After taking more than 10,000 steps walking around Nouméa I went to the Sea View pool to workout in the weightless environment of water.  They were getting ready for the sail out party and already playing party music, relentless techno with a headache inducing steady, computer generated beat.  At least it’s headache inducing (and worse) for me.  Back in the ‘nineties we were aid workers in the Balkans and rode rickety old buses with shot suspensions on potholed, serpentine mountain roads.  The smell of dust, diesel and regurgitation permeated the bus’s cabin.   On one such trip the driver alternated between techno and the Italian song Volare.  Both trigger me so that I think I should be reaching for the meclizine.  Techno more than Volare, which has become the song I love to hate.   I don’t love to hate techno, just the latter.  I looked around the pool area at the age of my cruise mates and wondered what type of program director thought this music would appeal to this crowd.

Fortunately, the captain had opened the bow for the sail out so we could have a good, albeit windy (a friend lost her Amman half marathon ballcap) observation point without the throbbing and mechanical techno beat.  

As we were pulling out a regatta of sailboats was also leaving the harbor.  The captain had told us he would have to leave the harbor at a good speed because of the winds that could buffet the ship.    He gave several blasts on the ship’s horn to warn the sailboats.  They kept coming. The tugboat that was leading us out leaned on his horn and then started shouting in French to the sailboats.  For a while it looked like they were heading right into our path, but they all tacked to the port in, what looked like a synchronized sailboat ballet.  One boat was going at a good clip and had to drop her spinnaker, but we all exited the harbor safely, Zaandam with fleet escort.

After the sail out party had ended and the techno abated, we retreated to the aft open deck, grabbed a table and had dinner outside watching the sunset on our way to a sea day and eventually to Vanuatu, islands I had learned about in school geography as the New Hebrides.