Sea Day 5 of 9 – Easter Island

That may be the worst night’s sleep I have had in a long time.

26 in the shade today. And the sea is a startling shade of bright cobalt blue that is even less feasible than previous incarnations.

Got up at some unhealthy hour to see Easter Island. Didn’t see much. It looks very beautiful, despite humans mucking up the ecology by chopping down all the trees, much as they did on Dartmoor. We did not see many Mooai – I have a few blurry shots – but hopefully the ship’s photographers had more powerful lenses and got some decent photos from 1.5 miles out. There seems to be quite a lot of anger among the passengers that we (a) didn’t land, as originally advertised (b) only stayed three hours in total instead of going around for a while, as we did at the Horn, but you are totally powerless and at the whim of P&O, who clearly have no clue how badly people want to see this place, and neither, it seems, do they much care.

I asked for pasta for lunch. There wasn’t any GF pasta, for some reason, despite previous promises, so my poor pet head waiter went down to the stores himself to get some (unbeknownst to me). Then he found out that the Bolognese had flour in – who the heck puts flour in Bolognese?! So that had to be made for me from scratch as well. I felt really bad for putting him to so much trouble, but he keeps insisting that it is his job to make me happy. He seems to be the only person on this ship who really grasps the concept of customer care. He is the saving grace of the staff on this ship. The rest should be ashamed of themselves. I was so grateful, I wolfed it down without letting it cool down properly, and then I overheated and ended up dripping with sweat, despite the air conditioning! My own silly fault – it’s not like I don’t know how my body temperature will behave – but it was very yummy.

I was so tired (and warm), that I fell asleep at the table, so I went back to my cabin for a siesta, and then a shower before dinner with Michael. I have finally succeeded in finding cold water on the shower settings, but even on the very coldest setting possible, the warm still fights through sometimes, and I have to jump out of the way. The remnants of my sunburn were very grateful for the cold water, when it came.  At least it is currently calm enough that I don’t have to sway about to find the cold every few seconds. It was bliss.

My left shoulder has started to peel a bit, despite my application of copious amounts of aftersun and moisturiser.

I gave dad his Valentine’s Day card yesterday to sign for mum, while she wasn’t around, and mum did his today. I will deliver them tonight. Neither of them offered to pay me for them!

Have just seen a thing on the BBC World News that a salmonella outbreak in California was traced to a frog breeding facility. A what?! What on Earth does a frog breeding facility do with its product? Is there a big demand for frogs?! And how does a frog breeding facility come to have salmonella in the first place, then let it get out, and then spread it to the wider community? This is all very odd. Will have to go to the BBC Healthcheck website and find out if I have misheard or misunderstood.

UPDATE: Dinner with Michael was very pleasant. The food was fine, if not spectacular – my steak was a little over-cooked, and he said his seafood was quite bland – the conversation flowed and we got on really well. And he paid for everything. A lovely evening. We parted company after three hours, which is a very relaxed pace for a ship-board meal.