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Can’t be coincidence that the ship streams BBC outdoor documentaries with David A sounding info and warnings in a tone much nicer than that used by Greta T.

It’s more than a tiny speck amusing seeing on-screen beaches crowded with penguins, seals or walrus and then face the human equivalent while taking exercise on the promenade deck. It’s a little scary, in fact, to recognize I’m part of that mob mass.

On second thought, embarrassing could be easily added to scary. Serried files of bare feet are a sight one is not able to prepare for. As a casual observer I have to say painted nails don’t provide much disguise for a plump, disfigured foot.

Worse yet, from a visual point of view, are past-date tattoos. Stretched or wrinkled, a decades old artwork speaks more of Halloween than art. A shape that might have been a pretty flower now looks like a decaying or splattered melon.

Promenading the deck has its moments. With many Brits on board there’s the continual issue of right- versus left- sided traffic.

I’m thankful, however, to be afoot rather than in a vehicle when someone halts mid-lane to gaze around for God-knows-what reason. The lame and halt I can readily excuse, especially when the shifting deck is often enough to frustrate or puzzle any step.

At times I enjoy sight of elder couples in coordinated outfits (which in the pair was responsible for that, I wonder) moving in careful slomo synch. Easy to appreciate the visible expression of decades of shared living. Maybe I’m jealous. Maybe some potential partners were spared the lesson of attempting the long walk at my erratic side.

Often times I smile. How can I not seeing a beer belly Pilates ball patter along on stubby legs or a gray-haired pony tail tagging along behind a geezer who appears in frantic search for his lost youth. They are usually in a hurry.

The deck also provides language exposure. Plenty o’ Germans. Lots of Brit-Ausie-Kiwi accents far more intelligible than the occasional brogue of Erin or Scott. Not knowing how to distinguish between Japanese, Chinese or other Asian languages, I hear their babble in ignorance, mine not theirs.
Also heard Polish, which I wasn’t at all expecting.

My round-the-globe slap dash has seeming appeal to many. One of the very few ways, as it happens, to see the Tasman Sea without owning your own oceangoing yacht.

So, I’m less alone than I might have thought. In fact, I find it interesting to mix during lunch when strangers sharing a table will divulge more than you need or want to know about their second cousin married to a divorcee from Cleveland who happened to come from Minnesota via Iowa and New Jersey. Good to know. But useless in any case.

I have an ability to audit small talk without having much talking small ability of my own. Listening is an easy skill, one within my range.

The Ausies and Kiwis show a passion for border security that makes our efforts stopping people look like an amateur event.

Aside from temporary permits asking for information you don’t have (address of pier, etc.) the questioners are relentless in making sure you do not in any way shape form or condition anything organic that is not you yourself.

I began to worry an enema might be required for going ashore. Fortunately the easy online process (euphemism for long and overly complex) turns out to be relatively easily satisfied with a mother-may-I and a credit card.

The visitor her or himself may not be warmly welcomed, but cash is readily accepted and will open wide the doors of biologic and cultural exclusivity. The U.S./Canada border we know is by far less fussy than the barriers of these island nations. Maybe living on an island explains it. (OK, Australia is a continent but also a hell-of-a-big island.)

Of possible interest is the New Zealand port of Tauranga, having roughly (I was told) a population similar to that of the Twin Ports. Their port facility divides between bulk and container cargo.
I’m not totally up to date, but our port seems to have slipped away from ocean cargos to rely on shipping bulk ore to the east.

Conditions are quite different, of course, as the Kiwis have a great many Kiwis (earlier known as Chinese gooseberries, a not too appealing name) to ship out.

The clever Kiwis have used genetic engineering to modify their Kiwis to be less fuzzy and come in different colors and sizes, not to mention shelf (or shipping) life. Yay. I guess.

Not being a Kiwi eater my opine is baseless. Kiwi eating brings me to mention that a visit to a native enclave for educational purposes included the announcement that strangers no longer needed to worry about cannibalism. Good to know because that possibility would dampen, I would think, any tour.
As a side note the tour also included informing us that while Kiwi vines looked like grape production the island did not grow much wine. I wouldn’t have thought they grew any wine at all, would you?

World news reaches us with the result that some passengers make a special effort to announce how stupid they find the American President.

It’s a good thing to travel among those well versed in stupidity. Quite a relief, if you ask me. But, clearly, world events pop up even on Tasman’s Sea. There is no escape.

However, no matter how well a person prepares (or has hoped and attempted) the vagaries of the www form a universe unto itself. Some days the phone is active and other times not.

On deck about a third of the deck chair seaters appear busy trying to knock some sense into a little screen, often talking louder to be heard further away. Another third are open mouth sleepers, sights I often wish to forget soon as able.

The final third are readers. Among geezers and geezerettes the printed page holds its value. Texting in sunlight is not only damn difficult but a sorry waste of the now.