There is land after all. It is about 7:00am on Sunday morning and we can see Nuka Hiva. Right now we are going in circles waiting for some problem with the stabilizers to be fixed. Captain says they are being difficult about "coming home" , He says not to worry they will "get them back home soon". He has a great sense of humor and is very visible around the ship.

After 10 days everyone is looking forward to putting our feet on solid ground. We had a very nice crossing with only yesterday having some rain showers. I think the entertainment staff did a good job of having things for everyone to do during both days and evenings. They had an Iron Chef competition for passengers. Three teams competed on different mornings. They had the "mystery" box of ingredients just like the TV show Chopped and then they had to prepare a dish within a time frame. I went the first day, while it was interesting, it was not a lot of fun just to sit and watch. Cruise Director did a pretty good job of trying to keep conversation going, but after the first appetizer contest, I didn't go again. There were art classes, Spanish lessons, lectures by Dr. Caisse, the astronomer whom we have seen on Regent before, a speaker on various sea tales of the South Pacific, iPad classes, and probably several other things I missed. That is not even mentioning beginning and intermediate bridge classes and duplicate play.

One evening they had special events in the evening on the pool deck. Several individual crew member teams from several countries prepared appetizer size portions of one of their country's dishes. Hungary had goulash, Columbia had empanadas, Chile had corn pie, Peru had ceviche, Brazil had their wonderful black bean stew, and they were all very good. Then several shipmdepartments had "bar" stations around the outside of the pool deck. Security had a brig, the medical and rescue group had a "first aid station, UK crew members had a tribute to the Queen and the engineering dept had a bunkering station. .It was formal night so everyone looked very elegant and had a good time before dinner.

After dinner, we had Opera under the Stars. The Welsh baritone, Anthony, the assistant cruise dir, Heather, and two of the female cast members sang selections from various operas. It was a warm, tropical night with the moon and stars out with no wind. It was a very pleasant evening.

While I have been writing this, the stabilizers have come home and we are anchoring and getting ready for tendering.

We have been here before 6 years ago and are going ashore after a nice breakfast just to stretch our legs. There really isn't much here but it is a friendly, tropical island.