Craig and Amy in the South Seas: Voyage to Pitcairn and Beyond, Part 9, Life Aboard Ship

During this voyage of over 3,000 miles, there were 3 days at sea (a night, a day and a night of journeying), and lots of the other days we’d leave an island mid-day and not arrive til dawn. This might seem like a scary amount of time to fill, but — it was wonderful. On the Aranui we were never bored. First of all, there were a lot of nice places outside and in to hang out and read, or socialize (or play music, as we’d brought our ukes). Our three favorite hangouts were our own little balcony, starboard side, and forward to The Sky Bar, right down from our room on the top floor, the best forward view in the ship, and, every sunrise and sunset, up a flight to the bridge deck, which was almost always completely open to us passengers, even the control room. Then there were also five levels of outdoor decks, a pool, indoor lounges and libraries, and two indoor bars.

Many of the crew we knew from our last voyage, including Moana, a waiter in the restaurant who did our first tattoos, and Teva, who used to be a waiter, but now works in the boutique.

We had a daily meeting to tell us what our next day would be about. And we also had 3 lectures from a Tahitian anthropologist, Josiane Teamotuaitau, who gave talks about the islands we visited.

Every evening there was entertainment, just our style, relaxed and authentic. The highlight for us was the five times there was Tahitian and Marquesan music by The Aranui Band, which is all crew members. These included several that we knew from our last voyage; Steven, Heifara, Mila and Tautu. They were kind enough to let Amy, Steve Morris and me sit in with them whenever we played. That was a real highlight! A couple of times some of our crew would do Marquesan warrior dancing but this was done in port as an exchange gift to visitors we had on board from Pitcairn. We had other great entertainment on board, led by Nui, a Tahitian dancer and singer. We saw Nui several times, on board and then on shore, dancing, singing and strumming her ukulele. Nui is a marvelous dancer and singer and had Amy dance with her a few times.

We met a lot of really great passengers on this trip. Aranui passengers tend to be independent and adventure travelers and many had even been sailors on small boats crossing the Pacific and other oceans. We met some great people from not only the US, but from Australia, New Zealand, France, French Polynesia, Norfolk Island (another place with Bounty Mutineer descendants), and Germany. There were a few couples from Hawaii.

The Aranui is, of course, a combination cargo and cruise ship, rather unique in the world. I call it “the cruise ship for people who hate cruise ships”. There is no casino, no movie theater (although they did show a couple of movies in the lounge, by way of a laptop computer). There is a well equipped doctor’s office and even a small spa where you can get a massage. And in the spa there is a room dedicated to tattoos, where Eddy, the ship’s dishwasher and seasoned (9 years) tattoo artist, plies his trade. Hmmmmm.....

Fellow passengers Jeanette and Frank, from Australia...