Yesterday was Mardi Gras. One of the residents made himself the Mardi Gras king.

Today is Valentine’s day as well as Ash Wednesday. If you are in the Australian tourist industry, this is the low season. We visited Exmouth, a very small town of about 1,000 people during the low season, 20,000 in the high season. Their harbor has a lot of very big boats. I think there might be more boats than people this time of year. We took an excursion on a glass bottom boat. Exmouth’s reef is the world’s second largest (behind the great barrier reef) and the world’s largest fringing reef. It is also the world’s healthiest reef of any kind, thanks to generally low ocean temperatures. We saw a lot of sea life — a large oyster, a sea turtle, a sea snake, two sharks, a ray, and of course a lot of fish. The pictures turned out to be quite poor, but here’s one “we were there” shot.

I haven’t written about our evening entertainment. The shows are usually good. There’s a ship’s backup band when needed to support a soloist. They are quite good and very professional. Usually they play John Denver or Broadway or some other simple music. Recently we had a soloist sax player. This guy is remarkable because he likes very complex Latin rhythms. It seemed to me the backup band perked up and had a lot of fun with this. Especially remarkable is the drummer. He’s from Argentina. He was never early, never late, never missed a lick. And he was obviously enjoying himself immensely. So was I.

Tomorrow is another sea day. I hope this finds everybody doing well.

When I type up these blogs, I sometimes make mistakes. For example, Brittan sent the HMS Pandora to find the Bounty mutineers, not the USS Bounty. I don’t correct these mistakes because it just doesn’t matter all that much. But I will acknowledge and correct an error in my previous blog. I am told that the snorkels on the SUVs are very useful in this area. The difference between high tide in the rainy season and low tide when it’s dry is enormous. Locals who want to go to the back country when the water level is up sometimes drive through areas so deep that their headlights are under water. I didn’t see any mud on the trucks because the rains haven’t started and everything is still dry. I yield my opinion to the local source.

Broome is a very small town. Back in the day, pearl shells were big business. There was a lot of them, but they were all at the bottom of the bay. Men called luggers came from Japan, Indonesia, and other areas to work as luggers. Many of the men decided to settle down and marry an indigenous woman. The result is there is a substantial population of mixed heritage people.

The first stop on our tour was Cable Beach. It got its name from the undersea cable that started at this beach and ran out to somewhere in Indonesia. There are two interesting points to this picture, which you can’t see no matter how closely you look, so I’ll have to go the thousand word route. The area is filled with dinosaur tracks from 350 million years ago. You might think they should be large and easy to see. They are large, but they are only visible during low tide. The tracks are towards the left side of the picture, under the water. The second thing you can’t see is that in spite of the nice weather, there is only one person swimming in the cove. Locals know that poisonous jelly fish float in this time of year, and crocs are more active due to it being mating season. There are two warning signs posted about croc sightings. Only one person wants to ignore the warning.

Streeter’s pier was built to make it easier to transport pearl shells. That activity no longer exists, but the locals keep the pier in good repair for recreational uses. If you look closely, you can’t tell the pier is at least 20 feet above the mud below. The tide was coming in when we were there. By the time we left, the pier was just above the water.

Since the water level was still low when we were at the pier, we could see fiddler crabs in the mud below. They are quite small, but that doesn’t keep the males from being delighted with the size of their one large claw. They love waving it around to threaten other males and attract females. This time, you don’t have to look very closely to see an orange fiddler crab strutting himself.

Our last interesting pic is of a pearl shell. Our guide said it would yield 60 t0 70 buttons. Believe it or not, this was the primary use for pearl shells all the way up through the late 50s, when synthetic materials took over.

That’s it for this port. Tomorrow is a sea day. Our next stop is even smaller than Broome.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.

Darwin is one of the two towns in the Australian Northern Territory. I didn’t expect it to be very interesting, but it turned out too be a lot of fun. What was not fun was Covid, which I got. I thought I had a cold, but I took the Covid test as a precaution. ‘Turns out, it was the real deal. The medical staff quarantined me for three days. We originally requested a Lanai room, which I thought I preferred to a balcony. (I know — a jarring seeming non sequitur. Stay with me.) We were offered the upgrade free. Danita really wanted it. I went along. Now I know there can be significant advantages to having a balcony. I would have gone nuts in a Lanai room. Passengers getting Covid is nothing new to Holland America. They extended us several comforts. And since my quarantine was mostly on sea days, I didn’t miss much. But really, somebody who wasn’t wearing masks would have more richly deserved those precious comforts. Our Creative Writing Workshop sent me wishes for a speedy recovery. That was nice.

The Japanese bombed Darwin. They dropped more bombs here than they did at Pearl Harbor. One of the things that made Darwin an important target was the presence of the sole under water communication line. It connected Singapore to Australia, then on to New Zeeland. If they had succeeded in destroying that line, Australia would be basically out of the war for lack of communication. Darwin was well along in recovering from WW II when they were hit by cyclone Tracy in 1975. Even people who are too young to remember 1975 are well aware of what happened. Just about the only thing left standing after that cyclone were these walls from city hall. Just about everything else was totally destroyed.

One of the more unusual things I noticed in Darwin is brand new very large SUVs with snorkels. You can see the black snorkel on the side of this SUV, just above the side view mirror. The snorkel trucks I saw were all brand new looking with no evidence of mud or other off-road use. I concluded this is Darwin’s answer to a gun rack in the rear window with an “Insured by Smith and Wesson” sticker on the bumper.

One of the kitschy attractions is Crocodile World. They have some big ones. If you wish, they will put you in a plexiglass cylinder and lower you into the croc tank. They take your pic with an under water camera. They guarantee a dramatic pic. They certainly should. It cost $185 to get the pic. After you pay the hefty admission. My joke is, “They charge $185 to get you in. I wonder what they charge to get you out?

Tomorrow is a sea day. It’s a high speed run to Broome. Timing at Broome is critical because the ship cannot enter or leave the harbor during low tide. This could be quite interesting.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.

When I wrote last, I said we were going to Darwin. That is still true, but I didn’t realize we were going to Komodo Island first. There are several hundred people living on Komodo island. They have no water filtration, sanitation, electricity, internet, or phone service. Our tour took us to see the dragons, not the village.

We saw real Komodo Dragons lazing around on the ground with nothing separating us other than a few feet of space. The guides understood dragon behavior very well and did a good job of keeping us safe. The dragons were wild in that they had to catch their own food. But the clever islanders installed a watering hole which pretty much guarantees there will be a few dragons hanging around.

It was extremely hot — 95 with a heat index of about 105. After we saw the dragons at the watering hole, we were given the option of taking a hike to see if we could find more dragons or wildlife. This was a bad move for us. We should have turned down the extra hike. We were both completely wiped by the heat and the hike. And there were no additional dragons.

We got back to the ship, drank water, and showered. Then we watched a movie because we were too tired to do anything else.

Tomorrow is a sea day. We will arrive in Darwin in two days. I hope this finds everybody doing well.

Cairns is an industrial town that is also very popular with tourists. The main attraction for most tourists is the reef. I’m not good in the water. We took an excursion that showed us the rain forest and the aborigines.

We started with a small zoo that had a few popular Australian animals.

Then we got into a WW II Duck boat and rode a path through the rain forest. This is reputed to be the oldest rain forest in the world. Our guide pointed out several species of plant that has been hanging around more or less unchanged for the last 350 million years. Along the way he pointed out plenty of plants that can be extremely painful if you brush up against them. The star was dendrocnide moroides, also known as the suicide plant, stinging tree, stinging bush, or gympie-gympie. In addition to the “usual” clinging and cutting, this plant dispenses a neurotoxin which causes extreme pain for about three months. We could have easily reached out and touched it. Everybody was being very good about keeping their hands in the boat.

The final part of the day was about the aborigines. They demonstrated dances, instruments, and weapons. Everybody got the chance to throw a boomerang. A couple of men did a credible job.

We will spend four days at sea, going through the barrier reef at Torres Strait. We are using a reef pilot to get us through safely. One gets the idea that Australia has lots of ways to kill us. If we make it through, our next dock is Darwin.

I hope this finds everybody doing well.

The main economic driver for Townsville City is mining. Ore exports are primarily nickle and zinc — just what you need if you want to manufacture lithium ion batteries. Townsville is a nice town with a wonderfully compact CBT (Central Business District). They apparently have a very active night life. The large number of eateries and pubs doesn’t begin to indicate how wild it must be. Townsville has public rest and recovery rooms available Friday and Saturday nights (and the following mornings). One can go to a room, lock themselves in, and sleep it off. If that doesn’t indicate party town, I don’t know what does.

We decided to explore the city on our own. We spent most of our time at the Museum of Tropical Queensland. Their biggest display was about the mutiny on the Bounty. The shortened version of the short story is that after the mutiny was known, England sent the USS Pandora to find the mutineers and bring them back to justice. The Pandora found 14 men. They didn’t have a large enough brig, so they built a prison box on the stern of the ship and put the men in (wait for it) Pandora’s box. They have an exquisite model of the Pandora. I couldn’t get a decent shot, but even a bad picture is worth a lot of words. If you look closely, you can see Pandora’s box. It has a round hole for ventilation.

The museum had thousands of beautiful stuffed animals, birds, and fake plants to represent wildlife of the area. Queensland includes a tropical forest, which greatly increases the diversity of the wildlife. The highlighted animal was a common wombat named Tonka that became a celebrity, much like the panda bears at the national zoo. It also caught my eye because Danita loves Tonka trucks. The exhibits were beautifully designed and exquisitely created.

On the way back to the ship, we passed the luxury boat harbor. You can clearly see how the sun is pouring heat into the atmosphere, building up an afternoon rain. One thing I have learned. 30 degrees centigrade is hot, hot, hot. No conversion or math is required.

The thing we were most looking forward to is visiting Australia, and we started that today. It’s always nice to start out with a welcome from the aboriginal owners of the land. We got a first-class welcome from a story teller and a didjeridu player.

The thing I most wanted to see in Brisbane is Kinston-Smith’s plane, the Southern Cross. Kingsford-Smith is probably the best pilot from the early days of aviation. He used this Folker tri-motor to gain many of his records, including first to circumnavigate the world crossing the equator and first to fly across the Pacific ocean. The latter was the harder. He and his crew had to navigate to and land on Fiji so they could refuel. This is an incredibly dangerous task, as Amelia Earhart found out. The plane had a crew of 4 — engineer and navigator in the back, pilot and copilot in the front. They couldn’t see each other because there was a huge gas tank between them. They communicated by taping a note to a stick and passing it back and forth. I was disappointed that the windows of the exhibit were covered with condensation. But I am glad I was able to see the plane.

We originally planed to go to the Long Pine Koala Sanctuary. We decided it wasn’t wise to try. It is a bit of a drive. We are on the rainy side of the continent during the rainy season. A cyclone has passed through a few days ago, plus there was a heavy rain overnight last night. We were there at high tide. Some areas had significant flooding. So we dropped that idea and decided to visit the Brisbane museums. The science museum had two highlights. The first is a Box jellyfish. This is one of the most venomous animals in the world.

The other highlight was a display about moth wings. It turns out their wings are not smooth. They are covered with 200 nm spikes that can penetrate the cell membrane of a bacteria, rupturing the cell. It’s a pretty cool idea.

The last surprise of the day was a tour of the art museum given by Greg. We were the only two who wanted the 1:00 tour. The highlight was a description of dot art. Aborigines use art to tell dreamings. But only men can se the men’s dreamings, and only women can see the women’s. How could they exhibit the art? The solution was to hide the dreaming under dots. A man can see the art and understand the dreaming. Anybody else can’t see the dreaming but can appreciate the art.

Tomorrow is a sea day. I hope everybody is doing well.

New Caledonia is different than the other S. Pacific Islands we have visited. I don’t have much of a grasp, but I know that during WW II, the US took over the island and made it a supply depot. There were more than a million GIs plus various Australians and New Zelenders. They quickly overwhelmed the 55,000 Kanuk (as the island natives are called). There was some kind of a “free the natives” movement in the 1960s. One of the leaders was Tjibaou. He was assonated. Later the populous built the Tjibaou Cultural Center.

Much of the cultural center is in French, and Google translate does a poor job of letting us read the placards. But we still learned a lot. The one exhibit everybody sees is the Story of Olal, which goes like this:

A long time ago, all the men wanted to have sex with an Olal woman who enjoyed love making. But his woman didn’t feel well. In all of the north Ambrym villages men spoke of her. In Wisal, a village situated in the region of Willit, a giant with a long penis heard this story. So he went up to Mount Tuvio clearing a path with his penis. Then he ran to Olal to plant his penis into this woman. Carried away by his own momentum, he broke the reef with his penis. Half the reef moved west to Magam whereas the other half went east to Barereo. This is how Olal pass was opened. The giant and the woman threw themselves into the sea. Since then, they both live outside the reef of Olal Bay.

One of the exhibits I enjoyed was a petroglyph often found near the source of water. The spiral is assumed to stand for fertility or fecund crops or something similar. If you go to the website, you sill see a picture of the petroglyph plus a couple of modern art works inspired by the petroglyph.

This Lapita pot helps establish the arrival of the Kanuk in 1200 BC.

We also visited the maritime museum. We saw a lot, but the most unbelievable exhibit was about the La Monique, which went down with all hands. The only item found from the ship is a single life saver. What’s so unusual about a ship going down? This ship went down in 1953. They were equipped with a modern radio and four radio operators. Unfortunately, radio signals were monitored only at specific times. Monitoring was significantly reduced on weekends. If you send an emergency signal and nobody hears it, was the signal ever sent?

We have a couple of sea days. Our next stop is Brisbane, Australia.

Yesterday was Mystery Island. It turns out not to be all that mysterious. There are no inhabitants. The only infrastructure are some pit toilets and an air strip. (I’m not making this up.) When a cruise ship visits, the locals bring items to sell and set up a BBQ. Passengers that like laying in the sand, or swimming, or snorkeling can indulge themselves. Danita and I didn’t see any compelling reason to tender over to the island, so we didn’t.

Today we visited Easo, Lifou. This country was occupied by the French. Inhabitants speak their native language and French. Those who cater to tourists also speak English. The natives seemed to have a lot in common with other S. Pacific islands, but I learned very little about their history or how they govern themselves.

We visited a vanilla farm. The pictures were a disaster from the very beginning. They had a welcoming ceremony that included placing wreathes on our heads. I was all set up to record Danita getting her wreath when I was photo bombed by a young man handing out vanilla beans. Unfortunately, picture taking didn’t improve. They had a kind of zoo of native animals, but I never got a decent picture of even one animal in the deep shade the vanilla plants require. But I learned that they love to trap wild pigs. Not only do they get rid of a very destructive animal, but the village gets an delicious feast.

We learned a lot about vanilla. The plant is the only orchid that makes an edible food. It’s considerably harder to grow than most other orchids. The only way to pollenate the flowers is with the human hand. Plants start producing beans after 3 years, but don’t yield a good crop until 5 years. Insects are a problem. They can’t use chemical sprays, so they developed an insecticide made from tomato leaves, peppers, and other ingredients. Once they are getting a good crop of beans, it takes about a year to turn raw beans into good vanilla beans. The process is very labor intensive and not amenable to automation. I can’t for the life of me imagine how anybody figured out how to get vanilla. Here are a few pics.

We left the wet side of Fiji where we had no rain and sailed to the dry side of Fiji where we had heavy showers in the early morning. Today we took an excursion to a small island that had a lot of coral.

It didn’t take long for the rain to end. Danita and I decided that a glass bottom boat is more our speed than snorkeling. The main thing I learned is that while you can see some amazing things in a glass bottom boat, it’s a lousy place to try to get good pictures. But we did get a couple of pics. Here you see some blue coral. We are told the blue zone indicates coral growth.

Here you see a blue starfish. In this case, the blue color indicates we are looking at a blue star fish. I didn’t know there was such a thing, but we saw several of them today.

Other activities were planned, but nobody wanted to play volleyball. People were snorkeling, swimming, or just relaxing. We had a nice lunch, then returned to our home ship.

Tomorrow is a sea day. Our next port of call is Mystery Island. What an intriguing name.