Day 54 - At Sea Mon 2-28-11

Our wake up call came at 9 and it was a sunny calm day with a
temperature of 81. We had coffee on the verandah and saw flying fish
for the first time on this cruise. After breakfast, we skipped the King
Neptune ceremonies as we have seen many previously. Instead, we went
out back until Glenda's nail appointment at 11. I went to the front
desk and converted my Australian dollars back to US $. I then returned
to the cabin to post yesterday's blog entry. We were invited to
cocktails with our AMEX hosts tonight before dinner. Glenda came back
to the cabin and we read until 2 before going up for a snack and then we
sat out back where we saw some dolphins swimming near the side of the
ship. I returned to the cabin at 3 and Glenda came back at 3:30 and we
went to bingo at 4. We did not win today. The Captain made an
announcement at 5:20 while I was in the shower, that we would be
skipping Palau due to problems with a tender dock. Instead, we would
continue to Manilla and arrive a day early and spend 2 days there.
There were shouts of joy from the Filipino crewmen all over the ship and
the smiles abounded. We went to the AMEX cocktail meeting with 3 other
couples that we had not met before along with our hosts. They said that
they were having small groups together to let us get to know more of the
group. After dinner, we went to the Crow's Nest and visited with Don,
Peter, Barbie, Ann Marie and some of the cruise director's staff. We
stayed until 12:15 and when we got back to the cabin, we found that the
clocks would be set back another hour. We also had an invitation to a
AMEX cocktail party for the whole group Wednesday night.

Day 53 - Madang, Papua New Guinea Sun 2-27-11

We woke up at 9:30 to light rain and 73 degrees. Luckily, breakfast
hours had been extended to 11 today and we got there at 10:30. Then we
sat out back as the pilots boarded and we sailed to our dock at 12.
There were a lot of people on the shore watching us come in. The rain
would stop and then come harder and our Harbor Tour at 1:15 was supposed
to be in uncovered boats, so we got ready to get wet. When we got to
the Queen's Lounge to wait, we found that all of the tours had been
delayed due to some on shore confusion. We also learned that our boats
were indeed covered. Our tour was finally called at 1:45 and they were
having to bus us to the boats in one small bus making several round
trips, so we had to wait on the pier for a while. We finally got on the
boats at 2:30 and they took 3 boats on a tour of some of the small
islands in the harbor. We docked and got off at a small village and the
people were very friendly. Pig and Fish tried to steal one of the small
dugouts. As we were leaving, some small boys climbed up in a tree and
jumped out into the water. Next, we stopped at another island at a
"resort". To say it was primitive is an understatement, but the
outhouse was very necessary by this time. We saw some more fruit bats
as we got back to the boat dock and there were multiple buses to take us
back to the ship. We re-boarded at 5. They were having an "authentic
American BBQ" around the Lido pool, but we opted for dinner in the
dining room. After dinner, we went to the Crow's Nest and I sang "Hard
To Be Humble" during the karaoke hour. We visited with Barbie, Peter
and Don and returned to the cabin at 11:15.

Day 52 - At Sea Sat 2-26-11

Bruce made his announcements at 8:50 and we finally got up at 9:15. We
were cruising through the Solomon Sea between the Solomon Islands and
the east coast of New Guinea. We past some small islands in 77 degree
weather with partly cloudy skies. We had coffee on the verandah. After
breakfast, we went out back and Glenda got a sun chair and tanned. I
read my book in the shade until 12 and went back to the cabin to post
the blog and check email. That only took 20 minutes and I returned to
the back deck and watch the fluffy clouds and land formations and read.
We stayed until 3 when we passed under some dark clouds and it looked
like it might rain. Our laundry was back and we put it away and read
until bingo time. Guess what? We both won! Glenda won the second game
for $49 and I won the fourth game for $98. Tonight was a formal night
and after dinner, we went to the Crow's Nest until midnight and visited
with Jeff, Don, Peter and others. Our gifts for the night were gold
2011 World Cruise lapel pins. Guess they are trying to ease our
shipping problems when we go home.

Day 51 - At Sea Fri 2-25-11

I am including two pictures I referenced yesterday, but did not get
included. We slept until 9:50 and had coffee on the verandah. It was
77 and mostly sunny. Obviously, we missed breakfast and got the laundry
bag ready to send out, checked the email and went up to the back deck to
allow the cabin stewards to do their job on the room. I returned to the
cabin at 12:30 to work on the pictures and blog entries for the past two
days. I went back up at 2:30 and we had some pizza to tide us over to
dinner. I went down to the front desk and made a contribution to the
New Zealand Red Cross fund. We then went back to the cabin until bingo
time. We played, but did not win. After dinner, we went to the Crow's
Nest and visited with Al & Carol, Rhonda, Don, Peter, and Ann Marie who
had been on a cross country tour from Sydney to Ayres Rock and re-joined
us in Cairns. We stayed until midnight.

Day 50 - Cairns, Australia Thu 2-24-11

Our wake up call was for 7, but Bruce made announcements at 6:50, so we
got up and ordered coffee. It was 72 with heavy rain and our tour left
at 9 on a catamaran which was supposed to be 800 yards from our ship.
Luckily, they decided to allow the cat to pull up to our tender gangway
and we were able to walk directly from the ship to the air-conditioned
and comfortable cat. The trip out to the platform in the Great Barrier
Reef was 1 1/2 hours and we had 183 passengers on board. After about 30
minutes, we got into the open sea and it got a bit rough. Several
passengers got seasick. We did not. When we reached the floating
platform which was covered on top, the rain had stopped except for
occasional brief sprinkles. From the platform, you could snorkel,
scuba, do a helmet dive, take the semi submersible, or the glass bottom
boat. Also offered was a helicopter ride over the reef, but the weather
wasn't conducive to seeing much and I didn't hear of anyone who wanted
to do it. It was a bit rough in the water, so Glenda decided not to
snorkel and I never do. We went on the semi submersible and the glass
bottom boat and got to see some of the reef along with some fish,
including a small shark. We also saw some of the damage that was done
by a cyclone which hit several days before. We had lunch on the
platform and had one really hard rain which had people re-boarding the
cat since the wind was blowing the rain through the platform. Pig and
Fish enjoyed an Australian beer and looked out at the platform during
the rain. We were on the platform for 5 hours before heading back to
the ship. We arrived back at 4:45 and cleaned up for dinner. After
dinner, we went to the Crow's Nest and watched the rain, which had been
hard all day in the city, and we stayed until 11:15. We did hear that
the back pool was overflowing from all of the rain, which would be over
9 inches of extra water. This was our first day of rainy weather while
in port. The ship supposedly sailed at 2:30 am, but I was totally
unaware of when the ship started moving again.