February 17th - At Sea

This has been our view for the last 13 days at sea.  Actually, it’s been a lot calmer than this picture I took today.  This is the first day we’ve had some swells but you really can’t feel the difference at midship where we are.  You can feel it a little at the bow where the theater is but otherwise, we’ve had smooth sailing.

The other day we passed within a couple of miles of Krakatoa, the famous volcano.  It’s famous for a massive eruption in August of 1883 that was felt as far away as Perth Australia, 2000 miles away.  And if you’re a certain age it will also be famous for a very unsuccessful movie that was promoted as Krakatoa – East of Java, accept it’s actually west of Java…oh well.  We went by at night so you could only see its outline, but it was very distinctive as a volcano.

Tomorrow, thankfully, we put into Fremantle for two days.  We have to undergo a face to face inspection with Australian Customs tomorrow morning while getting off the ship.  They are very strict in Australian when it comes to food, plants, seeds, etc. You can only take water off the ship with you.  Today, at the buffet, where there is usually whole fruit, they only had cut up items.  They want to make sure no one is tempted to take an apple or an orange or God forbid a banana on shore tomorrow.  There will probably be sniffer dogs at the terminal, we’ve seen that before.

In addition, I imagine there will be more health questions then usual.  In his noon announcement today, the Captain addressed concerns about people coming ON the ship tomorrow, both crew and passengers.  He said that in addition to the rigorous inspection they will have been through to get into Australian, the ship will also do a health assessment of everyone coming on board.  The goal is to keep our ship healthy and not allow any infected people on board. 

The Captain said about 800 people will be leaving the ship tomorrow.  These are the last of the people who would have gotten off in Hong Kong (that later became Singapore if you’ve been keeping up) had we still been going there.  I doubt that many new people will be coming on.  Cunard ‘allowed’ people who were scheduled to come on in Hong Kong/Singapore to cancel their reservations because of the port changes.  I assume when the word, ‘allowed’, is used it means without penalty but I don’t know that for sure.  I did read on the Cruise Critic Cunard forum that Cunard is trying to sell this upcoming segment from Fremantle to Sydney at bargain rates, something like $55 a day for an inside cabin.  Balcony cabins and suites are also a good deal.

We got a letter from Cunard saying we would receive $250 a piece in compensation for the missed ports after we leave Fremantle.  This compensation will be added to our ‘on board credit’ (OBC).  We started with $1750 in OBC, this was a combination of early booking benefits and veterans’ credit (for Fred).  When we got on board, we got another $380 back in port fees because Naples was cancelled.  We assume the $500 (for the 2 of us) will be added to our non-refundable OBC of $1750.  The $380 is a refundable credit, meaning if we don’t use it on board it will be refunded to our credit card.  The non-refundable amount is use or lose.  We have used some of it (expensive haircuts for example). 

We’ve also used some of the refundable credit when I got local Dubaian currency from the ship.  I’ll probably use some again tomorrow to get a little Australian money before we leave.  I’d rather just use an ATM but I haven’t been able to find one near the port on google.  I’m sure we’ll find one in Perth.

It's expected to be hot and windy tomorrow, high around 91 degrees.  We’ll be wearing hats and plenty of sunscreen.  The sun here in the southern hemisphere is brutal and Australia tops the list in skin cancer diagnoses.  

One last thing…the Captain said we’ve traveled 16,380 nautical miles from New York City so far!