Oriental Night

                                 

Borealis Saturday 8th April 2023

We are no longer the prisoners of time. Finally after 48 hours we have burst out of the Good Friday confinement and landed in the quiet Saturday before Easter, whille our watches show exactly the same time as do those of our friends in London. Except of course for that 12 hour difference.

Sea is smooth and there is just the gentlest breed. Dolphin Dave's watchers and acolytes on the Observation deck at the prow of Deck 6 have spotted several striped dolphins disporting themselves in front of the ship, though personally I missed that. After a night of tossing and turning Albina was tored to join me for breakfast. I managed to change the equivalent of £100 into 180 US dollars and picked up maps of Honolulu, Lahaina and Hilo in time for next week's excursions.

After lunch with Albina we went to the Library where Albina completed reading a novel, while I went to a far corner of the room to contribute to a 1000 piece jigsaw. Thee jigsaws are there for anyone to come along to fit in a few pieces. It is a work of art with a collective authorship. However, I was please in the hour at my disposal to add only eight pieces to the one of the two jigsaws accessible for completion. The other jigsaw was being worked on by a lady passenger. We chatted. She was one of thos cruise customers who had spent more than 120 days on an Olsen cruise and thus was eligible for an honorary  gold membership if an Fred Olsen Cruise Lines' Oceans Loyalty Club. If you have spent more than 250 nights on a Fred Olsen Cruise you are elegible for platinum membership. So with Albina and mine own 79 nights abroad we barely qualify for silver membership and would automatically lose that if we have a 5 year break between voyages. There would be all sorts of benefits such as priority bookings and free privileges of various sorts. However, in her case the benefits seemed to be the right to complain about supposed deteriorating services by Olsen  kitchen staff, such cold ice cream served on warm plates, or her steaks not being served half way beteen well done and pinkish. Some customers are not easy to satisfy, no matter what privileges you can throw at them.

Albina had been able to obtain a place on the whale watching excusrsion on the island of Maui. We were still waiting for news abut her helicopter flight on the Hawaii Big Island.

There was an Oriental themed evening party on the ship based around the pool area with a sumptuous oriental buffet and live music from the string trio, the Borealis Theatre Company and other music groups currently on board. Albina of course stayed in our cabin, but I dressed up in a bright summer suit to enjoy the party. The dance music was on and the silver haired disco was in full flow. Perhaps "silver hair" sounds derogtory, but whatever they lacked in the slickness of their moves they made up for it with their energy and commitment. At one moment there was a large Chinese dragon head with an appropriate train making an appearance by the pool.Some made an attempt at an oriental look, especially those wearing a Non La, the Vietnamese style conical hat and others in kamikaze head dress, and many women had oriental style dress. However, the majority, stuck to normal smart casual in their dress. Certainly there was less commitment to the Oriental theme, than there was to the Egyptian theme on Egyptian night.  

General Konowledge Quiz was not one of our best nights. Only 9 out of 15, to the winners' 13. Have to remember to move my watch forward another hour to match hawaii time.