Day 4, June 30th, 4th Day at Sea, heading for Pitcairn Island
Slice of life scene this morning:
We had another one hour time change this morning. This meant that we were in a hurry to get up to Deck 9 where the walking group meets. There weren’t many of us this morning and a lot of wind. We powered through our laps while listening to the wind, waves, and observing the few people around.
As I rounded for my fourth lap, a 70ish woman was smiling and trying poses for a shot with the ship behind her. In that first base squat and with her big smile, she suddenly looked 20 years younger! By the next lap, the man with her was repositioning her for different shots. Then, he gave his phone to the Tahitian crew member to take a picture of the two of them arm in arm, together.
By the next lap, they were now walking together, doing laps at their own pace. I overheard their conversations and were talking about basic stuff: Where their kids were now, etc. I realized that they had probably just met on board. And at their ages… how charming.
On the next lap, another scene. The Tahitian woman who was supervising our walking, was now leaning down over the raining to Deck 8 and the pool, where Mark, our anthropologist was calling up to her. They were shouting through the wind in Tahitian and whatever he said made her laugh.
Both of these scenes were vignettes were the beginnings of stories on board that were so much deeper. Meanwhile, John and I raced through our laps and were probably a vignette of our own, me holding on to my hat at the same point through the wind on every lap, and John taking the care to make the space as wide as possible to get the most distance he could.
And then to breakfast and the first talk of the day: Photographing the eclipse!
Tomorrow is Pitcairn so much of the social talk is about which group any of us is in and our guess as to whether or not we’ll go ashore.
Dad sent pictures of his 2005 trip aboard this ship for that eclipse. On that trip, they also stopped at Pitcairn and got to go ashore. Terrific pictures. Terrific experience. It’s all terrific and such a gift. We’re getting to know people, which is nice.
This was an unusually free day. Maybe because it’s Saturday and a weekend, or maybe because it is the day before Pitcairn, but we had only two lectures and both were this morning. The first was on how to photograph an eclipse. And the second was on Black Holes. Both were fabulous. We had lunch with Ellen and Mike from Connecticut (she’s a Biochemistry professor), and talked extensively about all photography options for next Tuesday. John has lots of ideas, but plans to take just a few photos and mostly just enjoy the event.
The black hole talk was also wonderful and very scientific. Lots of illustrations of the bending of the universe and light. I tried to use my new ipen to illustrate it, but ended up making a sort of abstract sketch instead. (I won’t share it.)
So in the afternoon, I spent time running from a relaxing seat on the deck, swimming in the pool as it sloshed with the actually waves, to crafts to weave a bracelet, then off to the Grand Salon to watch “The Bounty” with Mel Gibson (very true to the story Mark gave us yesterday, but bloody, of course.) All the while, John had his own nice day in the room… perhaps the better choice. I just don’t want to miss anything! And there is so much, even on an off-day.
Tomorrow is Pitcairn and we’re signed up for the second boat out. The captain has very strict requirements, so we shall see… (or not see!) Good night.
