Auckland

February 12, 2008

We arrived in Auckland at 5 p.m. and went straight to see an ophthalmologist for Tin. The morning of February 9th Tin awoke with a ruptured blood vessel in his left eye. It was not particularly painful but it was the worst one he has ever encountered. He saw the doctor onboard who then told him it would just have to resolve but it would also be a good idea to see an ophthalmologist. To make a long story short, this doctor examined him and determined the same thing and said it would probably take 2-3 weeks for it to resolve. We then had about 2 hours to spend in the city so we took a short taxi ride, had a nice dinner, walked along the wharf area and then returned to the ship. It really was a shame because Auckland appeared to be a very nice city and we would have liked to explore more. Back onboard the ship we saw a performance by a local Maori dance group and learned about their tribal rituals, which include a dance that includes much wide-eye staring and tongue protruding to scare off any intruders. We set back to sea for the next 3 days before reaching Sydney, Australia. These past days have been much smoother sailing.