Day 33: Another Sea Day. As promised, it was a rainy wild ride into Fiji. The barf bags were set out in all their convenient locations. We’re so used to this now that it seems normal.
I played catch-up on the blog while Bruce was working. Before we knew it, it was time for Happy Hour. Bruce was still working, so I chatted with the usual crowd. We were joined by a guy who will be unveiling a line of opals and pearls in the gift shop in a few days. I took the opportunity to pick his brain and learned even more stuff about both. Boy, you really do have to be careful when buying these. For example, if a pearl doesn’t make the cut for any reason, it gets tossed into a bin. When they have enough for a “batch”, they grind them up and process them into pearl shapes. They look so much like real pearls that even jewelers sometimes can’t tell the difference. When asked, they say they were harvested from oysters, blah, blah, blah. They aren’t technically lying. And with opals, the best are the black ones – meaning they’re black on the bottom and all the vibrant colors on the face. Well, the less honest people will take a lower grade of opal, paint it black on the bottom, and pass it off as a black opal. He claims that the stuff in the Caribbean and Mexico is often not the real deal. So much for my plan to buy them there later on. Geez, ya just can’t win.
He needs to create a sales video to be played on the Royal Caribbean channel in our rooms. He said if I’ll help him write the script, he’ll give me a discount on an opal. Hmmm, thay may be an offer I can’t refuse…..
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