Day 5 - Day of Learning

We woke up to the full sun beating against the curtains heating up our room. It’s obvious we are getting much closer to Hawaii just from the temperature alone. It’s a balmy 77° and we’ve traveled 1458 nautical miles and have another 950 to go until Hilo.

We decided to attend several lectures this morning that Tikki-Boo, my personal cruise director, had selected the night before. The first was the history of Hawaiian shirts by a lecturer from Vancouver, British Columbia. Not sure how he was selected to lead this lecture but he had done an adequate job with Google and presented the basic facts (the shirts were first created in the mid-1930’s) along with a lot of other information about himself that I really couldn’t have cared less about. I don’t think we need to see another lecture from good ol’ Roy again. Is that harsh? It feels harsh but Roy was a disappointment to be sure.

The next lecture was called “Birds of the Sea” by Celia Garland and we were both super impressed by her presentation style and content. It was a great lecture and I learned more about sea birds than I ever thought necessary but loved every minute of it. So from yesterday’s blog I teased you with the information that Puffins have divided tongues and it creates two compartments within their mouths. One compartment scoops up the fish and the upper compartment holds those fish in place while they continue to scoop up more fish. They then take their collection of fish back to the nest to feed the pufflings. Fascinating lecture! Celia is supposed to be giving another lecture tomorrow and we’ll be sure to be there to learn more about whatever the heck she is going to talk about. We’re Celia groupies at this point.

After lunch, it was back to the room for an afternoon of reading for both of us and me catching up on a few shows on my iPad that I like. And then on to our next lecture because Mum has us hopping! Back to the theater for Amade, which according to the newsletter blurb is an “experience on Mozart and the work of other classical composers inspire, evolve, and connect to modern music” Huh! We’re going to be so stinking smart after this cruise!

Ok - so we are back from Amade and we have so many questions! Like where was the Mozart? Where was the connection to other music? Basically, it was a knock-off Hamilton meets a knock-off Cirque de Soleil with absolutely no Mozart. The talent and the skill of the cast was undeniable but I think they billed it that way to get all the old farts into the theater. We were bamboozled! The indignity of it all. More than a few people walked out in the middle of it. Mum and I exchanged a few looks during the production and had a lot to talk about at dinner.

Back to the cabin for bedtime and for Kiki-Boo to select our activities for tomorrow. Apparently, Elvis is going to be a part of my day. Pray for me.

Aloha from day 5