Diving in Fiji

  We're in the south Pacific. Some of the best diving in the world. We've done a lot of diving around the world and when people ask me "Where was your favorite?" I respond - Fiji. We were there in 2006. Me, Jim and Mom spent 10 days there on the Nai'a liveaboard dive boat and it was spectacular and fun! 

See our blog posts from 2006. I saved them in .pdf format to preserve the photos.
(Here are the original blog posts: We have to go back to Fiji and Part 1-Diving in Fiji and Part 2 - Diving in Fiji)

This time we joined a group for diving in the Namena Marine Reserve while the ship was anchored in Savusavu. It was a long boat ride to 2 very nice dives. One was called 'chimneys' because of the unusual formation of 2 coral heads sticking straight up and the other was Grand Central Station. I'll remember it more clearly as Grand Canyon for the dramatic walls. It was great, but it didn't live up to my memory. The comparison really isn't fair since, in 2006 we were on a liveaboard for 10 days, making at least 30 dives all over the Fiji area. Still, I figure I'm sure a spoiled diver when I go to a protected dive site in Fiji and come up saying ... "That was nice." 😜

Here's Jim's video:

Fiji Fun

 

We've been in Fiji once before - 2006 on a liveaboard dive boat. More on diving later. This time we're here on the Villa Vie Odyssey, our floating home, and we bounced around the islands for 2 weeks, making 6 stops. 

 

Suva

In Suva, we joined some Odyssean friends, Eve, Carolyn and Andrew, for happy hour at the Grand Pacific Hotel. It was a short taxi ride away from the ship. It was a beautiful evening.

We also visited the American Embassy to get a document notarized and found a lot of our fellow Odysseans already there trying to get new passports with more Visa pages. Yes, it's a thing! In this lifestyle we visit so many countries - 20 so far this year - that the pages in your passport get filled up! If you have no blank pages, your Passport is no good. Our passports were only a year old, but it could get full before another year passes, so we need to pay attention. The big problem is, in order to get a new passport you normally have to surrender your current one. We can't do that. So we are blazing new trails with the procedures of our Dept. of State. Based on what these trailblazers are learning, we will attempt to get new passports when we are in Sydney next February, and we will get the new 52 page booklets rather than our current 25 or so.

A Tropical Embassy!

Lautoka

We didn't make any particular plans in Lautoka. We stayed on the ship and did computer work. But we did take a walk from the ship along the waterfront and found a delightful hotel bar for a drink under the palm trees. 

It's always such a delight to come back home.

Meanwhile, back at the ship, we had a "Speaker's Corner" about staying safe. Some information was about keeping your phone safe and who to contact if you get in trouble. Other information was about self-defense. Our friend, Donna, is trained in the street fighting martial art called Krav Maga, and Silja is a black-belt in Karate. You can see the video recording here: Speakers Corner: Self Awareness - a panel discussion. Regardless of the topic, you can always count on Donna's husband, Wayne, to inject some humor 🤣

Wayne is ready for his wife, Donna, to demonstrate self-defense techniques!

We also had dinner with new friends, Elma and Robert. When we learned that they lived in an RV for 14 years ... in Europe! ... We just had to talk more. So we planned to have dinner in the "Thistle" which is the sit down restaurant on board. We learned that those years were spent working, going from hospital to hospital teaching staff how to operate new radiology equipment. Robert is a radiology imaging specialist and Elma was certified in NeoNatal Intensive care. 14 years! Living in hospital parking lots. But that's not all. They are both of Dutch heritage, but lived in Venezuela, South Africa, and call Paris 'home.' I lost count of the number of languages they speak.

Oh! The People we Meet!

Diving World War II Wrecks

There was a lot of activity in these here parts during WWII. We dove some wrecks near Honiara in the Solomon Islands (Guadalcanal) and in Vanuatu - the largest US base outside of Pearl Harbor. I asked Gemini to tell me all about the major battles of the war and the significance of the particular dive sites we saw. Here's the results - it's well worth the read: Diving into History

Here's a map of where we dove:

Solomon Islands

Guadalcanal is the name of the island that saw heavy fighting during WWII. Our ship docked in Honiara, the capital city of the Solomon islands and we booked 1 day of diving, 2 dives, with Emperor Divers. It was a long, bumpy drive to the first dive, then even more to the second. We generally prefer reefs to wrecks, but with so much history here, it's cool to dive the wrecks. 

The town of Honiara had lots of markets

Roadside stands further out in the country

the final stretch of the drive to the beach where we dove the Hirokawa Maru wreck.

Vanuatu

Vanuatu was not directly involved in any battles but it supplied much of the personnel and equipment to the rest of the South Pacific. The US military base in Vanuatu was second only to Pearl Harbor in size! The wreck we dove, the SS Coolidge, was an American ship with a very sad story. The sinking of the SS President Coolidge is one of the most dramatic "friendly fire" incidents of the war.
The captain had been told to wait outside the harbor for an escort but, due to security, he could not be told why - the the US Navy had heavily mined the channel to stop Japanese submarines from entering. The captain waited a while, but Fear of attack by the Japanese made him press forward before the escort arrived. The ship was blown up by 2 of the mines, but the captain boldly sailed the ship closer to shore and all the soldier/passengers and all the crew were able to reach safety on shore. There were just 2 deaths amongst the over 5,000 souls on board - the man in the engine room who took a direct hit and one soldier who went back to rescue others, then was caught himself. 

It's an impressive dive because it is such a large ship.

Diving the SS Coolidge with Allan Power Dive Tours. They own this property right at the beach dive for the wreck. Nice operation.

If you think the Coolidge story is interesting, wait till you hear about our second dive on Vanuatu! It's called Million Dollar Point. At the end of WWII, the US Military had accumulated tons of of surplus equipment : jeeps, trucks, bulldozers, cranes, and supplies. They offered to sell it all to the French and British colonial authorities for pennies on the dollar.

The local powers, however, were stubborn. They figured they could wait for the Americans to leave and take everything for free. The US military—rather than leave the equipment behind or deal with the logistical nightmare of shipping it back—decided to simply dump it all into the sea over several days in 1945. They used bulldozers to shove it all down a pier and into the ocean, they drove the bulldozers off the pier by putting a brick on the gas pedal, then they blew up the pier! 80 years lalter, it makes for a fascinating dive site.

 

Australia Dancing and Diving

 One day that we were in Cairns, Australia happened to be my birthday. What a treat! 

Cruise Port at Cairns, Australia

On board the ship we have a line-dancing group. They meet and dance every day when we are at sea. They learn new dances, and practice old ones. The teacher is Kathie and she contacted a line-dancing group in Cairns to see if we could have a joint session. 

Here's what happened

Kathie learned when the Cairns line-dancing group meets and where - turns out they dance at Hemmingway's Brewery which just so happens to be right at the cruise ship port! 

Kathie and the Australian dance group leader scheduled that location for a day that the Odyssey would be in port. For more than 2 hours, both Kathie and the Cairns group leader had us all doing line-dances to all sorts of songs. One of them is "Nutbush City Limits" by Tina Turner. I don't quite understand how, but that song is the backdrop for a simple exercise/dance that most everyone in Australia knows how to do. They learn it in grade school - The Nutbush!

The line-dancing group on the Odyssey learned the Nutbush and was prepared to dance it with the Australian dancers while in Cairns. It was GREAT! Then we also learned a couple new (to us) dances and performed them all together. What Fun! I just can't imagine a better way to celebrate my birthday than dancing ... in Australia ... doing an Australian dance ... with a group of Australians. I'm on the other side of the planet from my normal home and I'm having a fantastic time!

Scuba Diving on the Great Barrier Reef

The next day we had booked a full day of diving on the Great Barrier Reef. We dove on the GBR once before in 2019 and, due to bad weather, it wasn't great. We had low expectations therefore and they were definitely exceeded. Our dive buddy friends from the ship, Wayne and Donna,  were also on board for the day and we had a great time. 

Wayne and Donna leading the way with their creative way of transporting their dive gear. 

Lots of life this time

Happy Divers

Going home after a great day of diving!

Yap and Palau - Diving!

Those are island names right out of in-your-dreams dive destinations! We've known of these places, and known fellow divers who have visited (my mom for one!) for many years. 

Yap

Yap is known as the place to go if you want to see manta rays. It is also famous for it's stone money - wheel-shaped rocks that can be 2 to 12 feet across, that are actually used to store a family's wealth. 

Jim was able to get a last minute dive trip in while we were in Yap and he made this video

Palau

Palau is known for it's Rock Islands. They are mushroom shaped bumps above the water, sprinkling the area. Great for kayaking. Also some famous dive sites like Blue Corner, known for it's ripping current where lots of sharks and other critters fly by. The best way to see them is by using a reef hook. You find a solid place in the reef to hook into and attach the other end of the line to your gear. Then you put a little air in your BC so you raise up off the reef and let the current take you. Of course, it will only take you as far as your hook line allows, you feel like you're flying. At this point you can relax and watch the show go by. So cool.

Palau was a 'tender' port, meaning our ship was anchored and we took shuttle boats (tenders) to and from

What a gorgeous day and gorgeous scenery

Me and Donna, leading our group 😊

Conferences and Port Cancellations, Why I'm Skipping the Google Product Expert Summit

 As a Google Photos Product Expert I am part of a globe-spanning team of volunteers who answer people's questions about all sorts of Google Products on the official Google Support forums. Once each year Google gathers us all together for a conference - a PE Summit. They give us product updates, chances to get to know each other and our Google counterparts and a Party! I've attended every year since 2015 when we were called "Top Contributors." See some photos below.

This year the PE Summit is being held in Dublin. Google makes the travel arrangements and pays our way to these events, but only with one round trip ticket. Since I now live on a cruise ship I can't leave and come back to the same place and expect the ship to be waiting for me. When I registered for the conference, we were in Alaska. I looked at the itinerary and saw that the ship would be in the Philippines in October so I asked for round trip flights from Manila. Then I set about making my own flight arrangements to get from the ship to Manila at the beginning and back to the ship at the end. 

The Itinerary That Ate My Energy

The ship went thru several itinerary changes that required me to change my flights. The end result was 6 days of travel in order to attend the 3 day conference! Here's the timeline:

1. Event scheduled for Dublin Oct 8-10
2. Ship will be in the Philippines on those dates, so I requested round-trip from Manila, leaving Oct 6, return Oct 11 (roughly 19 hours of travel each way including layover in Abu Dhabi)
3. Oct 5 Ship is in Bohol (Tagbilaran City) I can fly from Bohol-Panglao Int'l airport to Manila MNL (about 8 hours including layover in Manila)
4. Oct 11 I can fly from Manila MNL to Guam GUM and get a hotel to wait for the ship to arrive in Guam on Oct 13. (overnight in Manila then about 4 hours to Guam and overnight in Guam)
5. Guam Cancelled: next port = Saipan. Flights from Manila to Saipan stopover in Guam, so keep the flight to Guam and add Saipan for 1 more hour
6.  Saipan cancelled: next port Yap. Once again, no direct flights from Manila to Yap so keep Guam and add Yap. Only 2 flights/week go to Yap so add another night in Guam then 2 hours to Yap. Ship doesn't get there till Oct 15 so add a night in Yap
7. Bohol port cancelled and replaced with Cebu. Cancelled the Bohol flight to Manila and added Cebu to Manila. Nice, shorter flight this time. Cool.

The Final Straw

And then, this week, fate delivered the final, chilling nudge. The news of the earthquake in Cebu, Philippines, where I was scheduled to fly from on Monday, sealed the deal. While the airport wasn't directly affected, the potential for lingering side effects—aftershocks, strained infrastructure, just general chaos—was the last weight that tipped the scales.

What had once seemed like a challenging but doable adventure now just felt reckless. The mental gymnastics and logistical juggling were simply not worth it. 

So, I officially threw in the towel. Registration canceled. Manila-Dublin flights canceled. Cebu-Manila flight canceled. And those labyrinthine flights and hotel stays for Guam and Yap? Canceled, canceled, canceled.

A huge wave of relief has washed over me. Instead of spending six days stressed out and stuck in airport purgatory, I now have ten unplanned, glorious days to simply enjoy my wonderful Odyssey at sea.

Sometimes, the best adventures are the ones you cancel. AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!

Boracay and Puerto Princesa

 

Boracay

We ended September at a delightful Philippine island called Boracay. It's #59 in the map above. If you click the map, you'll be taken to our complete "World Tour" interactive map where you can click on the numbers and see more. We had no plans at this port, we didn't even get off the ship on the first day. For the second day we just wandered. We took the tender to shore, then hopped on the local bus to see where it would take us. We ended up at a place called The Keyhole. It's a picturesque arch in the rock at the end of the island and people actually lined up to take their photo. There was this guy at the front of the line who took your phone and told you how to pose. How fun! 

Then we got back on the bus and headed to the beach. It started raining and we sought refuge under a tarp where some locals were selling rum drinks. Gee, what a coincidence! A rum drink under a tarp, talking to locals is a perfect way to pass a rainy day on a beach.

We continued down the beach, stopping ocasionally for someone to admire Jim's mustache, and ended up at a wonderful open-air restaurant with a saxophonist.

Puerto Princesa and the Subterranean River

Next stop - Puerto Princesa. We signed up ahead of time for a tour on the subterranean river - I think we paid $120 each. I thought it was well worth it. A van picked us up right at the ship and we drove nearly 2 hours to get to where we got on a traditional outrigger boat for about 20 minutes to the mouth of the river. We had a beautiful day!

This is a major attraction and they've learned how to protect it. NO talking allowed. So, the tour guide did not come with us ... tour guides are noisy! They had audio devices with earbuds so we could hear a commentary. There are lots of bats in the cave and noise is a problem for them, not to mention the fact that if there's lots of talking we don't get to hear the silence and the sweet drip, drip, drip of the water from the walls into the river. Yes, some of it is water and they refer to it as "holy water' but some of it comes from the bats, so they call that "holy shit!" The helmets are to protect us from the latter 😊

Remembering the Kindness of Strangers

Throughout Japan and Taiwan, language was like a brick wall barrier between us and the locals. We know exactly 2 words in Japanese: arigato (thank you) and konichiwa (hello or good afternoon.) Our Chinese - for Taiwan - is similarly limited: xie-xie (thank you) and nihao (hello.) Although there were some locals who spoke english, there weren't very many. It was not like traveling in Europe or Latin America, where you can easily get by with just English. But ... if you were looking perplexed, someone who spoke a bit of English was sure to come out of the woodwork and offer help. Often, they would even walk with us for a ways until it was clear we were on the right track.

Train Stations

We saw it most often in the train stations. It is an easy thing to spot foreigners in a Japanese or Taiwanese train station, and also easy to tell when we are in need of help! We are standing in the middle of the station, staring at our phones and also looking around at the signs, but not going anywhere! If we stayed in that position long enough someone was bound to approach us and say, "can I help?" This happened both in Japan and in Taiwan. 

Night Markets

Also, in Taiwan, we were enjoying a night market. We decided we were thirsty and saw a sign that looked like iced tea so we each ordered one. When we put the straw in and tried to drink, it didn't work. It was like the straw was not open on the end inserted into the cup. We must have looked quite perplexed as I then picked the straw out of the glass and tried to blow thru it like a pea-shooter. The Taiwanese woman who came up to help must have been laughing hard because the problem was that this was 'bubble tea' with large, round 'bubbles' of gelatin on the bottom. She handed us a straw that was much bigger around and pointed to where we could get more. When we tried to drink thru that straw, the 'bubble' could get sucked up as well. We joined in the laughter all around us!

Local Buses

Number one in the leaderboard for a helpful local experience, was a Taiwanese man on the bus. It took us a while to find the right bus to take us to the Cave, then, when we got on and tried to tap and pay with the card that had worked just fine on the train - it didn't work. I still don't know if that was because our "easy card" didn't work on local buses, or if it had run out of money on the card, but it didn't work. The bus driver was chattering away at us but, of course, we couldn't understand a word, and more people wanted to get on. The bus was full. Just as panic was setting in, a kind gentleman stepped forward and, without a word, dropped two of his own tokens into the payment slot for us. It was a simple act, but it spoke volumes. 

The local bus in Keelung, Taiwan

Ultimately, it was these moments of connection that make our visits special. We may not have spoken the language, but the kindness of the people we met along the way spoke to us loud and clear.

 (Visit our photo album here.)

The Dentist and Taipei

 Both Jim and I like to get our teeth cleaned at least twice/year. Also a dermatologist visit because we have both had many instances of skin cancer - it's no big deal if you catch it early. Now that we live on a cruise ship, visiting our regular dermatologist and dentist is out of the question. I looked at the calendar and looked at the map and figured that Taiwan or the Philippines were about the right time. 

Our friend, Steve, used to live in Taiwan so we asked him about dentists. He gave us a specific recommendation for an office in Taipei and I contacted them and made an appointment for the 2d day that we would be in port nearby. We didn't know how involved the transportation would be to get from the port to downtown Taipei, so we booked a hotel for one night. Sounds like fun! 

We got situated in Keelung port about an hour's train ride from Taipei, gathered a few things and head to the hotel in the afternoon. Navigating the trains was every bit as complex as it was in Japan. I'm glad we had plenty of time and weren't on a deadline to get to the dentist. 

We decided to take advantage of the evening and go out to a street market: Linjiang Tourist Night Market, just a few blocks away from our hotel.

On our way back from the night market, we were intrigued by a bar on the corner called Salud, Tequila Bar. It was a very small bar and it was heavily decorated. They were preparing for a big Haloween promotion apparently. hmmm a bar in Taiwan with a mexican name and drink, decorated for Halloween! We loved it. Mostly we loved the people we met in there. One of the photos they were making for Halloween was a hostpital IV stand supposed to give you a transfusion of tequila! They asked Jim if he would pose as their patient - what fun!

Meanwhile I struck up a conversation with Windy who spoke quite good english. She was fascinated with our cruise ship lifestyle and the fact that we had a YouTube channel. She encouraged me to use Instagram more and we followed each other right then and there. See her at wiindy98.

So, after our night on the town, we went back to our hotel to get a good night's sleep before our dentist appoinment in the morning. It wasn't far, we could walk it no problem, but as with many establishments we've found it difficult to find the door! It's just a building with a plaque on the front wall showing the names of tenants - and it's in Chinese! We finally figured it out and made our way in and upstairs where we were told to take off our shoes and they had paper slippers for us. Then I noticed the sign that they don't take credit cards, so I had to make my way back outside, find an ATM,  and back in the hidden door. I made it. I was quite proud of myself actually. 😜 By this time Jim was in the dentist's chair. They took full exrays, and the dentist reviewed them in detail with each of us. Then she cleaned our teeth - no dental hygienist here, just the doctor. 

All in all it was a very pleasant experience, although a bit more expensive than I had figured on. I was probably thinking of just the cleaning - about $40 each. But since they insisted on full xrays, that came to $120 each. hmmm. Oh well, it's good to know that all is OK.

After the dentist, we walked to the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial Hall and took in the sights.

Then we had lunch on the 85th floor of the 101 Tower. Once the tallest building in the world, it is a landmark in Taipei. We had a great view from the 85th floor, and a wonderful chat with a mother and daughter at the next table. The mother lives in Taiwan and the daughter was visiting from the US. I'm sure you've heard of how Taiwan is in danger of being taken over by China? It sounded like this mother would welcome that - she couldn't say enough about how wonderful China is and how we really must go. Interesting. 

We didn't get a good photo showing the 101 tower in the skyline, so I asked Gemini to make me one and to include the Chiang Kai-Shek memorial as well. The 101 tower is roughly accurate - not so the Chiang Kai-Shek memorial. Still, it gives you the flavor.

As big cities go, I really liked Taipei. Big and bustling, clean and shiny, but still down to earth and friendly. There was not as much english spoken as I had hoped, but you could most always find somebody. We're always happy to get back to our ship!