Pacific Island Hopping - Part 1

After leaving rainy Cooktown behind, we spent Sunday on a leisurely sea day cruising in brilliant sunshine across the Coral Sea on our way to Alotau and Kitava, our first two island stops in New Guinea. The day included the usual array of speakers for Larry, along with the knitting group and art class for Monica. The highlight of the day was the Sunday Brunch Buffet set up in Crystal Cove, the main lobby of the ship.

Keeping to the 'Down Under' theme, a koala ice sculpture on
a dessert station

Bar Manager Maria peeking out from
behind the kangaroo

Part of the sweet table

Monday morning found us in Alotau, New Guinea on the extreme southeastern tip of the country. We awoke to the news of a 7.5 magnitude earthquake overnight Sunday/Monday in Central New Guinea, but you would never have known it. When we did get off the ship later in the morning for our tour we found that while all the passengers knew about it, the locals knew nothing about it.

Looking out over Alotau from the ship after we arrived, the word "ramshackle" came to mind. The town stretches along the shore of Milne Bay and was the site of a small, but significant, battle between the Japanese and the Australians/Americans in 1942. It is generally acknowledged as the first battle the Japanese lost in the Pacific campaign. The town has more or less grown out of the remnants of the large Allied base that was established in the area during the war. According to our guide, to this day locals find remnants of the battle and the base overgrown in the surrounding jungle, or dug up when they plow a new field or start a new building.

One of the homes on Alotau. Most of the buildings looked
straight out of an old war movie

Overlooking the town and Milne Bay

Down by the waterside

Fishing boats

Our tour today was A Lesson in Papua New Guinea Cooking, and after a brief drive around the town, such as it is, and a brief photo stop at a "scenic" overlook, we arrived at the Masurina Lodge. On the drive up we learned the lodge was owned by the father of our driver, and had been in his family for several generations. In fact, his Great, Great Grandfather had been one of the original missionaries to arrive on the island.  We were not sure what to expect from this tour, but the lodge was not it, a sentiment expressed by all ten people on the tour.

The bar at Masurina Lodge

The lesson was hands-on participation in preparing a typical PNG lunch of chicken, pork belly and fish with mixed local vegetables and coconut, steamed in large clay pots. The ingredients are layered in the pot, wrapped with banana leaf and then normally dropped into a bed of coals. The lodge cooks them on a stove top. Each person was given an apron and a food station with ingredients to prepare. Monica got the onions and garlic, while Larry got to assist one of the sous-chefs in scraping out freshly cracked open coconut, and yes, that seat is as close to the floor as it looks!!

Welcome drinks - fresh coconut or a combo of freshi
grated coconut and pineapple juiice. Even Monica liked it!

The ingredients table

Larry hard at work scraping cocounts

Filling one of the clay pots

Ready for the coconut juice to go on top

Final prep - coconut juice, and then wrapping
in banana leaf, below

 Once the pots were taken to the kitchen we all adjourned to the very comfortable, but very hot, (did we mention it was 33 C and humid??) bar/lounge area until lunch was served in the (thankfully!!) air conditioned dining room.

The buffet - fish, chicken and pork done with vegetables in the pots,
with jasmine rice

Returning to the ship after lunch, we spent a leisurely afternoon onboard.

Leaving Alotau

Tuesday dawned another cloudless, sunny day and found us anchored off the island of Kitava. At his lecture on Sunday, Destination Lecturer Ken Rees described Kitava as an island with about 2000 residents, and ONE motorized vehicle. Basically this was a "day-at-the-beach" stop, so after a leisurely beginning of the day, we set off by tender to walk the beach. And it looked like all 2000 residents had come out to greet us,  the older ones selling local knick-knacks and souvenirs (all made in China according to Ken!), and not one, but FOUR groups of school children singing to raise money for their schools. Apparently having babies is the only "industry" on the island as the 2000 people seemed evenly split between children and adults!!! And lots of dogs and puppies as it seems even the pets get in on the act!! So, after Monica went in for a swim, and we walked the beach taking pictures, we headed back to the ship. Another "Been-There-Done-That" box ticked in our travelogue!! And after all that exertion, we spent the rest of the day both at the pool and doing our laps on the Promenade Deck!

The beach and island across. For $5 the locals would give
you a ride across on their outrigger rafts.

The beach was quite busy in the morning

Schoolchildren doing their dance to fundraise from
the visitors

Kitava and little sister island. What beautiful views!

Our guest chef, Scott Webster, was still on board, scheduled to do another cooking demonstration on Wednesday morning. While we were up in Palm Court on Tuesday evening, we were invited to have dinner with Scott and his wife along with another couple we had chatted with a few times. We ended up at Prego for about 3 hours, and had a great time talking about food and travel. As we had mentioned before, Scott is one of the best-known chefs in Australia and his restaurant in Singapore, OSIA, is good enough to merit a Michelin star. When we mentioned that we would be in Singapore, he offered to contact his team there to get us a reservation. We're waiting for a response to the email he sent them, to see if we will be able to get in to the Sunday Brunch he highly recommended. Wonder what a reservation request from the boss himself will get us??? More on that later, but we can show you a few courses from a particular menu he presented:

Murray Cod Cvice

'Jumbuck in a Tucker Bag' - or lamb loin in puff pastry,
one of his signature dishes

For those chocoholics out there - Valrhona chocolate soup with
black pepper ice cream

Wednesday was spent at sea, cruising the Solomon Sea on our way to the island of Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands. Another hot, but very hazy (an omen of things to come??) and humid day spent in the usual way, in lectures and other activities.

Scott's presentation on alternate methods - cervice, curing
and sous-vide cooking

The final dishes - he also distributed
recipe cards, so we will try these at home!

Monica also went to the spa for her first mani/pedi of the cruise in preparation for the second Formal Night. Three of our tablemates are on the full World Cruise, a couple from Michigan (and a few other places including just outside Grand Bend!!) and an older woman from Ohio travelling on her own. Jon (from Michigan) was a semi-professional saxophone player about 40 years ago, and has been playing informally with the Crystal Quartet at the pool on sea days. By a serendipitous sequence of events, he was invited to join the Show Band for tonight's Sounds of Motown show, and to play in a three-sax solo performance during the show! To say he was as nervous as a cat in a rocking chair factory at dinner....... The show was a huge success, and we loved it so much we went to both the 8:30 and 10:30 shows, with a stop in The Avenue Saloon in between!!

Jon doing his solo with the other horn players. He sure looked
like he was having a great time!

Mini jam at the end of the show

And so here we are today, Thursday March 1, in Guadalcanal. This was the site of probably the most important of the WW II island campaigns, the place where the Japanese suffered their biggest early defeat in the war. Today was to be the highlight of this cruise for Larry. We had booked the 2017 cruise in part because it came here, and when we had to cancel last year, we re-booked this year because it was coming here. You will note the "was" above?? The pictures below describe our day at Guadalcanal, taken at 8:00 AM, Noon and 4:00 PM. Yes, the tours were cancelled and we spent the day on the ship watching the rain fall - and dodging raindrops to get in some more laps around the Promenade deck. And yes, Larry is very disappointed, but it gives us a reason to come back some day.

8:00 a.m. view

12:00 noon view

4:00 p.m. view - finally looking nice...

...as we were leaving, And at least we got to sail over some of the history. This is Iron Bottom Sound, which was the area where the four major naval battles of the Guadalcanal campaign were fought. It used to be called Sealark Channel, but now it is the final resting place of almost 30 American, Australian and Japanese warships of various sizes, not to mention hundreds of aircraft.

The far distant spit of land is Lunga Point and the major historic sites are on the other side of it, so this is as close as we got. Speaking to a couple who went on the Panoramic Tour, they told us the roads beyond the point were closed due to mudslides, so even if we had gone on the Battlefields Tour we would not have been able to get anywhere close.