The South Pacific sailing towards
Nuku Hiva, Marquesas Islands, French Polynesia
about 350 Miles to the Southwest
Happy Anniversary! Yes, it has been one month since we departed Miami on The Cruise! The first month probably hasn’t been the most exciting part of this adventure, although we have added Columbia, Panama, Costa Rica, and Guatemala (for me) to our country count. We sailed through the Panama Canal, one of the wonders of the modern world. There have been a few days of sea sickness, but we have over come that.
Now, we are sailing through the South Pacific towards French Polynesia. The sun is out, it is 80 degrees (27 C), and the sea is calm. King Neptune will arrive at 10 to preform the Shellback Ceremony turning tadpoles or pollywogs into Shellbacks. Getting wet is involved according to John, our cruise director, on the Good Morning Mariner TV program this morning. We’ll see ….
First it if off to Sit & Be Fit for some exercise. This is an exercise class designed completely for older people. We gather around in a semi circle with the instructor sitting where we can all see her. Keeping those joints and muscles working is the goal. We go through a series of movements. Rotate the head, stretches to the right and left, rotate the torso, reach down and touch the floor. Al of this is done from the sitting position. The class lasts about forty minutes. Doesn’t sound like much, does it? However it is a good workout for seniors. We really need to attend more of the Sit & Be Fit classes. While they tend to cause some muscle and joint issues in the short run, it is most likely they will be helpful in the long run.
After we will attend the cooking demonstration – Island Flavors: Versatile Ginger, with Paulette Mitchell. There is an issue with posting photos here. While the ship in a port, or at least close enough to get a good cellular connection, uploading the photos is easy. When we aren’t near anything, they simply won’t upload. The recipes we watched being demonstrated today will be uploaded to Facebook. Why one and not the other? Good question to which there is no answer.
The class was held in the Horizon Lounge. The lounge is arranged with a small band stand on once side, the a dance floor in front of the band stand. Then just two steps up is the seating area arranged in a semi-circle facing the bandstand. The demonstration is done on the dance floor. Here Paulette and the Regent kitchen team have set up a table with all the necessary items to complete the demonstration.
The first recipe was Ginger Carrot Soup. Paulette spent some time explaining the use and care of ginger. When you use finely chopped fresh ginger, candied ginger, powdered ginger, pickled ginger and crystallized ginger. Each has its own purpose and use. The aroma in the theater was delicately sweet.
The main hit for me was the Chinese Fiercracker Noodles. Today she demonstrated this dish using wheat-flour noodles, but was careful to say that any type of thin Chinese noodle will work. She held up several packages of noodles, all with Chinese writing on them, and briefly discussed the advantages or disadvantages of each. The summation is try any or all of them. None of them really have much flavor. They aren’t ment to. Unlike Italian pasta the noodles are ment to add flavor to the dish, the ingredients are the flavor, the noodles are the vehicle. We made good note of this because it is a dish we can serve Maddie by using rice noodles instead of wheat thus keeping it gluten free.
The remaining two dishes were Gingered Tuna Salad and Ginger Chip cookies. Tuna salad isn’t high on the list, it contains fish. However, the aroma and appearance of the finished dish looked really nice. The colors where a vibrant combination of a shades of yellow. More importantly you could make this with chicken! Now that is something to try.
We are looking forward to making all these recipes when Mike and Maddie, or other visitors, come over to Sonoma. Or, maybe when we go visit them! We were also told that the Compass Rose will have the Ginger Carrot Soup at lunch, and that they will have the Chinese Firecracker Noodles for dinner. So we are excited about tasting these dishes today.
The captain’s noon update told us we are 245 nautical miles from Nuku Hiva. We are expected to arrive at 7 AM. He did say we were traveling between two large low-pressure areas. The scuttlebutt is that there is a cyclone to the west of Hutu Hiva. The question is will we arrive there before the cyclone has an effect on the island. Right now however being between the two large low-pressure areas is what is giving us the bright blue skies, calm sea and nice friendly fluffy clouds. It is indeed a beautiful day.
Walking into the Compass Rose at lunch time we noticed that it was almost deserted. Where was everybody? Perhaps we were just early, as we usually are. We were able to order the Ginger Carrot Soup which was demonstrated in the cooking class. The aroma was strong enough that everyone in the Horizon Lounge was able to smell it from their seat. The bowl of soup before us didn’t have quite as strong aroma. The time between the pot and the table probably had something to do with that. While the soup was warm, it wasn’t physically hot. Again, large kitchen vs at home.
You could taste the combination of flavors in the soup. The ginger really off set the carrots. There was a subtle hint of the cilantro. The fresh lemony, peppery taste that cilantro can add. We will have to try improving on this when we get to Sonoma.
As the main course, Mary stuck with the grilled salmon. My choice was the aromatic duck, with hoisin sauce. There was also a pickled cucumber which was hollowed out and filled with monk beans, as in the main ingredient as the hoisin sauce. It was very beautifully carved in a spiral shape and the flavor was very good. The monk bean doesn’t appear to have much flavor and the cucumber wasn’t like sweet pickle relish, but it also wasn’t a sour dill. Interesting combination.
You will be happy to know there is, at 14:00, a writers’ workshop. It is supposed to be about how to share your voyage memories and life experiences. Perhaps it will help improve this rambling. There were about fourteen people at the workshop. They were from all over the world. India, South Africa, England and the US. Several have blogs for people to follow. This, it turns out, was their fourth meeting. At the last meeting they were given an assignment to write about Hawai’i. A couple of them did and they read their work.
Some of the work was extremely good. Book quality good. The woman next to me had also been in a very technical profession and she had to write and present technical papers during her career. We talked a little bit and agreed being in a technical profession has made it more difficult two write “prose”. When I was at Stanford they kept telling us to keep it short and to the point. No flowers, if you will, added to the writing. After all people only ready the first page if that.
The days at sea are the most difficult to write about because it is generally the same thing everyday. Being seasick didn’t help, although rereading some of those days, it probably doesn’t completely or accurately relate what happened. Yes, we were seasick. However, other than being very much sequestered in bed, it wasn’t that bad. Maybe that is just hindsight?
Not only is today the anniversary of the beginning of the cruise, but it is also the seventh-year anniversary of my starting DuoLingo. According to their advertising my Italian language skill should be the same as at least a year of university level language course. Reading and writing – maybe. Speaking, definitely not. So, I’ll just have to keep doing it. If my hearing were better …..
Tea at 16:00 was done around brownies. They had a large selection of brownies to choose from. I got there first and got a brownie with nuts on top. Mary arrived a bit after me, and then got up to choose her brownie, and she got the same one. No, I didn’t join her in the Earl Grey tea. I stuck with my standby, English Breakfast. Giulia would have had a field day with all the brownies.
After tea I threw a small load into the washer. It should be done before we go off to dinner. Going to the Compass Rose tonight to try the ginger noodles which were demonstrated at the cooking class. We went to the Compass Rose for dinner and ordered just the Chinese Firecracker Noodles. It is a bit interesting to go to a restaurant and just order one dish. If feels kind a like something you just simply do. Here it isn’t so strange. There is no bill and no tip, so you can’t really insult anyone by not letting them earn their keep or cheating out on their tip.
The Chinese Firecracker Noodles as prepared by the staff at the Compass Rose didn’t have much of an aroma and the taste was a little subdued. There maybe a conspiracy to try and keep everything mild and thus perhaps appealing to a larger group of guests. Again we’ll see how we do in Sonoma. We’ll be sure to use rice noodles.
Buonanotte e ciao, Enrico.
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