En route to Manila, Philippines. Arrive on 21-Feb.

You may remember that the theme of this world cruise is “A Tale of Tales.” Silversea gives us a book for every leg of the cruise, and has the creator on board as a guest. They usually give a lecture or two and a book signing.

For the Sydney-to-Bali leg we had a book from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York on fashion designer Charles James in support of their 2014 exhibition. James passed away in 1978, but the lead photographer for the book, Harold Koda, was on board. I’m not a “high fashion” fan, but I acknowledge the skill it takes to understand how the different fabrics react to movement.

For this Bali-to-Tokyo leg we have the prose and poetry of Laksmi Pamuntjak, and I’m only 1/3 the way thru the book. Today they dropped of next leg’s book A Life in Pictures by Steve McCurry.

Here I am on my retirement world cruise, and I have reading homework.

Question: What are other animals I’ve seen?

This has not really been a “see the wild life” kind of cruise. I’m still sad I missed the dolphins in Moorea. Here are some tidbits:

• Four days out from San Francisco I saw a solitary sea gull that was occasionally diving, but never into the water. I then saw several dozen small swarms of insects skimming the water – almost dragonflies. I assume the gull was bug hunting, but I had never heard of either animal being so far from shore, as we were at least 1000 miles from land in all directions.
• As we were leaving the lagoon in Rangiroa several dolphins were heading into the lagoon. I was too slow with my camera to get any good pictures.
• There were several local birds in the Featherdale Wildlife Park, but they were in mesh cages that I could not get a picture I was happy with.
• There was a GIANT spider in the Japanese garden in Brisbane, but I could not find the right focus (I only had my cell phone camera).
• I saw herds of wild wallaby in Australia, but not kangaroos
• While eating lunch in the Cairns rainforest there were two parrots with amazing green and red colors, but again I could not get a picture I was happy with.

• I missed out on the orangutan and proboscis monkeys in Sandakan.

Question: what does my laundry smell like?

I swear I did not make this one up. And I assume they mean after it’s been cleaned.

I had to wait until my next laundry day to verify this. They smell like… nothing. Whatever detergent they use does not leave any fragrance, which I approve of.

Bonus Picture

As we pulled into the Bali jewelry site this greeted us – a statue of the Hindu elephant-headed god Ganesha bracketed by plants in front of a waterfall water feature behind with carved Buddha. This piece blocked street-view into the facility, but allowed vehicle traffic on both sides. Of the four “arts and craft” sites we visited in Bali (batik, jewelry, painting and wood carving), I knew this had to be the jewelry due to the size of its parking lot and this fancy yard art.