Gismo Queen and her King

We were supposed to anchor at about 8am this morning, just off Lifou on Loyalty Island, but it was only 6:30am when I was awoken by sounds just outside our porthole and when I peered outside, I could see a boat being lowered into the water from above us. This ship has four tenders it uses to ferry passengers back and forth and two went past our porthole very early! Still, we didn't see the need to hurry. The ship was spending all day at anchor in Lifou but there are no formal shore excursions organised so we had the day to do whatever we wanted. It was best to go to the island as there were no musical acts playing on board.

However, the rough seas and wind slowed down the boarding of the tenders so it was well after 11am before we boarded our tender and motored our way to the jetty at Lifou. The water was gloriously blue and the sun was nice, although the wind that has been following us this entire trip (and still must be - as I write this the ship is rocking from side to side) was very persistent. We walked up the jetty and the hill to the market stall, which was in a very basic shed. As we walked around the few stalls, there were also some musical performers and dancers, and some tours. We thought it a good idea to see some more of the island so we booked a 45 minute bus tour, which we thought would be good for Greg with a commentary. While waiting, we chatted to a few of our compatriots and then boarded the mini bus with an older man who didn't really speak English, and instead he just drove us to our 3 stops and let us out at each one for a 10 minute stop!! So I did lots of describing to Greg. It's quite a poor place, with basic huts and seemingly limited infrastructure. The jungle is very verdant and grows over anything that isn't maintained.

Our first stop was a traditional thatched and domed hut, whcih must have been used for communal purposes. This was quite a modern one though. It was also interesting to note the volcanic rocks used to make drywall fences. Our second stop was at a boat ramp which was some sort of old recreational area. The view back out over the harbour was lovely! Our third stop was the Catholic Church (a little rundown, with stained glass windows damaged in the last cyclone) which also enabled us to walk down to a little bluff overlooking the harbour, the jetty and our ship (which looked really small from this height!).

Our 45 minute tour turned into an hour sonas we got back to the waterfront, we thought we'd support the local economy a little more by having a snack at a very basic little cafe. We ran into some lovely people from Bundaberg who we'd had breakfast with so we had a beer with them (no food left!) before heading back to the ship for anvery late lunch (4pm!). It was then rest time before the big show tonight.

The McClymonts were performing tonight so we made our way to our usual seats early ( the theater fills up even earlier these days!) and enjoyed the girls singing very much. They are just back to performing after one of them had a baby and this was their first Cruisin Country. It was a great show.

Greg wiled away the hour before dinner in the casino and made a tidy profit. We then went up to dinner and had a good meal, with lots of chatter with our waiters, including the lovely Mariska from South Africa who started her shift on Friday when we boarded the ship but she doesn't go home again until May 1st next year!!

We did a quick walk past some of the venues on our way backut Greg wasn't really intested in any of the performances tonight so we headed back to our room by 11pm, to get a good night's sleep before Vanuatu tomorrow.

Returning to our room tonight we marvelled at this elephant creation our room attendant had left us. Both he and our assistant waiter in the main dining room are very clever at folding cloth into animals. For about half an hour tonight, we were the only two (out of ten!) at our table at dinner so the waietr was talking to us. He is a charming young man from Bali and he asked us if we were on our honeymoon (he must have thought we looked young!!) but when we said no, he said we needed to keep the romance alive so he folded us a rose out of a serviette and placed in a glass on our table. We thought that was good but as he cleared our dinner plates and asked Greg how the garlic prawns were, and Greg said they weren't big enough and that they should have been lobster, our waiter came back 5 minutes later with two serviettes folded to make a lobster. They are lovely people who go out of their way to make you feel special.