Around The World In 80 Waves

Despite all the time I have spent at sea on this adventure I realised that this was the first time I had actually slept at sea.

Waking bleary eyed the following morning I was delighted to see this sight out of my cabin’s window. The silence is only broken by the wailing of the old ladies trying to sell you packets of Pringles and sweets from the row boats that they are moving from ship to ship. It could be worse!

Our fierce tour guide takes us all of to see a pearl farming operation in one of the secluded coves after breakfast. (Having exhausted all the possible variations of pearl double entendres in Tahiti I wont repeat them again here.)

The floating operation was not that impressive but it was interesting to see them implanting the impurity into the oysters to start the process which results in a pearl. I did ask Louisa if she wanted a pearl necklace while we checked out the jewellery in the shop but think the joke was wasted on her.

After the pearl farm all there was left to enjoy was the slow cruise for a couple of hours to get us back to the port. The scenery really is staggeringly pretty here and I have loads of pictures, none of which will do it justice.

I watch a few DVDs on my laptop to break up the journey back to Ha Noi. Traffic is a bit of an issue once we arrive and our tour guide Hao practically throws us out of the door at each drop off point to avoid creating a traffic jam. This means that everything is a bit manic and all the goodbyes to new friends made on the trip are somewhat rushed, which was a shame.