DAY 52---Benoa, BALI (DAY 2)

This is day #2 here at the Benoa dock just outside Denpasar.  Buses are ready for another day of tours.  Still raining this morning.  The rain did end before the tours left.  No tours for us today.  75 degrees out this morning.

LAST EVENING

I got last evening's photos at the end of yesterday's post.  

TODAY

        There is a Muslim mosque somewhere near the pier.  At 5am they were broadcasting on loud speakers their call for prayer.  I could hear it. 

        I woke up around that time and was worrying about our house's heat system.  I can check the temperature via wifi both inside and in the garage where the boiler is for our radiant heat system.  Yesterday inside was 60 which is cooler that it has been but garage temp was ok.  So I went to my laptop to check the temperatures again.  Still 60 inside and 52 in the garage so ok I guess.  I sent an email to Melissa, neighbor watching our house, to go check it.

        There is a large cruise ship anchored outside of the harbor this morning.  With us at the pier there is no room for that size ship to dock.  So it appears they are having to tender their passengers ashore.  Not sure but back end of the ship looks like it may be a Princess ship.

        It is now afternoon, and yes, it is a Princess ship.  Their tender dock is behind our ship.  It is too big to dock here even if our ship was not here.  

                                                                Bow of our Mariner.

               Here you can see one of the Princess tender boats just at tender pier behind us.

                                   Just outside of the terminal is a small temple with offerings.

        We had invited Putu Artawan to come on board today to visit with us.  We met him back on our 2010 world cruise and we became very close friends.  He was a wine sommelier but left the cruise line back in 2014 to be with his very young family.  Now he instructs at a travel industry school and trains young Balinese to work on cruise ships.  He is also a driver and guide for private tours.  He has a 6 passenger van for the tours.  He gave us a tour back in 2017.

        He calls us mommy and daddy and we call him son.  He has 3 children:  14 year old girl, 8 year old boy, and 6 year old boy.  I was to meet him in the cruise terminal at 11am but he had traffic issues and then they would not let him in the cruise dock gate.  Long story but he finally got in.  Then security at the terminal would not let him pass as he was not on the visitor list.  So I went out.  Well the list they were using was yesterday's list.  So I went back on board to our security officers and got todays list.  Finally at noon they allowed him to come on board.        

        We went to La Veranda for some lunch and Putu got to see quite a few crew members and passengers that he had worked and cruised with.  Everyone was happy to see him.  After lunch we went all around the ship where he saw more people he knew.

        We came back to our suite to get a couple's email and phone number as they left the ship yesterday and will remain in Bali for a month.  Putu will do some guide work for them.  He called them on his phone and I talked to Vivian and introduced Putu.  I also sent her an email with his photo.

        When we were in the Observation Lounge I asked Putu what the big mound was on the other side of the bay.  He said it was the garbage pile for the city.  It was huge.

         Putu left the ship at 2:45 to fight the traffic going home.  We really enjoyed seeing him and visiting with him today.  We will be back in Bali again on our next year's cruise from Sydney to Tokyo so we will plan on doing a tour with him then.

        So after he left Rebecca is streaming her soaps while I work on this posting.  Luckily no rain for the tours today.  Most are now back on board at 3:30.  The ship sails at 6pm.  At 5:15 there will be a "safety announcement".  Luckily, we will not have to assemble at our emergency muster stations.  We just have to go check in there between 2pm and 5pm for them to scan our key cards indicating we know where to go in case of an emergency.  We did it at 2pm.  At 3:45 we could hear the Muslim Mosque broadcasting their prayer call again over loud speakers somewhere near the port.

        Our plan for this evening is cocktails in Mariner Lounge with Marcia, Richard, & Harvey.  We all have a Prime 7 reservation for 6:45.  The show tonight is by guest entertainer, Mickey Votano.  Theme of his vocal show is "Swing, Soul, Rock n Roll".  We met him at noon as we were about to have lunch.  We will definitely go to his show as he seems to be a very nice young man.

                                           Here is the Compass Rose menu for this evening.

        So we set sail again at 6pm for our next destination which is just on the other side of Bali.  The port is at Celukan Bawang and will be a very slow cruise speed for our arrival at 7am tomorrow.  This is a new port for us.  I have a 7 hour tour scheduled but Rebecca will not be going along.  If we were to drive from Benoa to Celikan it would only take 3 hours as it is just 50 miles from this port.  But we're taking a "slow boat".