Day 2 at Sea


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Oceans and Seas » Pacific » Tasman Sea
October 24th 2022
Published: October 24th 2022
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Last night we had really calm seas and we slept soooo soundly - gosh it was good! But this morning we had a 9am lecture to get to and brekky had to be quick so we went of the the Oceanview Cafe, right down the back of the ship, the buffet, and wow, was it busy!! But it still makes for a time efficient breakfast. We were even still able to have our mimosas - starting a new habit here! 😂

Our first lecture at 9am was a very engaging fellow named Milos - he talked about volcanoes, glaciers and tectonic plates our grandson Thomas would have loved this talk. We were amazed to hear that anyone believing in tectonic plates and their movement back in the 1960s was thought to be crazy. It wasn’t a common belief until the 1970s. He showed on the map how the Appalachian Mountains are in America but then they suddenly stop at the waters edge, and actually start again (same rocks and profile) in the Atlas Mountains on the coast of Morocco, and that Nova Scotia was actually part of “old Scotia” a long time ago. The Atlantic Ocean has a mountain range running right down the centre of it and that part of the sea bed is very new. Iceland is being torn in half and has a big crack running through it. It was fascinating stuff, interlaced with fun stuff, like his diagram of a volcano where the lava coming to the top comes from a deep well of vinegar, bicarbonate of sofa and red food colouring kept in the core.
The following lecture was our author, Cathy Ace, again. Today she talked about spies, saboteurs and saviours - print and screen. One man even turned up in a tux with a martini - he figured she’d talk about James Bond. She was really interesting too. We almost stayed for the third lecture but we’d been sitting for the two hours and had enough. It was going to be about the men who made their fortune with the internet.

After the second lecture we returned to our stateroom to sit our on our deck in the warm sun reading our books Until it was time for lunch - back to the Oceanview up on the 14th floor where they were going with an Indian theme today. Before I had a little butter chicken though I assembled a bowl of salad - wonderful crunchy lettuce, crunchy cucumbers and the most flavoursome tomatoes I’ve had since I was a kid!! Honestly, where did the flavour go?

Yesterday Tom found a gelateria but they charged extra - like the sushi restaurant - we don’t like to keep putting our hands in our wallets, so he declined to have any. Today as we were leaving the cafe we saw that they have an ice cream servery!! My very happy man got a soft serve ice cream in a cone. For no extra money!

They also have speciality restaurants here - French, Italian and other fine cuisines - but they cost extra, like $50 per person extra - oh and that’s US Dollars! We had those on Silversea too, but they didn’t cost extra.

When it was almost time for dinner we went to one of the bars and had a martini or two - they were within our package costs apparently - mind you, it wasn’t Tanqueray 10, that’s probably not within our package. We went on to dinner where the lovely Janine kept us topped up with the French bubbly again. She’s a sweetie. Tonight I remembered to take two photos. For entrees Tom had a lovely French onion soup, and I had a lovely light prawn cocktail. For mains Tom went with the milk fed veal while I had a lovely orzo dish with scallops, prawns, mussels, calimari and tomatoes through it. I had the Creme brulee again for dessert and Tom had lava cake.
After dinner we went to the theatre for the cabaret show, starring a guy from Adelaide named Michael Griffiths. He was quite good, although he seemed a little overwhelmed by the size of the audience. His voice was very reminiscent of Peter Alan.

Some travel tips we are using but haven’t used before (it’s only our 13th cruise) - Tom brought a magnet to add to our door, that way if you know the general location but have forgotten the number you see your fridge magnet and you’re right! I brought away a “sacrificial scarf” one that we can leave on a table in the buffet to lay claim while we go and choose our meals. Post COVID we have another - every evening before retiring Tom sprays tea tree oil over our air con vent. It’s a natural germ killer (has a multitude of other uses) and it makes our room smell like the baby bedding we used for our babies - with tea tree bark in the mattress and pillows in an effort to prevent SIDS. Memories!

I‘m amazed at the number of Americans on our ship - I suspect they may be as numerous as the Aussies. There are also a multitude of Brits - we’ve met so many Brits and Americans who flew in to Sydney just to get this cruise - and some of them are doing the next cruise too (Great Barrier Reef), back to back.

My trousers felt a bit loose this morning - I think I do more steps just getting to breakfast than I do in a whole day at home!

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