February 19th - Fremantle, Australia

We started the day with some boat entertainment outside our balcony window.  All the tenders and life boats from our side of the ship (starboard) were lowered and put through their paces in the marina. 

The all orange ones are life boats, they are not used as tenders to transport people to shore.  The ones with windows are the tenders…but they are used as life boats as well (if God forbid it was ever necessary!).  I’ve never seen the interior of a life boat until this one went by us with some of the flaps up.  The seats kind of look like toilet seats, which come to think of it if the ship were sinking…

Today we spent the day in Fremantle seeing the sites. We started with the Western Australia Maritime Museum, about a 20-minute walk away.  They had exhibits on the rich maritime history of the area.  Fremantle, being the biggest port on the Indian Ocean has seen waves of immigration, whalers, convicts and during WWII, a lot of American submarines.  In fact, hundreds of US subs were stationed here during the war. 

One of the biggest exhibits was dedicated to Australia II, the boat that won the America’s Cup in 1983.  This was a huge event in Australia.

Another special exhibit was devoted to Ancient Roman engineering, not really maritime related but it was pretty interesting and we spent a lot of time in there.  I wasn’t sure if pictures were permitted but no one was taking any so I didn’t. Good exhibit though.

After this we walked over to the Round House, the oldest standing structure in Western Australia.  It served as the first civilian jail.  From the top we had a great view of the local beach and the one of the main retail streets in town, High Street.

All along High Street there were buildings going back to the days when Fremantle was an important seafaring community.  Most of the buildings now house the University of Notre Dame.

We briefly visited the Fremantle Prison, built in the 1850’s by the very convicts that were housed here.  The convicts were brought in to support the colony.  They built the roads, buildings and infrastructure of the port.  Most men did not serve their full sentences.  They were given ‘leave’ to move to other areas of the region although they were never allowed to go back to Great Britain.  Some were eventually pardoned.  Many were able to escape.  At one-point Irish political prisoners were brought here and some of them were able to convince whaling ships from New England to take them aboard and to America.

It was a hard life after release as they were not generally accepted into society even when they were pardoned.  There was a stigma attached to being one of the convicts.  Even into modern times, people hid that part of their family tree although now it’s starting to become more fashionable to have a convict in your past.

After visiting the prison, we were on the hunt for some great pizza, and we found some!  You might wonder, isn’t there pizza on board ship?  Yes, there is, but is it great?  No, it’s not.

Somewhere along the way today I managed to scuff up my favorite pair of sneakers.  I don’t know where or how but it was a black carbon based something or other that wouldn’t come off.  We dropped into a local Sketchers store and they wanted $129 for a pair that I know I can get at home for far less, I just couldn’t do it. By the end of the day I was able to pick up a couple of pair, not great ones but good enough to walk around the ship. 

We then went back to Target and picked up some socks.  Fred witnessed a funny scene while I was in another area of the store.  There was a guy trying on shoes, after trying to get one on he threw it down to the floor and yelled” G**d dammit these don’t work, they say they’re size 9 but they don’t fit”.  He tried again and yelled the same thing.  Finally, a sales person came over and told him he was trying on women’s shoes…he made no comment.  I hope he wasn’t from our ship.

At the checkout line a lady behind us asked us if we were from the ship (we felt like celebrities today), we said yes and she apologized for the weather!  It’s hot but it really wasn’t too bad. She just wanted us to have a nicer weather day for our visit.

Sail away tonight was beautiful.  There were a dozen sailboats seeing us off and people had driven out to the end of the jetty to wave goodbye.  All and all a good visit!  We have four days at sea going north up the west coast of Australia before hitting Darwin on the 24^th and 25^th.