Noon Position: N 26º 01′ 21.05″ – W 126º 14′ 34.51″

We spent the night really rocking as we race southwest to avoid the storm. Shortly before the alarm though the seas calmed a bit so I was able to avoid the dreaded treadmill and walk the deck. Then breakfast.

After breakfast we crossed to the Explorer’s Lounge for something called Coffee Chat. Cruise Director Bruce, mic in hand, engaged us in conversation about where we’ve been, what we’re looking forward to, the normal ‘getting to know you’ kinds of questions. Apparently this will be an ‘every Tuesday sea-day’ kind of thing with guests to be interviewed by Bruce and passengers. It’s worth a look – especially since there’s not much going on between breakfast and the first lecture.

Speaking of the first lecture:

With 45 minutes between lectures we hung out in the Theatre and read until:

Then, lunch.

Back in our stateroom after lunch we found several pages of information from the excursion desk. As experienced world cruisers had guessed, the cruise is divided up into segments and we will receive our excursion tickets a segment at a time. We also have the ability to book additional excursions for this segment (LA to Sydney) on our stateroom TV, while excursions for other segments will need a visit to guest services. We’ve got a couple of open days that need filled so we’ll head down once the dust settles and talk with our friends there.

The 4:30 lecture was by our new resident geologist Phyllis Steckel.

She is a Geologist based in Missouri who focuses on earthquake hazards. Today was a broad-brush overview of earthquakes. Future lectures will dive more deeply into the seismic history of the areas we’ll be visiting.

After a break we were back in the Theatre for the 6:30:

Our lecturer Dr. Lisa Matisoo-Smith is a molecular anthropologist from teh University of Otago in New Zealand. Her work is in the area of the settlement history if the Pacific. Today was an intro into the science of molecular anthropology with a focus on the development of theories of the movement out of Africa and genetic genetic dispersion throughout the world.

Then dinner.

I know I’ve used the term ‘brutal’ to describe Bruce’s Brain Buster trivia before. But those times were nothing compared to today. We were lucky to score 8 out of 21. Thanks Bruce!

The evening entertainment was a magic show.

We had our fill of the seats in the Theatre today so we watched the show live-streamed to the comfort of our bed.

Returning to our room from BBB trivia we read the notice that we will not be stopping in Kauai. Instead we have an extra day in Honolulu. While we’re sad to lose Kauai it was a short day there so we weren’t going to have a lot of time anyway. And this way we can visit both Pearl Harbor and the Bishop Museum.

So that’s the day. Tomorrow is sea day 3 of 6 and it looks like it will be just as busy as today.

Nite all, R