Today is dedicated to my sponsor on this trip: McSpadden Dulcimers in Mountain View. Let me tell you, there are no mountains on this atoll of Rangiroa, French Polynesia but, there is a great view. The Pacific Ocean, the sky-blue calm water inside the vast atoll and crashing high waves outside the ring. I also will show you the extremely narrow channel this big ship went through to get here.
I took my dulcimer, "Jelly" (short for Magellen) to the beaches, hung out and played. Many of the ship's passengers stopped to listen and I handed out my cards with McSpadden contact information on the back. There were also quite a few locals, mostly teenagers that came by. I let one, Lewis, try to play the dulcimer but he found it a bit ackward. He was smiling the whole time and even took some close-up video of my hands while I was playing.
Lewis
Nice Beach House.
A contrast. Locals watching ship from the shade of a tree right on their beach.
One of the things I noticed walking around the atoll: there was very little noise except the background of the waves hitting the beach. No traffic noises. Most of the locals rode bicycles. No sounds of air conditioners running. All the houses had wide open doors and windows, many had lovered glass windows, all open. You could hear people talkig in their homes, laughter and music from inside.
The temperature different between shade and open sunlight was substancial. There were plenty of dogs and had their shady spots, dug in under a table or bush.
Also noticible was that almost everyone on the atoll was a smoker, adults and teenagers. I saw almost no smokers on the other islands.
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Today I went to a presentation on the ship by Gabe Abelson, a comedian and writer nominated for 5 Emmys, best known for his work writing for David Letterman. He also wrote for Jay Leno, Craig Kilborn and many others. I mention all this because he volunteered and spent time helping with some of my writing a few days ago. And, no: I'm not any funnier than I was before. He did two shows on board, the first was a great comedy routine. Then a few nights later he kicked it up another level by doing mind-reading on stage.
He uses the same techniques we use in interrogating suspects. He uses body language, mirco-expressions and logic to figure out specific things he is not told. Like, what was your first dog's name, your high school girlfriend's name or just which hand are you holding a key in you switched around behind your back. He was even able to unlock my friend's iPhone by figuring out his passcode.
He catches everything. He could have been a great interogator and may do some work for a police agency. I believe it. He is that good. He was also kind enough to show me some (not all) of the mechcanics of some of it. He is very smooth at influencing a person's choices and thought process. Really. That and a quick memory - he's good. Very good.
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Well, Insignia, this big ol' ship was anchoed up inside this atoll. The channel out was so narrow, I was suprized we didn't need tugs. I might have been that I don't think the tugs would have fit on either side of the ship without hitting coral. Here are a few more photos:
See the Pacific on the far side of the thin slice of atoll thsurounded us? Then we headed in a S-shaped twist to get to the tiny narrow channel out that we could see large waves breaking acoss our path out. The water had to be breaking on something. It was pretty big to produce those breakers in front of us but, we got through.'
This how close we where on both sides. That is the wash from the bow next to the bulk of the ship, not the wake spreading out behind us. We obviously made it and I didn't hear any scrapping noises as we slipped though.
