Corregidor...

Friday, February 28. Hot Humid, great day.

First of all, in complete contrast to our day. "What a wonderful life!" We have just returned from a nine hour day in sweltering heat and are welcomed back on board our Floating Air Conditioned Palace. On the way to our cabin around 6.00 PM, we pick up some jumbo prawns and some corn chips to tide us over till we eat. In our cabin our laundry is laid out on our bed in a wicker basket: ironed pyjamas! I open the fridge and pull out a cool Chardonnay that we never finished a few days ago and savour the taste. We decide to have room service and consult the menu that was left in our room this morning and had a lovely dinner on our balcony overlooking Manila Bay. Now what is wrong with this scene? Nothing! I can hardly believe we are experiencing it.

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Now, down to the day's happenings. We were taken by bus to a Ferry Dock some 1 1/2 mile from the ship. We were three buses from the Amsterdam with about 120 people who joined other people totalling about 250 on the 1 1/2 hour ride across manila Bay to Corregidor.

Corregidor was the last hold-out of US and Filipino forces who defended the Island for five months after Pearl Harbour. They had to surrender as they were finally out of ammunition and medical supplies and the Bataan Death March ensued somewhat later. It was a place of utter despair, defeat, misery, cruelty and human endurance. Three years later the Americans liberated the place and the ensuing battle was brief but brutal. Bringing to justice the Japanese leaders who committed untold cruelty was pursued and many were executed. Enough. 

Today, for us, was long, hot, and humid. At times, anger flashed through my mind at the atrocities and cruelty that man has to man. However, forgiveness is a human trait and so, we carry on.

Corregidor is one of those names burned into my mind along with Ypres, Vimy Ridge, Verdun, The Somme, Paschendale, Gallipoli, Dieppe, Sicily, and Normandy. Glad I went.

Our day in pictures…

Pics:

1 and 2, welcome to Manila.

Off we go, Manila in the background and onto our little open buses for the next few hours, stopping along the way.

Bombed out barracks, guns, guns, and more guns.

Japanese Memorial.

Malinta Tunnel. A place of absolute horror.

Lunch at The Officers Club.

Doug at the Japanese Memorial Gardens.

Plan of the Malinta Tunnel, where the hospital and Headquarters ended up. 

Remains of a Battery Door.

Fellette and a couple of handsome Filipino Security Cowboys!

All Quiet On The Western Front...

Thursday, February 27. Warm, a bit humid and smooth as a mill pond today.

Around dawn this morning we started the passage through the Philippines. The island of Luzon is on the north and we could see a series of islands on the left as we made the approach from the west. It was unbelievably calm today after a few rough days. It was so lovely out there that we had our morning coffee and tea on the deck. Following that we did our exercise routine on the deck and then had breakfast and the start of the day. All day we have been within sight of land on the right side as we turned north heading for Manila Bay and our dock.

The Philippines is home to a large number of the crew, although most are Indonesian. The ship is very generous and accommodating to the crew in a home port as tomorrow. Wives, sweethearts, family and kids will be aboard and seeing the ship with the crew tomorrow. There will be large banquet facilities set up down in the bowels of the ship and many a Filipino kid will certainly have his share of ice cream tomorrow. I hope we get back in time to see some of them although our trip is 8 1/2 hours duration.

We are in Manila for two days as a result of one stop, Cebu, being avoided because of the terrible damage done there late last year. We have been here three times before and are not too keen on Manila as it is terribly busy, large and in some places a filthy place. Tomorrow is our trip to Corregidor, which is the place where the US surrendered to the Japanese in 1942. It is a bit of a shrine for Americans and I can understand it. We have a couple of WW II vets on board and a great deal of the men have served in the forces, much more so than Canadians or Brits. The Land of The Free comes with a price and we also expect them to be the Policeman to the World.

The next day in Manila is a domestic day for us and the Cutlers as we have not had a chance to get any cabin shopping done really, since we left Fort Lauderdale two months ago. The list runs from haircuts to dental floss. After that we have only one sea day before Hong Kong. At Hong Kong we are then at day 58, more than half way through the cruise, and then we turn south and head in the general direction of South Africa although that is still four weeks away.

Pics:

First peek at the Philippines today.

Coffee and tea.

Warm up for exercise class.

Distant view of a nasty volcano.

Last two: The wake of the ship on very calm seas, a rare sight.

Slow boat to China...

Wednesday, February 26. High overcast, calm seas, warm.

We are now seven hours behind Pacific Coast time, but a day ahead most of the time. We awake at 6.00, so it is 1.00 in the afternoon at home. I was wrong in an earlier statement regarding time, we have now had a total of 10 hours in time changes since we left the EAST coast of North America.

I spoke to the captain last night at a reception and he indicated that the seas we were experiencing last night were classified as 'rough', not 'slight sea'. It makes me feel better as in the middle of the night I heard a tremendous crash and rumble, so much so that I thought the front of the ship must have been bent or even sheared off! It must have been a dream because when I looked out this morning it was still there, intact!

We went to a 50th Wedding Anniversary party after dinner for a mutual friend of the Cutler's, and we had crossed paths with  some six years ago on a cruise. My gosh it seems that half the passenger list was there and so were many, many of the officers. They indicated that they had more friends aboard, than at home. Nice way to celebrate I must say.

Mother nature is having quite a time in North America this year it seems. Son Craig sent a picture of his new home with it's first dump of snow on his new roof. Also our House Sitter, Emily sent a picture of our back garden through the window in the kitchen. Jeanette also sent some pictures of the snow, that is fast disappearing. Nice to see, doubly so: it will slow the early spring down a bit, and it makes us glad we are in 82F weather on a cruise ship.

Looking at today's programme guide, I see that we all have to have our temperatures checked by Philippine authorities tonight before dinner so we can be allowed to visit their country. Hmmmm, let's all assume it is an oral check eh!

It's a Formal night tonight, the ninth to date, about nine more to go. We usually start in the Crow's Nest for a drink with Jim and Gail. It is very easy to drink too much on such a cruise, and many people do, the ship certainly gives you every opportunity to do so as well, however Fellette does not drink and I restrict myself to no more than two a night, if that. 

Port lecturer, Barbara, gave a very good but abbreviated talk and presentation on the War in The Pacific today. No matter how much you read or hear, there is always something new that you come away with. In Manila we are off to Corregidor for the first day. These battle areas can be a bit hard to take but somehow, we want to stand on the very ground that some of those epics took place at. War cemeteries are about the worst, particularly when one sees the ages of these guys; so young.

Another sea day tomorrow and then Manila for two days.

Pics:

Son Craig's new house and it's first snow.

View from our kitchen through the patio out to the workshop, note the snow on the glass roof.

House sitter Emily saying goodbye in early January.

Captain Jonathan Mercer, Jan and Dick Yetke, 50 years married.

Grandson Nathan, at Sun Peaks a few weeks ago, turned 19 today.

Daughter Jeanette and Robert's farm garden at rest under the new snow.

Photos...

Nice to hear from you and some of you who send photos to us, we appreciate seeing them, really.

However, please watch what SIZE you send them! The internet is terrible and if anything other than SMALL is sent it takes forever to download, I mean like 10 minutes!

So please if you send a photo, make it small, that is why all the photos that I send to the blog are SMALL.

Thanks, Doug 

And now for something completely different...

Tuesday, February 25. Rocking and rolling in the Philippine sea.

We have not seen the sun for several days now, it is still warm, [the air 84F the sea 82], but there has been a sea of white above, with some sky seen occasionally, and the horizon a bit of a misty blur the whole time since PNG, [Papua New Guinea]. It certainly is easier to type PNG than the full name of that country, I can see why it was abbreviated.

We are plugging along at around 18 knots with another 800 miles to go to Manila. The stabilizers are fully engaged, according to the captain, and I would fear to be aboard if they were not. There are no vomit bags in the stairwells yet but methinks there are many people staying in their cabins in the prone position.

The ship is rolling, [side to side] as well as pitching, [plunging up and down lengthwise], it is also having its bow pushed left to right so there is no one steady motion to contend with and walking in the stairwells is a bit of a challenge. However I see on the TV ship's navigation channel that it is classified as a 'slight sea', but that was at 1.30 and it is now 4.10. We have 11 to 13 foot waves now, so maybe I am not a good a sailor as I think I am! 

We are on deck seven which is quite high so it feels the rolling quite a bit more but right now the best place to be is on A deck, which is one below deck one, and oddly enough, that is where the ship's hospital and medical department happens to be. They are located there so for a variety of reasons but one is so that they can evacuate you off the ship easily without elevators or stairs to contend with as it is a loading level. To date, 12 people have been taken off and sent home for medical reasons, plus their spouses I can only assume but maybe it is only six. That is why people but trip interruption insurance.

I have taken the liberty of showing what Gail has accomplished and is learning to do in her spare time while aboard. She attends a watercolour class on sea days. Gail has done this before and I think that she is catching on and doing very nicely.

This evening after dinner we are attending a 50th Wedding Anniversary Reception for a couple that are a common friend of Jim and Gail and Fellette knew from the choir on the 2008 cruise.

Nothing else to report, just another restful day at sea.

Pics:

The view to the bow from our balcony. Looks are deceiving, it is rough out there.

The TV navigation channel. Note the sea depth, 19,000 feet, somewhat over my head. Also the wind, 38 knots, rather brisk.

Three of Gail's pastime achievements.

What the heck is Yap Island all about?

Monday, February 24. Warm, humid. [Day 51 of 113]

I just received the good news from Craig that Canada won the Men's Hockey Gold! The women also won gold, so to most Canadians that means we won the games, believe it or not. All the other sports are important of course, but the hockey games are near and dear to our hearts, like cricket to the UK or Australia.

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Yap Islands: Is a group of four islands In the middle of the Caroline Islands west of the Philippines. They were given to Spain by the Pope in a dispute with Germany ages ago. It was a Japanese trust at the start of WWII and was eventually to be pivotal to Victory in the Pacific. It is a very tiny island yet more than 1000 US ships were anchored in it's lagoons during that conflict. 

It is also the home of Stone Money, usually the size of auto tires but some the size of a car. The money was not transported around but merely represented the value that it was designated with. The idea never caught on obviously. Now the stones have a traditional value more than the monetary aspect of it.

The islands are now an independent country using US$ as its official currency and it has a Free Association with the US which enables Yaps, or I suppose, Yapoleans or maybe Yapanese, to get in the US without visas etc. and to attend universities without restrictions. In return [?]  the US is responsible for the defence of those Islands.

We visited The Old Airfield that was Japanese and then American during WWII. It is now just a long clearing in the bush. If you take a minute while there and try to imagine all the activity that went on there during the war, it is not hard to imagine the scene.

There is an interesting situation here regarding modesty: A women is considered improper to show her thighs, yet bared bosoms are not. It was not uncommon today to see natives walking about in the stores with grass skirts and no top. Unfortunately some women have taken to the beetle-nut chewing and subsequently, spitting. A difficult combination of femininity to imagine I know!

We had an interesting morning ashore today, we went on an independent tour with us four in the front of a small pick-up with two other passengers in the back of the pick-up. It was not a spectacular excursion but we did see lots of stone money, a wrecked bomber in the jungle and a few other interesting sights. It seems that there is a coastal road, paved, with dirt roads leading off into the bush where there are villages some few hundred yards in the bush where family groups live, parents, uncles, cousins etc. When a woman marries she goes to her husbands village and is eventually buried in that village's cemetery. The predominant religion is Catholic.

There were two wrecked aircraft we came across today. One was a US F6F Hellcat from the US carrier Enterprise. It was shot down September 6, 1944. The other, in the bush, looks like a larger plane of some sort, likely American from a bit later era. 

A good day, but not a great day. Next is three days at sea to Manila, the Philippines, for a two day stay.

Pics:

Fellette finally has her face on money.

Next three, Jim, Gail and Doug with various coins.

Next two, more money.

Jim on a brief canoe ride in the lagoon.

Dancers in the park by the ship in the afternoon. [Jim and Gail went].

The Grummand.

Next two the US aircraft.

Our driver and car on the old airfield.

A Yap licence plate.