February 12, 1809 is the birth
date of both Charles Darwin, British naturalist, and Abraham Lincoln, American
president in the early 1860s.
We were walking circuits on Deck 5, the promenade deck,
by 7:30. There were a few skimpy clouds in the sky, a breeze of about 10 knots
(or 17 km per hour) with a temperature about 25 C.
Since this is a
Sea Day (#2), we had breakfast in the dining room, with people from the San
Francisco area and a woman from Australia.
The 10 a.m. showing of the movie of the day, “Sully”, had a full house,
about 95 people, so we took our books to read and found lounge chairs in the
shade on Deck 5. The air was warm and
the breeze was nice. People strolled by
enjoying the walk along the shaded deck.
Deck 12 has a running/walking track, but it is open to the sun and half
the length of the Deck 5 circuit.
We read for
over two hours then went to the dining room for lunch; selecting Tomato soup
and Greek Salad. The air conditioning
of the ship felt almost too cool after sitting reading in the warm air.
In the Aurora
Theatre after lunch, a lecture about the Cairns area was given. This is the jumping off point for tours to
the Great Barrier Reef, but there are interesting places to visit on land as
well. We have a land tour reserved for
the day in the Cairns area.
During the captain’s daily message he gave
numbers of nationalities on board of the 2,156 passengers. There are 192
Canadians and over 450 British and a similar number of Americans with
Australians being in the majority. There
will be over 660 people staying on board at Perth and taking the cruise back to
Sydney via New Zealand. We have spoken
to several couples from either Sydney or Perth who have taken the Indian
Pacific train tour across the country from Sydney to Perth or reverse.
Claire went to a
jewelry presentation about opals. The
Australian Opal Cutters rep brought lovely pieces set in 18 karat gold
including earrings (starting at Aus $ 2,000); rings (starting at Aus $ 5,100);
and pendants (starting at Aus $ 5,300).
He passed a ring around for the two dozen people to handle in the store. It was a colourfully speckled black opal, the
size of a nickel coin, surrounded with 5 point diamonds and set in gold, retail
value of Aus $ 104,000. But the opal
jewelry is then discounted 40% when it is purchased! The jewelry was admired but there were few
immediate sales.
We went to the
coffee bar, Latté-tudes, for cappuccinos and took our books to read at the
Cinema until the 4 p.m. showing of “Sully” started. We got two of the last six seats, with 25
minutes to go before the movie started.
Tonight’s
chosen menu items roasted cauliflower risotto cakes, prawns & mussel soup,
salmon gravlox with potato salad and beet pickle as starters; roast pork loin
stuffed with dried fruit, cabbage and spinach herb dumpling. Dessert was apple pie or banana and caramel
mousse with coffee ice cream.
After dinner,
the show in the Aurora Theater was Strings Alive, a energetic couple played a mixture
of guitar, piano, violin instrumental and singing complemented by the Radiance
of the Sea orchestra.
In New South
Wales state, where Sydney is located, high temperatures averaged 43 C Friday
(42.9 Sydney) and 46.9 C Saturday (44.02 C Sydney). These were close to record temperatures
reported in 1939. The bush fire dangers
were extreme is parts of New South Wales on the weekend with property being
burned or destroyed.
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