We’ve had an
interesting few days at sea starting with Monday evening around 10:30 PM with
an announcement from the Captain that we had a medical emergency on board and
the patient needed to be evacuated. The
navigation channel showed the route we took.
Luckily for
us and most importantly for the patient we were nearing the coast of Oman and
the port of Salalah. Salalah is the
second biggest city in Oman and a popular cruise port. We rendezvoused with a vessel from the port
and transferred the patient around 3:30 AM.
Hopefully all will be well with them.
It must be a scary ordeal.
Last night
we had a wonderful dinner with friends we first met on the 2018 South American
cruise. They boarded in Southampton and
spotted us on their first sea day. It’s
been great to catch up and we had a wonderful time at our last dinner together. Unfortunately for us, they are leaving the
ship in Dubai on Thursday and will spend a few days there before going home to
England. We will miss them. You meet people all the time on these cruises
but it’s not often you feel so comfortable so quickly, like we’ve known them
for years and years. We’re so happy we
got to see them again. Here is our
picture from 2018 aboard the Queen Victoria, and last night’s photo here on the
QM2. Who knows in two years we might be
on the same ship again!
Today we
were visited by the gun boat that lent (rented?) us some weapons a few days ago
when we entered the high piracy area.
They wanted their guns back. This
was a different ship of course but like the first time; they came along side to
get the weapons. In one of the pictures
you can see the rope that was used to lower them down one at a time. We lost count of the cases but we are guessing
there were about 8-10. The weapons transfer
took place right below our cabin balcony and so we got good pictures.
There has
been a huge increase in ship traffic in this area, we haven’t seen this many
ships since we were waiting to enter the Suez Canal. In the distance there has been a persistent
haze on the horizon, we haven’t thought to much about it but the Captain told
us it is sandstorms that are kicked up this time of year by the wind.
As I was writing
this blog entry the Captain came over the speaker with an announcement. Based on advice from the CDC and WHO (World
Health Organization) we are not going to Hong Kong or Bitung Indonesia because
of the Coronavirus. Not going to Hong
Kong will be a major disappointment for many on board. It’s always a highlight of a world
cruise. Fred and I have been there
before so it’s not so bad for us, but we did have plans to see parts of the old
city we hadn’t seen before.
They are
replacing Hong Kong with a return trip to Singapore; now that is a major
disappointment for us. Not only have we
been to Singapore before for two days but now we’ll be doing two two-day
stretches there about a week apart. I’m
sure Singapore was chosen for ease of transport since a lot of passengers were
leaving us in Hong Kong and more coming on board. Moving all those transfers to Singapore will
be easier for the cruise line but that’s a lot of days in Singapore for us!
The stop in
Bitung will be changed to Bali, Indonesia.
Honestly, we had no strong feelings for Bitung so this change doesn’t
bother us. I’m sure Bali will be great.
The Captain also
told us we would have a visit from a Royal Navy Frigate today around 5PM. Fred and I decided to stay in our cabin in
the hope the ship would sail right by us at least once. Boy did we luck out! The ship came along side and stayed on our
side of the ship.
We heard the
helicopter first and it performed various maneuvers back and forth right in
front of us. We got some great pictures
and it made for some exciting pre-dinner entertainment. We’re sure this was to reassure the
passengers as we enter the Straits of Hormuz.
We really enjoyed seeing the ship and crew.
Tomorrow we
are in Dubai for the entire day and overnight.
We have a private tour and we’re looking forward to seeing the city for
the first time. A beautiful sunset...
No comments:
Post a Comment