Celebrity Solstice - day 2 - sea day

We awoke on Thursday for our first full day at sea...

A historian lecturer is on board the ship...

... she was scheduled to do a lecture on our first port of call in New Caledonia.

Dr Ngaire Douglas along with her late husband have written a number of books about islands and civilizations in this area.

We are traveling into Melanesia -- literally "dark islands" - both because the evergreen trees on the mountains make the islands appear dark, and also because the peoples who lived on these islands when white men first came were very dark skinned.

The first port we stop at will be in New Caledonia..

Dr Ngaire indicated that these islands are part of what scientists believe to be an 8th continent, Zealandia.

A view of the continents including Zealandia (but not including Europe)

Captain Cook was one of the explorers to map these areas...

It looks like Captain Cook took a very circuitous path on his voyages! I think that sometimes our travel path in the RV looks like this too!

We will be stopping at Lifou - a small island with a small population.

The lagoon within which our ship will anchor -- we will be able to disembark by tender (lifeboats used to transfer us from the ship to the land).

We enjoyed our lecture by Dr Ngaire.

Back out of the theatre and wandering around the ship...

...looking up in the central atrium

Stairs heading up from deck 3 in the atrium

We decided for this evening to eat in the dining room. It was a "chic" night so we were encouraged to dress up... since we don't have many "dress up" clothes, we just did our best!

We were seated across from each other -- Carl...

... and Patti.

Our desserts -- yum!!!

The evening entertainment was from the production cast, performing a musical titled "Broken Strings".

The cast performing -- we had a hard time understanding the words of the songs, but the dancing was very energetic and good!

We were able to be as busy as we wanted to be, but did not have to do anything particular! We also "lost" an hour at the end of day 2/beginning of day 3 as we set our clocks forward to be on New Caledonian time.