Heading back to MElbourne - never went to Tasmania

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Geo: -41.4401, 147.135

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 11

We didn't go to bed until after midnight. It was fun watching the tug boat come to our rescue. As the captain said at one time, "the salvage crew would be arriving". Glenn liked that termlogy.

We did get up early, like before 6am, and walked out up on the Deck 13. You could see the full moon, just like we had seen the night before. No one was up. As we walked across the pool deck and to the back of the NCL Star, we ran into Rick. He needed his cup of coffee.

Again, we sat at the O'Sheehan's Bar and Grill. This time we sat on the opposite side. I ordered a plate of fruit. Glenn got an omelet. We talked to several folks - the folks that were from Atlanta. They told us that we could use the iphone message system. I immediately started to text g'daddy to see if it worked. Sure enough it did. Dad mentioned that he had been watching the Web cam - where you can see the front of the boat and the tug boat working hard. We texted for a bit, gave him an update.

We left to walk downstairs to the La Cucina Restaurant. This "quiet" place is not used as a restaurant during the day time, but is used for folks that want to read, play tic tac toe, or other board games. There are about 8 ladies that gather together each morning to cross stitch, knit or crochea from 10-11. This is only on Sea Days - obviously, everyone would be doing an excursion when we are docked. For some reason, I never attended this group until this 2nd cruise. Nice folks. Sat next to a Sandy that lives in Houston. And Laura, from Virginia was across from me. Glenn sat over in the corner and was working on some paper work and reading.

Since I didn't eat much breakfast, we went to lunch at 12 noon down in the Versailles. I had chicken salad sandwich and Glenn ate something new this time. We had a relaxing lunch, as the tug boats worked to pull us back to Melbourne.

During our "CabinCrawl" on Friday, where we went to view other types of staterooms, Glenn struck up a conversation with the man on 10502. He had noticed Glenn's Texas Longhorn hat and Dallas Cowboy and also at yelled down to Glenn - "Ezekiel". We left a note on the 10502's door, saying we would love to come and visit. Glenn made connection with David. His wife was down in the spa getting a manicure. We went out on the deck. This is where you can see the patio on the webcam (front of the ship). However, his stateroom was just a little bit off the TV webcam screen.

We had an enjoyable chat with David. He is a retired CEO. Jack of all trades. His wife is in charge of payroll for all of Cheesecake Factory....all over the world. His brother, has the suite next to his. HE mentioned that you can look right up into the Captain's Bridge. See all the controls and such. He mentioned that at night, they have to turn off all the "inside" lights, because sometimes that bothers all the computer screens on the floor above where the Captain Bridge is located. We had a nice chat out on the patio. He let us use his binoculars so we could see the approaching land and the inlet into Melbourne Harbor. The two couples are pretty well off and this setback on the NCL Star didn't phase them. We asked them what they'll be doing and they've decided to leave the ship, and fly directly to New Zealand and do a "land tour". There are lots of couples doing that today and tomorrow. I told Glenn, wow, I wonder if we could change rooms and stay there since they are getting off? I doubt it. You don't know if you don't ask.

Glenn and I were thinking about taking a nap, but decided to attend the 2:30pm matinee where the magician did up-close card tricks. He was very good. Of course we sat up in the balcony where we normally sit. Each time we would go to an event, we would walk out on deck 7 to see the progress of our journey back to Melbourne. In the afternoon, there was an helicopter hover over and circling the ship several times.

To get to Melbourne, we have to travel through some marked channels and make some sharp 90 degrees turn. Even with a full engine running properly it is a challenge to guide the ship to the dock. Now, with a tug boat pulling the NCL Star, and several tug boats off to the side, the ship continued on its course through the narrow channel into the bay and as I type this, we are heading back to the dock where we left on Thursday night at 6pm. Now it is Saturday night at 10pm.

We went up to the top deck and watched the sail boats over to the right hand side. I could see a beautiful light house on the left hand side. Lots of people out by the pool, drinking and enjoying watching the movement of the tug boat and the ship. We talked with several folks. One man from Puerto Rico, ask Glenn where he was from? The reason, he noticed "Guatemala" on his belt.

At 6:15pm, we went to the Latitude party that they have for every ship. We were really assigned for the one tomorrow, but since we have dinner reservations, we just decided to "crash" this party. As we were walking in, we ran into Gary and his wife. - the couple we met the first day of the cruise.

As we were visiting, a young lady (age 75), came up to Glenn and said "Are you a famous person?" She has seen him in a movie or something like that. My reply, "yes, he looks like George Clooney". Evelyn is traveling alone, and she just wanted to meet some new friends. She told us her story, that she just boarded in Melbourne and not Sydney. Come to find out, when she boarded her flight from Hartford, Connecticut, she did not have an Australian visa and they could not let her on the plane. So, the airlines let her do the visa process on-line, and by this time she missed her Sydney flight. So, she flew to LA, then to Melbourne. She was so thrilled how helpful people were. As we continued talking, we made other connections, like her son lives in Uruguay and she wants to take an NCL cruise to South America. And get this, she will be flying back with us on UA from Auckland to San Francisco on the 18th of February. She had 2 days in Melbourne before our ship arrived, so she is so happy to go back to Melbourne like we are doing now. We asked her about helpful hints on what to do. We'll probably go to the zoo in the next day or so.

Glenn and I walked to the back of the boat and took a picture of the guys in the tug boat attached to the back. They came out and waved to us.

We had dinner at the Versailles. I had Potato Pot pie. Pretty good. Glenn had some fish. For dessert, I ordered rum bread pudding and Glenn ordered this delicious strawberry chiffon pastry. Very good. Glenn switched with me.

As we were walking back, we saw one of the employees that works in the camera department. He is from Brazil, so Glenn always speaks Spanish to him. I asked him if he was going to get off the boat. He said, "yep". I then asked, "Now were you the guy that I saw "skatingboarding" through Singapore?" Sure enough he was. I said, I have a picture of you. Taking my camera out of my bag, i found the picture. He was pleased. It was raining that day. He thought it was cool that I took a picture of him. I remember because we were on the "hop on hop off" bus.

We also met Wayne and Judy from Virginia. We asked them what they were going to do. They're here for the adventure. So many folks are getting off tomorrow or Monday, flying to Auckland or Wellington or Christchurch, renting a car, finding hotels etcs. But Wayne and Judy are going to stay with the boat.

I'm tired. We have worship service at 9am in the Spinaker. Glenn will lead it.

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