Hang on, rough seas

Wow. This is an experience. Not necessarily a good one😜. We just spent an extra 3 days at sea off the coast of Tauranga in order to get our hull scraped. New Zealand has very strict biosecurity laws. Even though the odyssey had its hull cleaned in the Philippines, that wasn't good enough for them. I get it. As an island where any infestation could be catastrophic, they need to be extremely careful. 

What a process. The ship has to go out beyond the 12 mile limit and a boat with divers followed us. They worked all the first day, then got delayed on the second day due to bumpy seas. They were able to work a third day and get it done. The ship then went back to dock around midnight where there were residents waiting to be picked up. Then we got underway to Wellington, skipping the Napier stop. We were supposed to be in Wellington Mar 2,3,4. Now we're scheduled to get there on the 4th. 

The problem now is really rough seas. To give you an idea of the intensity, the local ferries between the North and South Islands have been canceled for several days. The roughest seas before this were when we came in to San Francisco. This is rougher. And longer. In San Francisco rough waters were over as soon as we turned in to the bay, just a few hours of a bumpy ride. Here it started yesterday afternoon, went all night and is only worse now. Forecasts don't have it lightening up until we reach Wellington tomorrow.  

The boats stabilizers do a good job of keeping it level side to side but we are sure going up and down front to back and the boom when the ship crashes into the sea is deafening. We're sure getting bounced around. I joked to Jim that it's a good thing we just got a mattress topper or we may have gotten bruised during the night. 

Our TV turned to the Bridge Camera channel

I asked Gemini if this happens often and it said the Cook Straits is known worldwide as a very treacherous waterway. 

I might need a sleeping pill by tonight. 

Multiple days at sea - time to study

Aaaahhhhh. I am so enjoying just hanging out in my room and working on my computer. I still go to meals, and I went to a couple of line dance classes. Someone said "where have you been?" It appears I'm being anti-social. Well, I kinda need that 😀. I do love all the opportunities we have here to be social, but I still have that need to be alone. Jim is pretty busy operating the tech for various theatrical endeavors on board, so I have the room all to myself. 

I'm scheduled to give a speakers corner talk on Bitcoin, Blockchain, and Web 3 tomorrow night. I've been diving deep into all the material and learning so much. Not much I love to do more that learn and figure out how best to teach. The difficult but oh-so-important part is making it simple and short. I think that's what I'm good at so I want to prove it - if only to myself. I've been working on this talk for a couple of months now. 

Gemini has been a fantastic helper. And I'm using Google drive tools: slides and docs for organizing and delivering my thoughts. I put all my resources in to NotebookLM and asked it to prepare slides, videos, info graphics etc. WOW but my finished product needs to be mine. I am using pieces from several AIs. The best was asking copilot to give me some humorous ways of saying things😀. It came up with this Pirate Glossary of Crypto Terms that I love. It also gave me some analogies that help me explain this complex topic:

“Bitcoin is the shiny sports car everyone points at.

Blockchain is the engine under the hood doing all the real work — and Web3 is the highway it’s about to drive on.”

and

A blockchain is basically a group project where everyone checks everyone else’s work. Painful, but no one can cheat.

As I tackled each part of explaning this technology I had many questions myself. In times past it would take me hours to research each question and find the appropriate resource that addressed my issue. Now, I just asked Gemini. It gives me explanations exactly on point to my questions and I can ask follow up questions. It does this in just seconds. I love having my own personal teacher. One example: years ago when I was first looking into Bitcoin and Ethereum, I registered the ethereum domain name chrisguld.eth. With Gemini's help I was able to find that and renew it, but boy did I have lots of questions. Here is a bit of our conversation:

Me: 

So I've registered chrisguld.eth on the ethereum name service but what exactly is that? Is it a wallet? Do I have keys to it somewhere? Or is it something, a token, in my metamask wallet? Is it my ID on web 3? Or just a shorthand to my metamask wallet address? If it is my Identity on web3 is it subject to being hacked or spoofed? On web 2 my Identity is chrisguld@gmail.com and a big fear is that it can be hacked or spoofed.

Gemini: 

It is completely understandable to feel a bit of "tech vertigo" when moving from the familiar world of Gmail to the decentralized world of Web3. Since you're already used to teaching others how to navigate new tools, think of chrisguld.eth as the Web3 version of a domain name (like GeeksOnTour.com) mixed with the convenience of a nickname.

Here is the breakdown of what exactly you own:

1. Is it a wallet?

No. It is not a wallet itself, and it doesn't "hold" your money. It is an address book entry on the blockchain.

• The Shorthand: Its primary job is to point to your long, clunky MetaMask address (the one starting with 0x...).

• The Analogy: If your MetaMask address is the GPS coordinates to your house, chrisguld.eth is your street address. It’s much easier to tell someone "Send it to chrisguld.eth" than to read off 42 random characters.

2. Is it a token in my MetaMask?

Yes. Technically, an ENS name is an NFT (Non-Fungible Token). If you look in your MetaMask under the "NFTs" or "Assets" tab, you should see it there. Because it's an NFT, you truly own it; it’s sitting in your wallet just like a digital collectible would.

3. Do I have keys to it?

You have the master key: your MetaMask Recovery Phrase. There isn't a separate password for chrisguld.eth. Whoever controls the wallet that owns the NFT controls the name. As long as your MetaMask is secure, your ENS name is secure.

4. Is it my Web3 Identity?

Yes, and this is the coolest part. In Web2, you use chrisguld@gmail.com to log in to sites. In Web3, you "Connect Wallet." Once connected, apps can see you own chrisguld.eth and will display that name and your chosen avatar instead of a random string of numbers. It becomes your "username" across the decentralized web.

---

Security: Hacking vs. Spoofing

You mentioned the fear of being hacked or spoofed, which is a very valid concern for anyone teaching tech.

• Hacking: Unlike a Gmail account, there is no "Forgot Password" link or central server for a hacker to breach. To "hack" your ENS name, someone would need your MetaMask Secret Recovery Phrase. As long as you keep that phrase offline (not in an email or a photo!), your identity is mathematically much more secure than a standard email.

• Spoofing: People can try to mimic you by registering chris-guld.eth or chrisguld.com.eth, but they can never take chrisguld.eth from you as long as you keep the registration current. It is unique and verifiable.

• The Risk: The biggest threat isn't a "hack," but a scam. If you accidentally connect your wallet to a malicious site and "sign" a transaction you don't understand, you could inadvertently give a scammer permission to transfer the NFT out of your wallet.

With all that, I'm starting to understand, but I still have questions. so I asked

Me: 

You saidIf I do lose my keys, is there no one at metamask that can help me?

Gemini:

The short answer is: No, MetaMask cannot help you recover your keys. Because MetaMask is "self-custodial," they never have access to your Secret Recovery Phrase. They don't have a database of users and passwords like Google does. If they could reset your password, it would mean they have a "backdoor" to your wallet, which would make it less secure for everyone.

The "Safety Net" Rules

There are only a few specific scenarios where you can still save your "boat":

• Scenario A: You know your password and still have the app. If you can still log into your MetaMask on your phone or computer, you can go into Settings > Security & Privacy and reveal your Secret Recovery Phrase there. You can then write it down (properly this time!).

• Scenario B: You have the device, but forgot the password. There are some advanced "Vault Decryptor" tools provided by MetaMask that can sometimes extract the phrase from your browser's local files, but this only works if you haven't deleted the app or cleared your cache.

• Scenario C: You lost the device and the phrase. In this case, the "boat" is unfortunately lost at sea. There is no one to call, no ID you can show, and no way to prove you are the owner of chrisguld.eth.

A Warning for the "Teacher" in You

Because scammers know that losing keys is a big fear, they often pretend to be "MetaMask Support" on Facebook, X, or Farcaster.

Golden Rule: If anyone—even someone claiming to be "MetaMask Lead Engineer"—asks for your 12-word recovery phrase to "synchronize" or "verify" your wallet, they are a pirate trying to steal your boat. Real support will never ask for it.

Valentine's day

Who better to spend valentine's dinner with than Ric and Ellie. They met on the ship, feel in love, and they're getting married in the ship in a few weeks! We've been diving together, shared many meals and are planning some future excursions together. If you want to be around happy people, you can't do any better than them! 

I only think of these things at the last minute. It was as we're starting to get ready for dinner that it occurred to me that it would be nice for valentine's to make dinner special by sharing it with another couple. I thought of Ric and Ellie and sent him a Whatsapp message less than an hour before dinner time. I wasn't sure he would even see the message in time, let alone be available and respond, but he did. 

They talked about how they were attracted to each other. It was inevitable, like 2 objects in space that are drawn together by a magnetic force, they just found themselves bumping in together. Ric says "Ellie was smart, beautiful inside and out, active, funny ... And tall!

We sat and talked for the full 2 hours of dinner time in the thistle dining room so we didn't have to get up to go to the buffet. It was a delight. 

Back to Australia, Prescriptions and Line Dancing!

 Vanuatu was the last of the South Pacific Islands that we visited, then we stopped in Cairns and Townsville before heading to Sydney for a 3-day stop.

Cities in Australia feel like home. They speak English, the streets and shops and city infrastructure are well maintained. It all feels very safe. Each city we visit I say, "I could live here in a heartbeat." The only drawback is that it's expensive. Prices are right up there with the US. 

Our main task in Cairns was to refill a prescription for Jim. We went to a pharmacy and were told that he needed a prescription from an Australian doctor and there is a walk-in clinic just down the street. Great. He met with the doctor and got a prescription for a year's supply! We went back to the pharmacy and this time they said, Oh, we don't make that particular drug in Australia. There is a similar one but we're out of stock on that and won't get any more until April. 😒 We went back to the doctor and he changed the prescription to the Australia drug and we set off to try the other pharmacies in town. Nope, Sorry, Don't have it. Same experience in Townsville. We finally got it filled in Sydney at the Balmain Community Pharmacy. It was walking distance from the ship and we were glad to have the excuse to explore - what a nice community Balmain is. Here's another place I said, "I could live here in a heartbeat."

In Townsville, we got off the ship and took an uber to a pharmacy (where we struck out again), then just walked around a bit. What a nice place.

The ship docked in Townsville, Australia

We did not go swimming!

The highlight of Townsville, at least for me was line dancing. Kathie, our line dancing instructor on board had arranged a meetup with the local line dancing group. Loved it! So cool to have a reason to get together with locals.

Tonga and Vanuatu

 Tonga and Vanuatu were our last 2 stops in the South Pacific before getting back to Australia. We'd had enough of diving and wanted some land-based experiences. In Tonga we signed up for "Ancient Tonga." It was a demonstration and experience of native practices in Tonga. Like banging a big stick on a hollowed out log to call everyone in the village for a meeting:

We had a traditional Kava ceremony and they taught us that there were some differences between the Tongan traditions and the Fiji. The Kava itself tasted a bit more peppery, I didn't notice any effects. 😒

They also taught us a bit about the traditional making of tapa cloth. What a labor intensive process. They take this thin layer of tree wood and keep hammering on it to make it more paper thin. She says that the time flies by because the work is being done by several women and they use the time to chat. BUT, that hammering is LOUD. How do you talk over that?

We learned lots. My favorite thing is that Tonga is a Kingdom. Meaning they have a King! As a country they skipped the whole colonization thing that most all other islands went thru!

Next - Vanuatu

Anchored off of Port Vila this time. Last time we were docked at Luganville

We already visited Vanuatu on our way east in the islands. We did a couple of dives when we were there before, so this time we booked an inland tour. A turtle sanctuary, the Blue Lagoon, and the cascades of Eden.  Here's Jim's video of this gorgeous day: