DAY 35 DAY 24 SERENITY

WELCOME TO NUKU HIVA

Let's begin with yesterday afternoon which featured at 2:00 PM the Crew Tug  O'  War.  There  were many teams  from the departments across  Serenity.  The defending team was the  Waterside Waitstaff.

The teams are first  introduced and make  a  grand entrance to cheering from the guests and once this is done the  competition began.

In  our early days of World  Cruises the Engineer Department team would sometime  win  but in the last  ten  years  the winning  team has mainly  been  Waterside (formally  Crystal Dining Room) waiters/head waiters.

Yesterday  a new team won  and that is the Specialty Restaurant Team.  There  was chatter the past few days  that they could be  the winners (they have a couple of very strong men) and yes they were.  

As  usual  it was a lot of  fun and Cruise  Director  did  a  great job announcing the event.  

At 3:00 PM the next event was  the Crystal  Family  Gold Medal  Paddle Tennis   tournament which featured  guests who won a medal in the singles  or  mixed double tennis  who  were paired with a member of Team Serenity.  Keith participated in the event.

Pairing  are drawn by random with a key card of a guest drawn along with one from the  crew to create  the  team.

The first photo is Keith with some of the members of the crew who were in the event shortly after they were practicing.   The second  photo  is Keith with his partner Beatrice from the Bar team.

While Keith  and Beatrice didn't win they had  lots of fun as  did everyone who participated.   In the  end  this is what  counts.

Before dinner we  had a drink at the Avenue Saloon and also watched the  World  Cruise Choir perform  at the Crystal Plaza.

Last evening was  originally Crystal Casual  as the original  itinerary called for it to be a port day.  However, due to the need to revise the itinerary for the medical stations which made this a sea day and the next day a port day Black Tie Optional  was moved up to last night.

We already had made a date to  have  dinner with friendsJohn Clark and his lovely wife  Pauline  at Silk so  we stayed  with the dinner plans.   Silk  is  the Asian restaurant serving Chinese Cuisine.

John  is  the golf  instructor on-board for the  entire  World Cruise.  In fact, John has  been the instructor for all of the World  Cruises we have taken with one exception.

We had a great time  as  we have  in the  past when we dine with John and Pauline.  Since  it was a  Black Tie Optional night Silk was less crowded with  more people dining  at  Waterside and the Supper  Club.   We  also  enjoyed a beautiful sunset.

This is  the dinner menu from Silk.

These are photos from dinner.

The good news  is before retiring to bed we set the  clocks back.  The difference is that we only  set them back 30 minutes  which  does not  happen very often.

We began the  morning as we always do with a  workout at the  Fitness Center  for  Keith, breakfast and a walk for Anne Marie.  Keith went for a haircut.  Since today was originally a sea day but became  a port day the Salon  contacted  Keith several days  ago to see if he wanted to  changed the appointment  to a day earlier  or a  day  later but Keith decided  to keep it the same.

As  they say,  I see land. I  see land.

We anchored off  Nuku Hive  by  8:00 AM. All guests  who are disembarking at the end of this segment or at any of the French Polynesia  ports  had to  go through Immigration today.  This didn't impact us.  

Niku Hiva is the  largest of the Marquesas Islands.  It is part of  French Polynesia and is part of France.  The number of people  on board  Serenity between guests and crew represents  slightly over 50% of the Islands population.  ​

Major  attractions include:

Baie Hatiheu  which is the preferred bay of write Louis Stevenson.

Hakaui Valley & Vaipo Waterfall located west of the island.  

Hikokua/Kamuiihei-Tahakia Archaeological Sites which was discovered in 1957 and were used for ancient festivals, rituals and human sacrifices.

Mt. Make which rises 2,834 feet and stands net to the town of Taiohae.

Notre Dame Cathedral which dates only to the 20th century.  

The town is located within 300 yards of the tender drop-off.  

When we  stepped ashore we said we feel land.  In all candor while some people couldn't wait  to touch  land we were fine.   In the past we have had nine sea days on  a couple of different cruises with one not planned due to a missed port.  With so many activities the seven days at sea went by in a blink of an  eye. 

Two tours were offered for  this island  and we decided  to visit it on our own.  Our first tour  will be in Papeete.

We walked along the shore for a good part of our time ashore.  The views  were nice and we stopped along  the way.  We also visited a few of  the local shops.  Every person you saw who was  not a  local  was someone from the ship including fellow guests and member of team Crystal  Serenity. 

We spoke with some of the locals  in the shop and around the town.  

On our  walk  back to the tender pier we  saw our Senior Waiter  Kirsten who had lunch off today so she planned to enjoy the area.  She remembered a restaurant she enjoyed the last time  she was here.


The  first two people we saw were Security Officer  Ajoy and Nat

Isn't she lovely.

We enjoyed  lunch  back on board Serenity.

Following lunch we enjoyed  a nice afternoon of Paddle Tennis for  Keith and a  walk by Anne Marie  along with conversations with members of Team Serenity and fellow guests.

This  evening  we dine at Waterside.

Following is the  daily  Reflections Program.

Cheers,

Anne Marie & Keith