A New Cruise, A New Crowd!

After completing our four week cruise of Australia, we are now getting ready to set sail for the Fijian Islands and French Polynesia. 

As old passengers disembark the ship, the gears are set in motion to clean rooms, re-stock ship supplies, and arrange the new entertainment programme.  

The new passengers arrive. 

These ones don’t have walking sticks and hearing aids.  When they’re asked how they’d like their steak prepared, they don’t say “blended”. 

Oh yes, these passengers are much younger than I’ve been accustomed to. They’ve also brought their little joeys with them. 

A quick walk across the top deck witnesses lots of children running barefoot across wet floors and mile-long queues at the ice-cream parlour.

Sure enough, for the next two weeks my clinic sees pneumonia and angina exchanged for broken ankles and severe cases of brain freeze.

Alder hey prepared me well for this cruise. However, I challenge anyone to tell an 8 year old girl whose broken her ankle that she can’t go swimming with her plaster cast on... My ears bled with the screams!!!

One of our first stops on the cruise was to Dravuni Island. A small Fijian island with no medical facilities, and whose local population live primarily off coconuts and locally caught white fish.

I’m up at six o’clock in the morning throwing medical supplies and resuscitation equipment in the tender boat to be taken across to the island so that we can create a shoreside medical party and provide medical advice and treatment in case of beach emergencies... cuts, scrapes and jellyfish stings.

Nine hours and ten coconuts later we finally pack up camp and head back to the ship.

The stress of lemming-like children and acute coconut poisoning leave’s me in desperate need of spa treatment.

I speak to Ryan in the spa who sorts me out with my first ever acupuncture experience.

15 minutes later I’m sleeping in a darkened room with needles hanging out of my wrists, ankles and one between my eyes.  Incredible Experience!!!!

The rest of the cruise passes by pretty quickly with no major problems. 

However now on our way around New Zealand I can’t help but think I should have sacrificed a few more T-shirts for jumpers...