It takes five days to travel from the Chilean coast to our next stop, Easter Island.  Luckily, the waters were calm so seasickness was not an issue at all.  The days went by quickly with all of the activities on ship.  Paul painted everyday, started ukulele lessons, and even joined a passenger group called the HAL Chorale.  Ron attends the cooking demonstrations by the guest French chef from Tahiti and lectures about history, geology and biology.

The most popular lecturer is Gloeta Massie who lives and works in Australia, but comes from the US.  Her lectures are about biology, but she has a great lecturing style with a lot of enthusiasm and humor.  She has a talent for making her topics interesting and understandable.  She unfortunately leaves the ship in Australia and a petition was even started to get her to stay on longer, but she has prior commitments that prevent her continuing with the cruise.

Paul’s watercolor classes involve painting assignments designed to practice each various skills such as shading with the three Peruvian flower sellers, or texture with the Easter Island moai.  We generally begin with a reference picture such as the fish carving we saw at the Chan Chan archeological site in Peru or the whale picture I used to do a sketch for a fellow guest who was not having much luck with her whale watching.

Some of these projects will end up in a charity auction at the end of the cruise.