February 28th Day 1
We got a goodnight’s sleep but we both feel exhausted so this sea day is what we needed. This morning we had Scholarship at Sea lecture “The Great Barrier Reef” Facts, figures and interesting observations from Reef Pilot John Cardelli. He had photo’s of the things will see as we sail thru the reef. It was very informative, he will take control of the ship as soon as we enter the reef and will be giving commentary from the bridge. He claims we will see dolphins and even a whale or two. We will spending a lot of time on our balcony since we should be able to see the reef as the ship sails next to it.
We went to trivia and picked up two new people Elaine and Charles, who just got on the ship. We did average, we are not the brightest group. Also in our group is Irene and Richard who played as fill-ins last segment of the cruise.
This afternoon we we had another Scholarship at Sea “What’s So Great About the Great Barrier Reef”. Home to 359 species of coral, the GBR is the largest living coral entity in the South Pacific. The talk was given by Naturalist Ann Burgess. Very informative lecture on coral and fish.
After dinner we went to the show which was a comedy variety show with Pearson & Harvey, former members of the musical group “The Four Kinsmen”. One basically sang and the other acted like an idiot. Harvey the singer had a good voice. Pearson’s slapstick comedy was average at best, some funny and some stupid.
During the night we will maintain a north-north-easterly course along the Australian coast.
February 29 Day 2
Happy Birthday Tracy
We are continuing along the coast but now we have entered the Coral Sea, looks the same as the Tasman Sea. We will be entering the Great Barrier Reef and should be able to see coral. We were told at a lecture this morning that we should spot dolphins and whales today and tomorrow. Well as of now 1:30 we have not sighted a thing. This afternoon the second lecture by the reef pilot was a waste of time in regards to our cruise. (I mastered the art of sleeping sitting up though.) He talked about the Torrent Straits which we are not sailing thru. Nice to learn if we were sailing through there.
We then went to the port talk. The ship docks right in the town which is nice. The forecast for Friday is a high of 102 degrees and humid!!!! We booked a tour before we left home to go to the Great Barrier reef. The tour will be on a semi-submergible and glass bottom boat. After hearing about all the creatures lurking in the water we have no desire to swim with sea snakes and bright blue stinger jelly fish. Our cost was under $200 where the cruise charged $600. Ours is only 5 hours vs. 8 hours. This way we get to check out the city, of course at 102 degrees we will probably be in a air condition bar or back on the ship.
Tonight was formal night in the dining room which means the Princess Singers and Dancers were the show. It actually was good, a improvement from the other one we saw. Tonight we change our course slightly to more to the North-West.
March 1 Betty’s Mom’s Birthday, She would have been 99.
We are sailing within the Great Barrier Reef and have not seen any dolphins, Whales, sea snakes. Lots of island in the area sometimes on both sides. There has been no commentary from the bridge, probably nothing to report. It is hot on the balcony as it has to be near 90. We have had a few showers and a partly cloudy sky. The sea is calm with only wavelets.
In the morning we had a talk titled “ A Funny Thing Happened to Me on the Way to the Mound. It was given by Art Lowe, he had a career as baseball player, coach and manager with Pittsburg, Houston and Oakland. His talk was very funny and informative and he is going to give a couple more. We skipped all the other talks and spent the day on the balcony watching for some activity.
Tonight we are going to the encore show, as we skipped it last time and have been told it was entertaining. It is Ross Maio a multi award winning international instrumentalist. We’ll be going to bed early tonight since we get to Cairns at 7:00 and need to be at the Tour Office no later than 8:15, so I hope we make it on time.
Just to add the show was okay, but all he played was an accordion and being from the Polka capital of the world we have seen some of the best players in the world.
