Guest Lynda Gavigan Halttunen and her husband Don sent us several great posts from their 30-day South Pacific cruise on Westerdam. Enjoy “cruising” with them!

After leaving Nuku Hiva we were at sea for six days. Three of the six days included time changes to get us back onto San Diego time. My phone worked intermittently with e-mails. It was time to read books & magazines, nap and eat!

When crossing the equator for the second time, there was a King Neptune ritual. This was an initiation for the cadets and other crew members, where this was their first equator crossing. Clement, our fitness instructor was one of the victims.

Stretch & abs classes became contentious when one group wanted a quiet experience while others would not stop chatting and giggling. My class partner Patt Miller and I have befriended “yoga girl” and Sandi Eric who was in charge of 17 emergency rooms for Sharp Hospitals in San Diego. Her partner was head of psychiatry for Kaiser. As you can imagine, we were the, “let’s be quiet and focus” group. Sandi was brave and said something. YIKES!

Don and I have befriended several other couples. We met Jim the dentist from Florida and his partner, Dennis, in the embarkation process. Patt and her boyfriend, Robert, also live in San Diego.

We watched “Les Miserable” in our cabin one day. We were very glad that we did not see it in the movie theatre. We spent time shopping on board for souvenirs. We entered several raffles. There were two more Formal Nights and a special champagne brunch for Mariner levels.

As the days at sea became limited, we began to say “Good-bye” to everyone and started to feel sad to be leaving our new friends. We exchanged e-mail addresses with several people and hope to keep in touch as we have with John and Mary-Beth from Romance on the Rhine in 2009. Amazingly, they were on this cruise with us, unplanned!