CROSSING THE PACIFIC OCEAN, TAKE TWO

Scott and I recently returned (3/6/24) from a sea voyage across the Pacific Ocean from San Francisco to Sydney, with ports in Hawaii, Samoa, Fiji, and New Zealand along the way.  This was my second Pacific crossing but Scott’s first.  As readers may recall, my first voyage across the Pacific took place in January and February of 2020, as the coronavirus pandemic was just beginning.  (In an unwelcome serendipity, I contracted covid on this voyage and was confined to our stateroom for four days.  It is hard to fathom that we have been impacted by this virus for four years with no sign of its ending.)  We had planned a cruise from Seward, Alaska to Tokyo in 2022 when we thought the pandemic had ended, but it was cancelled when a second wave closed Japan to cruise ships. 

The trip we were able to take was on Cunard’s Queen Victoria.  It was a part of that ship’s 2024 World Cruise:  a 107-day voyage that began in Southampton, England, crossed the Atlantic Ocean to Ft. Lauderdale, sailed through the Panama Canal, and up the California coast to San Francisco (where we joined).  From there, the ship sailed  across the Pacific to Australia (where we disembarked), went north to several southeast Asian ports, then across the Indian Ocean again to Columbo, Sri Lanka and Cape Town, South Africa, before cruising up the western coast of Africa and back to Southampton.  We are not yet so ambitious as to embark on a full world cruise, but we met many people who were doing it, and some for the second or third time!

As I wrote in my 2020 blog about crossing the Pacific, the Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of the earth’s oceans, covering some sixty million square miles from China to the Americas.  It is hard to fathom how vast this ocean is, but according to National Geographic, if all of the earth’s land masses were put together, the conglomerate would still be smaller than the Pacific Ocean.  Cruises like this one have many sea days as we crossed this vast expanse of ocean.  It took five days to sail the 2,400 miles between San Francisco and Honolulu, our first port, and another five days to cross the 2,600 miles of ocean before reaching our second port, Apia, Samoa. 

For the most part, we enjoy having several sea days in a row.  They can be either relaxing or filled with activities, for those who prefer being busy.  We managed to stay busy enough on sea days that at night we would bemoan the fact that we hadn't been able to do all that we had planned.  We spent time watching the sea and sky from our balcony (see the red arrow), reading, working puzzles, relaxing in the thermal suites, attending a variety of interesting lectures as well as nightly performances in the ship’s magnificent Royal Theatre, and listening to live music.  Most nights we had a delicious four-course dinner in the elegant Britannia Restaurant, and four times we dressed up for formal evenings.   (For those who wonder how they might occupy sea days, I suggest that you read my previous blog on that topic.)

Scott and I had both been to Honolulu several times before, but we hadn’t visited the Pearl Harbor Memorial or the USS Arizona, so that is what we chose to do on our shore excursion.  We found it both interesting and meaningful as we reviewed exhibits about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and its aftermath.  The museum also contained a series of very interesting exhibits on Japanese expansion in the Pacific and the planning that was behind the surprise attack.

In the first wave of the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, 183 Japanese planes hit six airfields, destroying nearly all of the US planes that were parked there.  A second wave of 160 planes, an hour later, targeted the battleships in the harbor.  The ship USS Arizona was hit, exploded, and burned for a couple of days.  Over 1,000 men on board died.  Only a few bodies were recovered.  The rest lie under the water.  A memorial is built over the center portion of the wreckage.  The USS Missouri floats next to the Arizona.  It was the last battleship built by the US and is where President Truman accepted Japan’s surrender.  

The mastermind of the Japanese attack, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, had been educated at Harvard and had served as a naval attaché.  He knew that the best way to hurt America was through a massive surprise attack in an unexpected place. 

The park also contained a memorial to the fifty US submarines that were lost in WW II.  When the men went to war, the women worked in the factories, my mother among them.  She was a “Rosie Riveter” like these women.

Prior to going to Pearl Harbor, we had a quick tour of downtown Honolulu.  In front of the justice building, stands a statue of King Kamehameha I.  He united the Hawaiian Islands into one royal kingdom in 1810 after years of conflict.

Our second port of call was the capital of The Independent State of Samoa.  It is comprised of two inhibited and two uninhabited islands located about 130 miles east of the smaller islands that make up American Samoa.  I was having a significant problem with one of my knees which limited the amount of walking I was able to do.  Scott and I walked about a mile from the ship into the center of Apia where we visited the magnificent Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception and marveled at the woodwork in the ceiling and the archways. 

At the Visitor’s Center, we got directions to a pharmacy where I purchased a compression brace for my knee.  The young man who assisted me was very helpful, suggesting that I try on several to determine which one was best.  I settled on one.  It cost less than $10 and was very helpful for the rest of the voyage.  As we walked through town, we appreciated the carvings, such as the pillars that lined the walkway to the port.  We were charmed by the old clock tower sitting in the middle of a busy traffic roundabout.  Back on the ship, we could clearly see the cathedral, the most prominent building in the town.

Seven hundred miles and two days later we docked in Fiji’s capital city of Suva.  There are hundreds of small islands dotting the Pacific Ocean between Hawaii and Australia.  I visited a museum in Suva that documented the journeys of the early Polynesian sailors who populated these islands.  One display was titled “Great Migrations.”  It reported that “over three thousand years ago, skilled navigators voyaged across the seas in a series of great migrations on an epic journey of exploration. . . . These ancient migrations created powerful chiefly lineages and established the strong and close connections” among the islanders.  The sea migrations used boats built from the trees found on the islands.  

Another display board in the museum said:  “As oceanic people, Pacific islanders have a history of navigation without instruments across vast distances to discover isolated islands. . . . The navigators used the sun, stars, wind direction, bird migration patterns and ocean currents to chart their course. . . . Indigenous traditional knowledge has lived on through the generations until today.”  When a boat landed on an island, the occupants welcomed the new arrivals with dry clothes and offered them food before determining what clan they were related to.  The common ethos was one of welcoming the stranger before the sailors either sailed on or decided to stay when relatives were found.

According to our tour guide (“just call me Joe”), the traditional Fijian skirt (sulu) that men wear was brought to the islands by a national hero, Ratu Sukuna.  He was the first Fijian to graduate from Oxford.  His best friend there was Scottish and wore a kilt.  Joe pointed out a tree full of hanging fruit bats.  He said that these were considered a delicacy in Fiji because they eat only fruit and are therefore sweet.  Several groups of school children were visiting the museum and park the same day we were there.

We stopped for a tour of the Pure Fiji factory where body care products made from native oils and flowers are made.  The employees greeted us with songs, and they served us refreshments at the end of our tour.

 While I was visiting the museum, Scott took a rainforest/waterfall hike.  We both had opportunities to see much of Suva as we drove.  While there are some well-to-do sections of the city and beach resorts on the other side of the island, we both had the impression of Suva as a poor, dirty, and crowded place.

Our next port was Auckland, New Zealand.  We elected to ride the Hop-on-Hop-off bus around the city.  It as a good way to get an overview of the city, but was such a long ride that we only hopped off once, at the Auckland Art Museum which was next to Albert Park (top center and right photos in the collage below).  We drove by the impressive Auckland War Memorial Museum (bottom left photo).  The old port building (top left) sits next to the pier where our boat was docked.

Photos of works in the Art Museum.  The far right painting is a Picasso and the one next to it, a Matisse.

I felt a bit ill, and the next day tested positive for covid.  The ship required us to report any respiratory illnesses, which I dutifully did.  As a result, had to quarantine in my stateroom for four more days.  This caused me to miss the other ports in New Zealand:  Wellington and Lyttleton/Christchurch.  Scott had to eat his meals in our stateroom with me, but he was allowed to get off the ship. 

He went on a shore excursion to Zealandia Sanctuary, a one-square mile wetlands sanctuary where endangered birds and reptiles are protected from predators.  He snapped photos of a large parrot called a Kaka and a flightless bird, the Takahe.

Scott really enjoyed exploring Lyttleton while I watched the town from our balcony on the ship.  The most visible feature from Lyttelton’s busy port is the astronomical clock which was built in 1876 by the makers of London’s Big Ben.  Every day at one pm a 100 kilogram ball drops from a tower.  Navigators used this to adjust their chronometers.   Given more modern navigation tools, the clock was no longer needed.  The region was devastated by an earthquake in 2011.  The tower has been rebuilt, and the ball rises and then drops daily at one pm.

Our last port was Sydney.  The ship docked overnight there.  We took advantage of that for a shore excursion to the Blue Mountains—so-called because of the blue tint given off when oils given off by the prevalent eucalyptus trees mix with water particles in the air.  We had a two-hour bus ride there and another two hours for the return, but enjoyed our time at “Scenic World,” a series of rides that maximizes views of the park.  First we shot down a 52 degree incline on a railway.  The ride took only a few minutes.  We walked into the valley and were surrounded by fern trees, which are unique to this area.  We returned to the top of the valley by way of an 84-passenger cable car and from there crossed between peaks on another cable car.  This one had a glass floor so that we had views across the valley and down into the forest below.

After lunch at an historic inn in the village of Katoombe, we returned to scenic Echo Point for photos of the mountains and their most-famous feature:  the sandstone formations known as The Three Sisters.

When we first arrived in Sydney, dawn was breaking and we enjoyed stunning views of the Sydney Opera House and Harbor Bridge as we sailed into the harbor.  Upon disembarking the Queen Victoria, we were transported to a hotel in the Darling Harbor section of town where we stayed for two nights.  We found the Darling Harbor area to be charming and very walkable.  

One afternoon we took a ferry to the suburb of Manly, docking at the historic Manly Wharf.  It was a gorgeous sunny day, perfect for enjoying Manly Beach.  Too bad we hadn’t thought to bring bathing suits!

We walked through the massive and beautiful Royal Botanical Gardens and visited the Art Gallery of New South Wales.  

We spent a couple of hours at the Australian National Maritime Museum which contained a variety of exhibits ranging from information about the Aboriginal's use of canoes carved from trees to a walk-in submarine.  I found the map drawn on a cloak of possum skins fascinating (lower left photo below), and I loved the colorful fish paintings.

There is a "writers walk" with disks embedded in the stones along the Sydney pier.  I liked what Rudyard Kipling wrote about his 1891 visit to the city:  "Sydney is populated by leisured multitudes all in their shirt-sleeves and all picnicking all day.  They volunteered that they were new and young, but would do wonderful things some day."  

They have indeed created a wonderful city!  Good night Sydney, and good-bye until next time.

We sincerely hope that there will be a next time as we thoroughly enjoyed Sydney and want to see more of Australia.  (I was surprised to learn that Australia is roughly the same size as the continental US.  So, visiting only Sydney is somewhat akin to those tourists who say they have seen the United States after a trip to New York City.)  And since I missed some of our New Zealand stops, we hope to return there and explore further someday as well. 

One last word about our cruise:  Scott and I both enjoyed browsing in the Clarendon Fine Arts gallery, listening to lectures about artists and their art, and attending openings, especially when champagne was served.  The two gallery employees were knowledgeable and fun to talk to.  In the picture on the right they are unveiling a Mr. Brainwash creation that had just arrived on ship.

With all those sea days and my quarantine days, I tried to fill my travel sketchbook.  I'm sharing a few of my entries here.  All in all, it was a terrific cruise and we will definitely continue to travel in this manner, we hope for years to come.

If you are interested in reading my related blogs, here are the links.

Blog about the history of Cunard and the Queens: 

https://cabletravels.blogspot.com/2022/08/crossing-atlantic-by-sea-on-cunards.html

Island Hopping Across the Pacific:

https://cabletravels.blogspot.com/2020/02/island-hopping-across-pacific-ocean.html

Sailing in the Time of Coronovirus:

https://cabletravels.blogspot.com/2020/02/sailing-in-time-of-coronavirus.html

The enjoyment of Sea Days:

https://cabletravels.blogspot.com/2020/01/sea-days.html