February 16, 2017

    Officially today is Sea Day #5 and the clocks have been turned back one hour again.  We will be turning the clocks forward in the next weeks, when we are sailing along Australia’s southern coast going east.

    Today, just walking up to Deck 5, the humidity was noticeable as was the sound of the waves before the double doors even opened onto the outside deck. The waves were rolling to about one meter high with some white caps.  The humidity noted in the Daily newsletter “Cruise Compass” was 75%, which lower than some days.  In the shops area, the outside of the display cases showed condensation, probably from the cool air conditioned air.  However, the exterior windows also dripped with condensation, as we passed them on the walk around the Deck 5 promenade.  Even the lens of my camera produced a hazy photo that I deleted and had a clear photo when the lens was wiped. The warm 25 C. air enveloped you, as you stepped onto the deck, but the wind hit you too.  The sun rose at 5:51 a.m. and was mostly hidden by clouds. The sun rises behind the stern since the ship is heading west. The sky had several layers of cloud; a thin gauze-like layer was highest. The middle layer was fluffy white and the lowest level was puffy gray.  In the distance, you could see a veil of grayish rain.  The port side of Deck 5 was wet in the center because the crew had sprayed the lifeboats to remove yesterday’s dried salt. After several circuits, we climbed the stairs to Deck 12 to see if the wind was stronger on a higher deck.  The velocity of the wind was about the same.  We noticed that the lounge chairs had been tied to the railing overnight.

    The route of the ship across the Arafura Sea from last evening to this morning was along the northern edge of the Carpentaria Gulf. The Gulf is 300 km across and about the same deep.  The Carpentaria Gulf is about half the size of the Black Sea, which is bordered by Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania, Ukraine and Russia, and is a little smaller than the Yellow Sea, between China and Korea.

    We had walked more than 5,000 steps by the time we went to the dining room for breakfast.  We joined two ladies from Guadalajara, Mexico.  They had a bit more English than we had Spanish. After breakfast we went to the Aurora theatre to listen to the lecture “Runner of Bataria, the Man Who Stole Cook’s Thunder”. Bataria is the former name of Jakarta, Indonesia. Captain James Cook’s scientific voyage was to observe Venus’s transit in the South Pacific.  There was an unauthorized book published telling of Cook’s first voyage from 1768 to 1770, when his ship, “Endeavour” struck a reef on June 11, 1770 and needed repair in a ship yard.  After temporary repairs undertaken in the shelter of the Endeavour River, near today’s Cookstown, taking 42 days, Cook reluctantly decided to sail for Bataria.  Bataria was chosen as it was the closest equipped ship yard for permanent repairs to “Endeavour”, it was owned by the Dutch East Indies Company.  Bataria had a bad reputation for disease. Cook had only lost one member of his 92 man crew during his year and half voyage to that point.  In comparison, the Dutch East Indies company ship “Schoonzicht” had left Europe with a compliment of 162 seamen, 20 craftsmen and 103 soldiers.  When “Schoonzicht” arrived at Bataria, a shorter voyage than Cook’s; there were just 101 seamen, 15 craftsmen and 67 soldiers, many of the crew died from scurvy.  Cook’s ship had avoided scurvy due to its experiments with many foods to prevent the crew from getting scurvy.  Not having a control group, the admiralty and the ship’s doctor were unable to determine that the citrus fruit was the reason for the sailor’s good health and thought that malt was the remedy for scurvy. Cook was reluctant to stop at Bataria due to its reputation of unsanitary conditions and tropical diseases, but proper repairs were needed.  Journals of Cook’s 1768 to 1770 journey to that point, including Bank’s and Solenger’s scientific journals, were dispatched back to the admiralty in London, as was the practice at the time.  An Irish sailor, John Marra, joined Cook’s ship having jumped ship from a Dutch East Indies company ship, “Kronanburg”, which was not supposed to hire British sailors.  He wrote a book about the “Endeavour’s” journey back to Southampton that was serialized in the Gentleman’s Magazine, a six page English newspaper.  It was the voyage from a sailor’s view rather than a Captain’s version and was in the public arena 18 months before Cook’s and Bank’s admiralty version was published.  The “Endeavour” departed Bataria on Dec. 27, 1770 but the crew had caught diseases like dysentery and Malaria.  By the time they reached Cape Town, South Africa, only 12 men were healthy enough to sail the ship.  Cook needed more crew members to return to England.  The ship was in poor shape, with the remaining sails threadbare and most of the ropes were rotting, having been exposed to salt water for over two years.  John Marra was an educated Irishman, which was difficult for Catholic Irish people, since their English Protestant overlords made it illegal for Catholics to be educated.  Irish Catholics set up clandestine schools in hedges to hide from the British.  These were referred called Hedge Schools.  He was a sailor as a vocation and capable of keeping notes and authoring the book.

    Cook was in England for hardly 12 months when he was given the ships Resolute and Adventure to find the Great Southern Land.  Britain had lost the United States to independence and wanted another colony.  The theory was that the earth was balanced with the same land in southern hemisphere as in the northern hemisphere. This voyage was from 1772 to 1775 began going east around Africa, having previously gone west around South America for the Venus transit, Cook became the first person to sail around the world in both directions.  At the time New Holland existed on the Australian west coast and New Wales existed on Australia’s east coast, but it was unknown that they were joined, both part of one continent. Cook’s third voyage from 1776 to 1780 took him along Australia’s west coast.

    After the presentation, we climbed up to Deck 11 for a quick lunch.  We noticed that the deck around the pool was soaked and people said that there had just been a 10 minute downpour.  The sun was starting to break through the clouds as we ate lunch.

    On the Australian weather news today - The Swan River in the Perth area has a flood warning for the next few days.  The north part of Queensland which we have left today, over the Gulf of Carpentaria, is under a low pressure system, which could turn into a cyclone in the next few days.  There are bushfires near the New Zealand city of Christchurch which is near the port of Akoroa, where the ship is scheduled to visit in 2.5 weeks.

    The afternoon presentation was about Volcanoes, Earthquakes and Tsunamis and their effect in the area around Australia in the Indian and Pacific oceans.  Australia sits on the Australia tectonic plate which is sliding under the Indonesian plate in the north and rising in the south as evidenced along the Great Australian Bight at the southern coast of Australia, where the plate is tipping skyward.  The Australian plate is the southwestern start of the “Ring of Fire” of volcanoes and their accompanying earthquakes and tsunamis. The 9.1 Sumatra earthquake in 2004 that caused the tsunami resulted in a great loss of lives.  It crashed across the Indian Ocean all the way to Africa and caused devastation along the way and in the other direction Thailand’s beaches destruction.  The 9.1 Sumatra Earthquake caused the earth’s rotation to slow by 2.68 microseconds and wobble on its axis as well as cause the sea level to permanently rise 0.1 of a millimeter worldwide.

     We spent the rest of the afternoon finishing our second books of the cruise.

    Before dinner we were invited to a Crown & Anchor Society, the Royal Caribbean loyalty program, cocktail party. There are over 1,000 passengers with 3 cruises or more with Royal Caribbean.  The passenger with the highest numbers of cruises had been on 155 cruises, 15 on the Radiance of the Seas.

    We joined Maureen and Bob for dinner. We started with Chilled Cherry Bisque, Lentil and Roasted Vegetable soup and Baby Shrimp Salad; followed by Roasted Chicken with potato and vegetables and Singapore Noodles with sautéed vegetables and a shrimp skewer.  Desserts chosen were Pecan Butterscotch Pie or Cappuccino Chocolate Layer Cake.

   The show in the Aurora Theatre was a Jimmy Buffet “Parrothead” Tribute.

     Steps for the day  = 12,283