Dining

Seems like a good time to profile our table companions who have been with us since Fort Lauderdale, now 40 days ago.
This is Mary and Andy from Minnesota, they are a retired couple, their cabin is on the port side and Andy likes to joke how much better port side is from starboard, assigning points to each side depending on its’ advantages. Andy was was an engineer before retiring and has a great time kidding with his grandchildren via email. It‘s obvious they‘re both very proud of their grandchildren.


Next is June and Jim from Utah, they are not Mormon and June is Jims’ only wife, they have been married 3 years and are in their early fifties. Jim is an engineer also and is quite a practical joker, he likes to kid around with people and can frequently be seen sword fighting with one of the waiters using any of the many implements on the table. June and Jim are always first to volunteer for all the activities on board and have won a pile of prizes for their participation.


Next is Martha from Massachusetts, travelling on her own, as her husband is confined to a home due to illness. She has not talked about what kind of work she does or in fact, if she still works or is retired. She is a member of an international woman’s organisation which welcomes and guides women travellers wherever they may be.


Then, of course, there’s us.










Q. Could you ask the Captain that when they are in port that they park the ship so that we have a better view....
A. I mentioned your concerns to the captain, at dinner last night, I‘m writing this email from an island somewhere with all my luggage piled around me.
Q. Da, you never told me how your movies are working out? Have you watched many of them?
A. The DVD player works gr8, but we’ve only watched 3 out of the 150 we have with us, 2 bc losing m1y in the casino.

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Sea Days before Cairns

Saturday 28th February - Beautiful warm morning, clear skies and calm seas, we awoke around 05.00am and went up for an early morning coffee and a muffin. Walked 11 times around the exercise track (1 mile) then went back down to the cabin for our 07.30am room service breakfast delivery. Karla (picture left), our usual room service delivery person since Michael left, wasn’t on duty this morning and breakfast was delivered by a new girl, Exxy. We also met our new room steward this morning, don’t know what happened to Chonpat, our new guy seems much more confident, Montano is his name. He said Chonpat had been transferred to another area, hope he’s alright, he always looked so sad, it was his first contract and I think he missed his family. We played our usual trivia game with Harry & Bob and Shell & Bill, before lunch, lost as usual, didn’t have any lunch and just lazed about the deck ’til dinner time. Watched the ‘big’ production singing and dancing show, they tried, but were lacklustre as usual.

Sunday 1st March - We are travelling in the deep channel between the Great Barrier reef and mainland Australia. Early this morning we passed the long string of the Whitsunday Islands on the port side. It was very hot and humid with calm seas and after breakfast I took to the pool, the water was warm, but cooler than the surrounding air and it was a relief to float easily in its’ salty depths. Many more ships to be seen in these waters and we passed several freighters and small islands on both sides. I spoke, for a while, to some of the tradesmen brought on board to convert the captains lounge into two separate cabins for officers, unfortunately someone had forgotten to order the special toilet fitments required for the conversion and it’s debatable whether they will be able to complete the job by the time they’re due to leave in Guam. Before lunch, I attended part of a lecture on ‘The Great Barrier Reef’ by Marylou Blakeslee, it focused on coral and fish life on the reef. While in the pool this morning I arranged with Bill and Shelley to join them on a catamaran trip to Green Island when we docked in Cairns tomorrow so we decide to book the tickets online as we were concerned about availability. Booking was relatively easy, printing the voucher proved to be a little more difficult and occupied about an hour of the early afternoon. The rest of the afternoon I caught up on reading my latest book ‘Blood and Thunder’ the true account of events in the early exploration of the American west.

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