Enough about Filipinos

I woke up yesterday morning to the sound of many people shouting out in the main corridor of B-deck.
B-deck is the first non-passenger deck below the guest area, containing some crew cabins, but also dining areas, bars, loading areas, offices, etc etc
Anyway, I rushed out of my cabin and found a huge throng of people surrounding a tug-of-war, with five “tuggers” on each side of a very thick rope, the kind they use to tie the ship to the dock.
Someone mentioned that it was Philippine Independence Day, thus the festivities. It would’ve made more sense if it were Filipinos in the tug-of-war. But on one end of the rope was orchestra musicians and stagehands, on the other side were sailor/mechanic types who worked down on D-Deck. There was a Filipino who served as “starter” of each contest. Perhaps the Filipinos were too slight of build to seriously contend?
This got old very quickly, so off to the Lido Buffet I went. Filipinos have a lock on all the bartending jobs on this ship, as they did on the Ryndam last winter. In fact, one of the Ryndam bartenders turned up on this ship four days ago, having spent 4 months back home before signing on for another ten months.
On both the Ryndam and the Maasdam, ballroom dance music was provided by Filipino bands. The current band, called the Basul Trio, led by pianist Raul Basul, has had their contract extended, so that they’ll have 14 consecutive months here before leaving. I noticed that they used to have a guitarist, who I suppose got sick of it all and left without being replaced.
I got this info from an outdated list on my cabin wall, which said that Raul Basul and guitarist so&so shared cabin 7043.
Raul now has his own cabin, and that in itself is a large incentive for reducing the size of your group from Quartet to Trio.
Enough about Filipinos. Yesterday’s highlight was a bus trip around Prince Edward Island, featuring a stop at Green Gables, which was the inspiration for a character/book named “Anne of Green Gables”
I missed the boat, pardon the pun, with this whole Anne of Green Gables thing, but Wikipedia tells me it’s been quite a big deal, for quite a long time. Lotsa books, movies, TV series etc. So the 45-minute stop at Green Gables involved strolling on this piece of property, through this little house that “Anne” lived in etc etc. It would have helped if I’d known something about Anne etc. beforehand.
Prince Edward Island and its beauty is the backdrop for the books. My God, it really is a beautiful place. It was formed delta- style, by deposits from the St Lawrence River over a gazillion years, and that somehow explains the red-”clay-like” color of its soil. This plus the 69 shades of green. The Tour Guide said some committee was paid to come and study the island’s colors and concluded that there were 69 shades of green. The Tour Guide was a tad sarcastic of taxdollar misuse as she said this.
Prince Edward Island is the “Rhode Island” of Canada -- a full-fledged but very dinky province, about the size of Long Island. It has 140,000 residents, but 1.4 million visit there in the summertime. This summertime crush of people is still a few weeks away I guess, and I think yesterday was a fine time to see the whole thing.
Anyway, happy birthday to the Philippines, noble provider of cruise ship bartenders and small dance bands.