At sea
Seasickness and other Consequences
The 6:30 breakfast delivery wasn’t a mistake, but all that wine was. I woke up to the alarm at 6:15 with a combination hangover/sea sick feeling that wasn’t good at all. Chris wasn’t feeling too bad. We managed to get up and straighten the room a bit in preparation for room service.
Breakfast arrived promptly at 6:30, and the waiter set it up for us on our balcony. We had eggs, bacon, toast, coffee, and tea. It was quite good, despite the shabby way I felt. I felt better lying down than standing or sitting, so I went back to bed while Chris headed out by herself. I ended up sleeping until 10:30. I felt better then and worked on our trip journal for a while.
While I snoozed, Chris worked on a jigsaw puzzle that had been set up in a corridor on deck six. It was a pretty difficult puzzle. It depicted two dolphins leaping from water, but most of the picture is a blank sunset sky that gradually shifted from yellowish-gray at the bottom to brownish-gray at the top. As Chris worked, many people stopped by to comment, but none of them helped her with it. She managed to get the dolphins and the water completed, but the sky was slow going.
At noon Chris came back to the room and we went up to Le Grill for lunch. I just had pasta, but it wouldn’t settle. I picked up some Dramamine at reception and took a capsule. I felt much better after about half an hour, but I got drowsy again. Chris went back to her puzzle, and I typed some more.
Happiness is a Hot Stone
At 1:45 I put away the laptop and joined Chris at the puzzle. A few minutes later we walked up the hallway to the spa for our 2:00 massage appointments.
The massages were heavenly. We both chose hot stone massages combined with Swedish massage. We each had a private room and our personal masseuse. The masseuse placed the hot stones on top of a towel on my back and then started massaging my legs. She used two warm, smooth stones to knead my muscles. The sensation felt like she was pushing a wave of hot oil along my legs and it wasn’t cooling off. I’d never felt anything quite like it. From my legs, she moved to my shoulders and back, then to my arms. When I turned over, she placed more warm stones on my chest and one under each shoulder. She then kneaded the fronts of my legs, and gently massaged my face and scalp. The 50 minutes passed far too quickly.
Chris’s experience was nearly identical to mine, but it seems her stones were hotter. She needed a second towel under them. The ones under her shoulders actually left mild burns on her shoulder blades. I noticed the marks later in the afternoon, but Chris said they didn’t hurt. We went to the spa to see if they could do anything about the marks. They put some kind of oil on them, and they dissipated over the course of the evening.
After my massage, I returned to the room where I ran a hot bath. Chris took her book up to the poolside. While she read, I had a good, relaxing soak, feeling less seasick every minute.
Tea and Enlightenment
At 4:00 Chris returned to the room and showered. That’s when I noticed the burn marks. On our way to the spa, we passed some of the Les Guaguines women setting out pareos and appliquéd cloths in the corridor. Chris looked through them and asked prices. They were very reasonably priced, so she bought two pareos and two decorative pillow covers.
After the short stop at the spa, we climbed back up to La Palette for tea. We each had some herbal tea and finger sandwiches. I continued to feel better.
At 6:00 we went to the Grand Salon for a talk given by Mark Eddowes on Polynesian culture at the time of Captain Cook’s voyage.
We had a light and quiet dinner at a table for two at L’Etoile. We were both very tired from our long lazy day. We skipped the piano bar and the night show – a clarinetist named Pete Neighbour. We went straight back to the room, watched about twenty minutes of The Incredibles DVD and went to bed. By 9:15 we were both fast asleep.