26th August 2016

Sea Day Partly Cloudy Temp 27c Medium Swell 30 knot wind

Motion of the Ocean made sleep difficult last night but a sleeping tablet fixed that. After breakfast rather than return to our cabin to read or whatever we went down to deck 5 where it was much more comfortable, confirming that if movement of the ship worries you, you should always get a cabin as low as possible and towards the middle of the ship. It normally does not worry us and in any case Minisuites are only on deck 10 and we like a Minisuite. I went to Geoff Gray’s lecture “Troubles in Paradise, Pacific Micro States. He spoke of the many smaller island states in the Pacific Ocean who suffer from their isolation, small populations, poor government and health problems. Some of them will suffer from Climate Change as the ocean rises. It was again a very interesting lecture. In the afternoon there was programmed line dancing but as it was in the Vista Lounge at the rear of the ship and the ship was moving around we decided against going. It not the Country Line Dancing that we like so it did not take much for us to decide not to go. Showtime tonight for us was to go to the Vista Lounge to see Patrick Murray a Ventriloquist perform with his Caribbean doll Matilda. He is the best Ventriloquist we have seen in a long time. He never missed a beat changing from a normal US accent to a Caribbean one and he had us rolling around with laughter. In Bora Bora there is a bar called Bloody Mary’s which has become famous mainly because a few celebrities have visited there. Matilda said there are lots of memorabilia hanging from the walls including a boomerang. One day a guy walked in and swallowed the boomerang, Patrick asked her “Did they throw him out” Matilda “28 times”. That’s the only joke I can remember, but there were lots more. Afterwards just Betty and I went for a Hot Chocolate and a listen to Darren Bethell who had his CDs out tonight so I bought one as we like his music.