A day at sea is what we all needed. May have been a good time to sleep in later, but with the time change last night, one of us seems to wake up earlier. Up with the chickens is an appropriate description. On sea days, breakfast service in the dining room is 8 to 9:30am, so that works for us.
The seas began to rock and roll as the day progressed, and we had expected this. After leaving Kangaroo Island, we headed into the Great Australian Bight, a body of water that is open to the Southern Ocean. Currents here come from Antarctica, and mix with the warmer waters, creating some pretty interesting sailing for many ships. We would guess the swells have reached 10 to 12 feet or more. The winds had picked up dropping the temperature to 70 degrees more or less. Now that the ship is heading almost due west, the sun does not shine on either port or starboard side. This will change when we reach Fremantle which is on the southwest coast of Western Australia. It will take two more sea days to arrive there.
During his noon talk, Captain Friso planted a seed of doubt regarding the upcoming port of Talanaro, Madagascar scheduled on March 5th. He explained that despite the fact that this has been on the itinerary for quite some time, things can change, especially in this part of the world. The local officials of Madagascar are saying the port area is not designed to take a ship of our size, and would be dangerous to do so. This is not the first time a country such as this one, has switched their minds about the ship docking. Most times, it is weather-related, which we all understand. Even more so, if a disease prevents us from landing there. Then we are grateful. Since it is still faraway, things could change and we may stop there. Several years ago, we made a stop in Nosy Be on the north tip of the island. Once was enough for us, as the conditions were third world. The only way for us to see a lemur or a chameleon was to take their tour to an island where these creatures are pets of the locals. Definitely not what we all expected. The way we see it, is that we will save the port charges, which have not even been applied to our accounts yet. Guess corporate HAL knew something already. There may be a problem with folks that booked independent tours here. Many of the seasoned travelers book these tours a year ahead, like we have in South Africa. We feel secure with a tour there, as South Africa is a much more civilized part of Africa.
We took several hikes around the promenade deck with the fewest walkers ever. Too cold and rocky. Then we are seeing a pattern with the deck crew, who seem to come out with their hoses to wash down something. This starts about 6pm, so we need to plan our hikes earlier. On the Amsterdam, the crew used to cordon off the doors to the outside decks so they could power-hose everything…including us if we got in the way.
Dinner for us was in the Pinnacle Grill this evening. It will be the second of ten complimentary meals in there. Even though we ate a light lunch around 2:30pm, we were not all that hungry by 7:30pm. As we walked into the restaurant, we spotted that another President's Club dinner was in progress. We recognized all eight of the guests sitting with the Captain and Chantal. By the amount of chatter we heard coming from the 10 seater table in the side room, it appeared all were having a fine time. Tina, the manager, said there will be one more dinner for eight. Then towards the end of the cruise, there will be one big dinner including all of us and the newly-inducted members we suspect. Rumor has it there will be 11 more people given the honors of the President's Club Group.
We had our usual starters of the wedge salads without the bacon on the side. Then one of us had an 8 ounce filet mignon steak with the onion rings. One side of a baked potato was shared between us. The other entrée was the halibut, which is always very good. But tonight, it was actually fishy and strong. Lemon did not help. We have heard comments from friends that the quality has not been up to par, even in this restaurant. At least there were no bones.
Desserts were one crème burlee and two scoops of a pineapple sorbet. Perfect ending we think.
The clocks were set back one hour tonight, which is always fine and dandy with us.
Bill & Mary Ann
