Chapter Fourteen – Japan Part 3 (8/25)

The yellow pilot boat is approaching. A pilot will be brought onboard to guide our ship through the harbor. As we progress, a stretch of islands pass us on the left then, the coastline, on both sides. Sailboats, white triangles against the dark blue water, shine in the distance. Cliffs drop sheer from the pastureland to the tan beaches. Dark green groves fill the crevasses. We cruise along under the dome of the sky. Soon we will be docked at Port Melbourne, Hobson's Bay, Australia. Living life onboard, traveling around the world, I feel like a spirit watching the living as they go about their activities. I am a temporary exhalation, undetected then gone. But their doings remain in my mind. Humans are so very busy, especially the young adults. It takes significant aging to bring on stillness and reflection. My obscurity can make me sentimental. I feel a general affection for anyone who passes. I saw a baby watching sea gulls eat the French fries that someone had tossed to them. I imagined her forming her own impressions of everything around and not yet named. I wished her well and hoped that the war would end soon.

The most important thing we have to do, now that we have re boarded our ship in downtown Sydney, is to increase the number of pages in our passports. Most countries will stamp a whole page and sometimes two. Our passports, though new, only had twenty eight pages. This will not be enough to get us around the world! So we made an appointment with the US Embassy, along with 50 other passengers, to address this issue by purchasing larger passport books which have 52 pages. The Embassy was new and modern, the employees good natured and efficient, considering that we descended on them all at once. We conducted our business in an orderly manner under the watchful eyes of the US President, Vice President and Secretary of State, whose framed photographs dominated the far wall.

After all our planning for Jeff's next operation and waiting out the days till we arrived in Cairns, Australia, we finally flew to the Sydney airport. It was evening when we got there and both of us were exhausted. We both thought why call an Uber, there are a bunch of taxis hanging around, just take one of them to the motel. That was a mistake. We ended up paying $100 for a 20 minute trip in no traffic. Uber would have been half, I found out later. Since then we have taken several Uber rides in electric cars. And they have been excellent experiences. Australia has been importing Chinese made electric cars. We got to ride in a BYD and Uber drivers like to talk. We conversed with a Japanese driver and an Indian driver, both men. Both had been in Australia about 15 years. They seemed to like being in the big city. Both agreed it is generally too expensive. The driver from Japan, his wife works in the hospital and they have children, he likes the flexibility of the job so he can be involved with school and activities. The Indian driver has a son and would like to return to India so his son can experience his homeland. We are resting at our motel and I am outside watching the wild cockatiels.

We have several sea days before we arrive again in Cairns, Australia. This means we will not see land for a while. The rhythm of sea days is very different from shore days. There are a variety of activities you can participate in. Almost anything you can imagine is being invented as a result of the variety of people onboard, some of whom want to duplicate the entertainments they enjoyed where they used to live.  This is a residential cruise ship so a lot of the passengers are onboard long-term, meaning many months or years or the rest of their lives. The longest stay, if you “buy” your cabin, is 15 years. When Jeff and I bought our cabin that was all that was offered. Now you can buy a cabin for 5 years. Each circumnavigation takes about three and one half years. We are going to try to stay onboard for at least one circumnavigation. Before the sea days began, we visited two of the islands of Tonga. At the first stop, people scuba dived over a reef right next to our ship

The float of cloud drifts and encircles a mountain leaving just the very top, a pointed witches cap poking through. These islands have the most magnificent mountains. They brood around the harbors, snagging the clouds that pass. No doubt they have inspired fantastic stories. The cloud shadows create chameleon-like changes on mountain surfaces, making them even more expressive than oceans that amuse themselves by hiding what they contain; mountains are hysterical by contrast. Always looking for attention. “Look. Look again!, what about this?” They may hold a pose for a while seeming docile, then you look up and they have disappeared. White mist covers just a grey suggestion, then suddenly black silhouettes like broken giant teeth rise defiantly. So much animation, millions of years after volcanic upheavals shook these mountains from the sea depths.

Medical emergencies all have a similar feeling. Intensity, urgency, a changed perception of time; only events and human encounters progress, time seems warped, unimportant. After several sleepless nights because Jeff was having difficulty peeing and he was beginning to have pain, he went to the onboard clinic to get catheterized. There were three attempts with successively larger catheters. This was painful and distressing for him, though he kept joking about it, “this is not good sex!” The attempts were unsuccessful. He was given pain killers and an ambulance met us at the dock for a 10 minute ambulance ride to the hospital. Jeff is an 80 year old man with an enlarged prostate so he normally has trouble peeing. But this time it stopped altogether and there was blood. We are waiting at the hospital for the urologist. Nurses and a general practitioner have spoken to us in English. Very kind, polite, casual and patient. The urologist arrives and talks with Jeff. He is going to get the operating room ready and put Jeff out. Then he can do the operation. We wait in our curtained off cubicle Jeff is lying on a bed. A woman who came with her husband, who has high blood pressure, is behind the curtain to the left of us. He had collapsed. She is reciting the Lord's Prayer and Hail Marys over and over in an emotional whisper. She is crying. A young man is in the cubicle to our right. He seems to have broken his arm. It is all wrapped up in white gauze. Earlier a man had been stung by something and ointment was applied. A pregnant woman has come in. This is a modest hospital, very basic, two floors. They have what they need. A few flies buzz lazily around, but most are killed by the electric device on the wall. A very slight smell of urine is in the air. We arrived here about 8:30. It is now 2:00. Jeff has had an ultrasound, blood pressure checks and an EKG. Now he is in a wheelchair waiting for the nurse to take him to an operating room. The waiting room has about 10 people waiting. About 50 chairs in all. Not terribly busy for a Saturday. Light and darker coffee colored skin, attractive, rounded features and large expressive eyes set apart the native population. They are only a little curious about us. There is no rushing here.

Papua, New Guinea.

City of Koror, the rock islands

Bitung, Sorong, Ternate