute more nets. Note that if you buy the e-book version, 100% of the proceeds go to Africa.

Seth's Blog does a better job of explaining all this than I can, so hop on over and have a read. And donate. The very fact that you're reading this post means you can afford $20 to save some lives....