Monday, February 27, 2023

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Monday, February 27, 2023 

 

Thursday – Sea Day – Coral Sea 

We were amazed at how smooth the sea is today. It is like glass. 

Friday 

We were scheduled to be at Thursday Island on Friday. This is also a tender port and we were advised a couple of days prior that the tender ride would be about 45 minutes to get between the ship and port. There were no scheduled excursions on this island as there is very little to do or see. It had significant importance during World War II and was also a pearl diving area for a long time. 

We decided we didn’t want to put up with a 45-minute one-way ride on the tender to just wander around, so we turned in our tickets. It turned out to be a good decision. Although it was fairly calm when we anchored, the wind picked up during the day. It was unsafe to stay at anchor, so the anchor was raised, and the tender operation suspended. Eventually, the captain decided to abandon the port and recalled any passengers on shore. As the tenders returned, it looked like everyone on board was getting an “E” ride. But everyone was safely back on board, tenders were raised, and we set sail.

 

Saturday – Sea Day – Arafura Sea 

A pretty ordinary sea day, but we noticed while we were tracking the progress of our ship on “cruisemapper.com” that there was another cruise ship following in our wake. It was the Coral Princess bound for Darwin. Her speed was a bit faster than ours, so we expected to see her passing us. At about 8:20 p.m. she was off our port side.

 

Sunday – Sea Day – Arafura Sea 

The ship has arranged for a talent show tonight at 9:00 p.m. Passengers signed up a couple of weeks ago. I got to the theater about 8:20 and it was a good thing I did. If I had come at show time, there wouldn’t have been anyplace to sit. It was standing room only and a great show. Assorted instrumentals, singing, poetry, and a choir. One of the pianists was concert quality; great voices, and the choir did a great job singing a medley of Rogers and Hammerstein songs. 

Great Entertainment.

 

Monday – Sea Day – Timor Sea 

Today was the reveal on the ship building contest. I can’t remember all the rules, but design had to be of variety not powered by a motor/engine. It had to be made of primarily recycled materials; it had to be able to stay afloat for at least 20 seconds; you had to have a story to go with it. 

People are so creative. Entries varied from less than a foot in length to about 4 feet in length. Judges were the Captain, the Chief Engineer, and the Hotel Manager, With the sea being one of our rougher days, the main pool was running at Tsunami level, so the hot tub was used for the float test. All entries passed the float test, even a couple that looked a bit iffy.

 

 

 This was the ultimate winner.

Made from reeds and wine corks.

This was made from cocktail picks.

Mostly coffee stirrers.

No 7 had not been set up when I took the pictures so it is missing.

2 1/2 liter water bottles held together by skewers.

This is number 7 made from magazine covers, cocktail stirrers, cocktail coasters. Made by a baggo team, who are the rowing team.