March 5, 2017

This is Sea Day #5. Clocks went an hour forward overnight, again, the time is back to the time zone one further east than Sydney.  Another hour needs to be gained in order to achieve New Zealand time.  New Zealand is a country consisting of three large volcanic islands, hundreds of kilometers southeast of Australia.   Claire had a complimentary collagen eye treatment this morning, courtesy of our stateroom attendant’s Thank You certificate and managed to leave the treatment without an armful of skin products.

    The sky today was mostly cloudy with some blue patches, a strong wind and a temperature of 68 F (19 C) on my thermometer. As the ship passed through the south eastern part of the Bass Strait Tasmania could be seen in the distance on the starboard side (right side facing the bow).  Then the ship was sailing in the Tasman Sea with a depth of over 4 km to the sea bottom.  The waves had a slight roll of about one meter, when we were walking this morning, but as we travelled in the Tasman Sea, the roll became more pronounced to 2.5 meters and white caps were forming on the waves.  When we walked along the sunny port side, we watched several dozen gray brown seabirds frolicking in the ship’s slipstream. The birds looked like they were air surfing along the frothy white waves created by the ship.  The ship’s speed was 35 km per hour.  I spoke to a woman watching the birds who said that she had watched the birds three hours earlier.  By 4, there were only 5 or 6 birds still flying along side of the ship. The captain’s noon announcement informed the passengers that we were 150 km for any shore and the water depth was over 4 km.

   A windbreaker was needed because of the wind and the clouds got fewer as the afternoon continued.  On the TV satellite station, Australian channel, it was reported that a Cyclone Warning had been issued for Darwin on the Australian northern coast.  We had visited there on a hot day 16 days ago.

   We joined Bob and Maureen in the Aurora Theater to listen to Dr. Peter Dingle’s afternoon talk, “Eat Your Way to Health on a Cruise”.  Then we all went to the Windjammer for a light lunch before we all went to the beginner Rumba ballroom dance lesson.  We read our books half listening to the instructions for an enthusiastic dozen couples as they learned basic Rumba steps.  We read for the rest of the afternoon before dressing for formal evening and going to the hosted recorded ballroom dance music hour before dinner.

   Tonight’s choices were Seafood Salad and Cream of Cauliflower Soup for appetizers and Buttermilk Fried Chicken with mashed potatoes, part of a cob of corn and broccoli or Salmon with boiled potato, carrots and broccoli.  Coconut Parfait was selected for dessert.

   After dinner, the Traffle Duo was playing in the Centrum, with the sofas and chairs which were not intruding too far into the dance space, so we danced a few songs, before Tom and Mary also came onto the dance floor.

   The singers and dancers presented the musical show, “City of Dreams” which showcases six famous European and Asian cities and their traditional costumes.

    We will be swayed to sleep by the rocking of the ship.

Steps 12,783     Flights of stairs  79