FEBRUARY 26, 2008
TOMORROW IWO JIMA

Since we got an extra hour last nite, it was easier to get up this morning, by comparison anyway. My sore throat wasn’t appreciably better so I made up my mind to go to the clinic. I went to the buffet to get hot herbal tea and fruits and Ed joined me there. He said the gym is closed when the seas are heavy.
HEAVY SEAS: Well if there is one barf bag taped in the stair wells, it’s heavy seas. When there are two barf bags to the trash bins, you know it’s REALLY heavy seas. So I don’t know what to tell you except to report that some stairwells have two, and some have only one. Perhaps the missing second one had been used by someone but I have to be honest, I’ve never seen anyone use a barf bag on a ship or on a plane, I have seen folks grab the nearest potted plant however.
CLINIC VISIT: I took all my pharmaceuticals with me so I could show them to the people just in case. They have an intake form for you to fill out and the bottom section is all about respiratory symptoms: sore throat, ear pain, trouble breathing…you get the picture. While I was waiting, a woman was worried about being charged for the visit as she didn’t think her insurance would pay for the visit. I don’t know what her problem is (this time) but she had been into the clinic on two separate occasions for the norovirus. The nurse explained that she was not charged for those visits. After a lot of conversation and the MD trying to reassure her, she agreed to be seen (for whatever her current problem might be).
Several of the ship’s personnel were there; all looked terribly young. On one ship, I recall they had a separate entrance; on yet another ship, they had their own onboard MD.
My vitals were taken and I had a slight fever but nothing like last night. My BP was up a little from coughing; no surprise there. The nurse interviewed me; she’s a cute little gal who is probably a closet gothic after hours. She has spikey black hair. Very cute. She knew about lymphedema and asked me some questions about that. This is the first nurse I’ve encountered in an episodic visit who knew what the sleeves were about.
Then I saw “Nikolas”, the German MD. (Everyone on the ship has their first name, job and country on their name tag; I’ll have to look close and see if this is true of the Captain too.) He read all the notes on me, listened to my chest and then said all he could give me was “advice”. That was fine with me; that’s what I wanted. He needed to clarify what a few of the drugs were that I was carrying, then adjusted the dosages I was taking to more frequent ones, also telling me that while we think this is viral, he’d put me on Cephalexin because of my asthma. The only other thing he’d consider was perhaps an expectorant. I told him Ed had Robitussin with him and so we agreed on that. So I came away feeling validated and glad I had had this consultation to get a second opinion on how aggressive I should be. The cost for this visit was only $60 which I felt was very reasonable. Ed looked at the bill and remarked that the diagnosis was “COPD”. I guess this was new to him but it’s consistent with my bronchitis and asthma.
And along the way I got to see their facilities which are larger than I would have expected for a small ship like this. I’ve seen large ships with clinic areas smaller than this. On the other hand, if you’re going to be going on a 102 day voyage, with a population of these ages, you probably want to be able to accommodate more patients. I saw 4 patient examining areas each of which would match an ER room anywhere in the US. I can’t tell you what was behind the doors of the cabinets.
By afternoon I was feeling somewhat better though still with my tail between my legs.
PORT TALK: I met Ed in the port talk and listened until the ending. He was ranting about the mistakes the speaker made this morning including a photo of the famous mounting of the flag on Iwo Jima which showed the statue of this event. The speaker said it was on Iwo Jima. Ed said you could see the Washington Monument and the Capital in the background. There were more, but I’ll spare you.
VETERANS GET TOGETHER: I would have loved to have sat in on this discussion, led by Prof. Andy Giles, with the WWII vets on board. I thought it would be intrusive to do so but I did hear some of the remarks in passing. I suppose it’s not surprising that many of the vets have emotions as strong today as they were in 1945.
TRIVIA: We are the “crocks” once again. I was asked about my cold and described the visit. Eric piped up that “all my pills are white.” He has such a hang dog face and dry manner that this statement was hilarious. Murray has some experience with drugs and so I suggested we find a Tuinal for Eric so he’d have a pretty pill to take. I haven’t seen one of these in years but they were such pretty capsules: almost red on one end, and a vibrant blue on the other, and a violet where they join.
Eric had commented earlier in the cruise that his son saw their arsenal of medications they were taking on this trip (it seems we’ve all done this) and asked if they’d fill his prescriptions for him if he brought them over.
So Eric suggested we have a ship’s event called “Show and Tell” where everyone brings their pharmaceutical and herbal stash and shows it all to others. Thereafter at every opportunity, we made some joke about the drugs we were carrying on board.
We really did very well today. Our downfall was: name 3 movies that have garnered 11 Academy Awards. The answer: Titanic, Ben Hur, and something about Kings—a very old movie. Our other troublesome answer was the golf course where the Master’s Tournament is held. Augusta (as in Georgia). They wanted Augusta “National”. We objected, fruitlessly as it turns out. So our final score was 18.5 out of 20. Very respectable. The group who calls themselves the “geniuses” (This is Fr. Crispin’s group) won with 19.
The staff member had told us before we began that the prizes today were a brand new product and they were fortunate to be able to get it for us—or some blather like that. So when we had lost by a half point, we were crushed….until we saw this “special blah blah blah” product: a squeezable Princess ship.
Now we didn’t feel so bad…What the hell would we do with it? Well at least Fr. Crispin has takers for his prizes: he gives them to the two little girls on this cruise.
LUNCH: Father Crispin joined our table with his usual Irish take on events. Bill (for our dinner table) arrived as well along with another couple from Palm Springs (and Idaho) and a single lady. A discussion arose about how awful the port talker is and the mistakes he makes. The single lady valiantly, but clearly unsuccessfully, defended him. (Poor dear, she must be very deluded.)
Now, since he’s so inaccurate, why are his talks so well attended? For the photos? To find something to complain/talk about? Out of boredom?
Speaking of complaining, Fr. Crispin told of a very high brow (at least she thought so) woman on one cruise who had been dubbed the “Countess of Complainia”. She was expounding about how awful something was at the table one evening, and Fr. Crispin remarked that it certainly wasn’t Maxim’s in Paris. She thought he’d been there (he couldn’t afford a glass of water there much less a meal) and so they immediately were tight friends. It was all very funny, particularly as he related it.
TWO STICKS AND A FLOWER: the Japanese art of Ikebana. This is such a genteel, relaxing topic to see and hear about. And the beauty is undeniable. The speaker has a breathtaking wedding kimono on display in the background, small shoji screens, and various artifacts related to her topic on display on a table.
IOW JIMA AND OKINAWA: Prof. Giles went over the history of these two locations and their WWII battles. He has incredible archival photos, some of which are very graphic with dead bodies, maimed and deformed, and poignant shots of American and Japanese soldiers both dead next to each other. Iwo Jima is a very small island; it takes only a few minutes to go from one end to the other in a car. Yet it took 36 days to capture. When it is explained to you, you can see why.
I had not realized what tunnel rats the Japanese were on these islands. And on Iwo Jima it was especially interesting since Iwo Jima is an active volcano (the island is expanding in size actually) and so the tunnels get hotter and hotter the deeper into them you travel, and the sulfur odor becomes more intense. Andy Giles brings tour groups of WWII vets to these islands and he has photos of many of them and shares their stories (he hopes to finish a book soon with their stories). Especially touching was the experience of a soldier whose job was the get the dead and bury them. You can only imagine.
AFTERNOON TRIVIA: There is an afternoon trivia and I considered going but figured I’d be restless if I didn’t catch up with my blog.
DRINK OF THE DAY: Ed’s favorite: Caipirinha. However, I don’t think I should have any since I’m on all these meds, and Ed is doubtful that they put any real Cachaca Rum in them.
DINNER: Six of us present and accounted for. Hank is still fighting his cold and they prefer lunch anyway. I find these meds seem to decrease my taste; that or the food wasn’t very tasty tonite. I could stand to drop a few pounds anyway especially since I’m not walking stairs if my destination is more than 2 levels while my lungs are crappy.
ENTERTAINMENT: They had a song and dance show this evening, special to this cruise, called “Tribute”. It had a lot of oldies but goodies you’d all recognize. Some of the costumes were way out there! The acoustics seemed to be off and didn’t do justice to the singers as they usually do.
There was some question as to whether they’d be able to do the dance routines because of the pitch and sway of the ship. They are troopers. While it’s calmer than earlier today, still it isn’t easy. You’d never know there was any problem at all viewing the show.
SHIP SHUDDER: Someone said today that when the ship shudders, it is because the screws were out of the water. “I didn’t know that!”

FEBRUARY 25, 2008—GUAM

You see some of these islands and you wonder why anyone gives a damn about them. Then you think geopolitically and you understand because they provide stop off points to other strategic locations.
We woke up before the sun was out. We had ordered room service to save time. It seems odd to us that Guam is an American territory, yet this is where we have to appear with our passports, questionnaires, and be physically seen by our officials. They are very friendly and I teased one guy that he was a long way from home. It didn’t go quickly though because of the numbers of us. We again relinquished our passports to ship’s personnel (it was fun to see all the stamps from the places we’ve been though!), and were given a green piece of paper that said we’d passed immigration inspection. Reassuring to know we wouldn’t be tracked down as illegals.
TOUR: It wasn’t great but it would have been almost impossible for us to do this on our own. I wasn’t feeling great to begin with and the air conditioning in the bus wasn’t working properly. Despite assurances that another bus was on the way to replace this one, it never happened. The temp is in the 80s so that’s not so bad, but the humidity is above 80% and it did sprinkle a little.
We were taken to many high areas where the Japanese watched the Allies land on the beach. My word: I can’t imagine how we ever took over this place! Soldiers on the beach were sitting ducks! As you expect, there are numerous memorials here and there. One about Pearl Harbor listed the Guam soldiers who died there and their ships. At one place, a vandal had stolen the brass plaques with the names of dead soldiers in order to sell it for scrap. He was found but the plaques were damaged, so those have been replaced with plastic ones.
The beaches in these places are breathtakingly beautiful and peaceful. The water is crystal clear and clean and you can see all the way to the bottom for a long distance from shore.
There were two busses for this tour and a lot of folks who wanted to be dropped off in town for shopping. So it took almost an hour for this shuffle to occur. Jeesh. I can’t imagine why it’s that important to find a local souvenir made in China.
To be honest, many folks had boxed up their purchased to date and were looking for a UPS store where they could ship them back home.
SHUTTLE BUS: there was a free shuttle bus into the town from the ship, but I was really worn out from the heat and humidity, drippy nose and hacking cough, so we passed.
LUNCH: I had a little to eat and then spent time watching parts of the movie “Around the World in 80 days”. I had forgotten that Cantinflas was in it.
CHAMORRO CULTURAL DANCE: At 3 pm a troop came on board with 4 males from ages 7 or 8 to 30 something, and probably 10 females from age 4-5 to probably mid 30s. They were very good and their costumes, dances and music were completely foreign to us though you can see the Polynesian influence.
But the youngest girl stole the show. People were falling all over themselves to get pictures of her. She did a great job with the movements only occasionally looking around to check out the moves with the other females. There will be some fantastic photos of that kid!
We were sitting on the front row and Ed was chosen to go dance with the dancers (many others went up too). The girl who asked him was about 8 or 9 yrs old. I was watching from the side and laughing because I could see her giving him directions on what to do next, such as twirl around. The dance was a cha cha type and he said she directed him to stomp on each beat, not just slide across them. Well you can imagine how much fun he had and we had watching.
DUST UP AT THE OK CORRAL: This ship is very prompt about everything it does. If I didn’t know better, I’d say it is run by Germans. But we were supposed to leave the pier by 5 pm. We lose daylight at 6 and there are reefs to sail beyond before the ship is home free. 5pm came and went, the dock cleared off except for police and some workers who release the ship’s tethers. Everyone was sitting. We could see the captain on the extension of the bridge, just looking around as if he were waiting. Ed said he heard someone holler down: “You (expletive deleted) wouldn’t take cash!” So he suspects it had to do with port fees or something. In any event, after about 30 min., something gave, the guys released the tethers, the cops left with a wave to the passengers watching, and off we went.
ENTERTAINMENT: I didn’t feel like going to this evening’s entertainment so Ed went to report to me hee hee. It was the yet-to-be-released, world-premier, only-to-Princess movie “Bonneville” with Kathy Bates, Jessica Lange and Joan Allen. Ed said I’d have enjoyed it. Other men’s remarks indicated it was in the chick flick genre.
SUNRISE:SUNSET: I keep forgetting to remind you that we are on 12 hour days again since we’re near the equator. So we have almost exactly 12 hrs of daylight and 12 of darkness. This limits how long the ship can stay in a port since, in many instances, you need to leave for the deeper seas during daylight. This is especially true in these areas of a lot of reefs, many submerged, and war detritus just below the surface.

FEBRUARY 24, 2008, CONT…

EMAIL FROM HOME: Ed brought me a copy of a nice long email from Mike catching us up on the news from home. Mike is a good writer and these notes paint a fun picture of events. He writes of his kids taking over the BINGO games at the home to assure that Rowena wins---well that’s not quite what he said but I like my version better. Mom continues to integrate with the population there at the home, is eating well (and filling out accordingly), and overall doing better than several months ago. She has to be reminded that we are away on this cruise but everyone reminds her we are away and Mike will bring her copies of some of the photos we post. Too bad we don’t have a scanner on here: I’d scan some of these photo studio photos they’ve done on the ship.
PASSENGER TALENT SHOW: Ed said one of our least favorite show offs stole the show…legitimately. He’s a man in his 80s and loves to be the center of attention—which he manages to grab far too often. Apparently he printed off some jokes, some of which had JJ cringing, and delivered them with zest. People were laughing til they couldn’t catch their breath. Just as well I wasn’t there: I’d have died of respiratory failure.
INTERVIEW WITH MARTY ALLEN: I’m sorry I missed this as we really enjoy this on the Prinsendam last year and he loves to interact with people. He has little of the Hollywood big shot disease refreshingly.
THE THUNDER FROM TINIAN: This documentary by Prof. Andy Giles was on the cabin TV this afternoon and I watched part of it. He really does a nice job with these weaving photos from all eras, video clips when he can find them, recent footage and interviews with participants. If you are interested in the Pacific Theatre in WWII, I’d say they are a must.
Certainly I’d consider seeing the two Clint Eastwood movies about these campaigns after being here: Flag of our Fathers and I’ve forgotten the name of the other one.
DINNER: Ed didn’t want me to go to the dining room because of my cold. Enuf said.
ENTERTAINMENT: This was the last recital for the young Russian pianist. Ed enjoyed her as much now as at any time. I stayed in the cabin playing sick.