Today is the first of four consecutive days at sea as we cruise to Australia. We cruise the Dusky and Doubtful Sounds today. Tomorrow, we cruise the Milford Sound. On February 20 & 21 we cruise the Tasman Sea. We are scheduled to arrive at Hobart, Australia on Friday morning, February 22.
Once again, last night the seas were fairly rough and seemed choppier than the evening before. This morning the seas were also rough and at one point some items in both the Main Dining Room and the Lido Café tumbled down.
Many of the passengers and the crew have been sick throughout the cruise with either cold like symptoms or other viral related symptoms and Keith has now come down with a cold. With that said, we were still able to wake up early and we did work out in the Fitness Center. After our workout, we enjoyed a nice breakfast in the Lido Café.
During the Captain’s daily talk he told us about what was in store for us today. His thought for the day was “If you don’t know where you are going you will end up somewhere else”.
Since today is a sea day there were lots of activities during the daytime and evening hours. A couple of the lectures in the morning included’
Investment Lecturer Dr. Bob Froelich gave a presentation titled “Where in the World is Dr. Bob Investing? First Stop: The Americas.”. Dr. Bob Froehlich lectured during one segment of last years World Cruise. He is one of the regulars on CNBC’s program, Squawk Box.
Later in the morning Olympic champion medal winner and network television and radio sports broadcaster, John Naber, gave a presentation titled “Pursuing Vicotry with Honor.” John Naber won five Olympic medals in swimming during the Montreal Olympics including four gold and one silver medal.
There were a number of highlights for today and the first was when we cruised the Dusky Sound and the Doubtful Sound today. The scenery was breathtaking. We had wonderful weather with sunny skies.
The second highlight was in the afternoon when there was a rendezvous with the Asuaka II which is the Former Crystal Harmony; the first Crystal Cruise Ship. This rendezvous took place in the late afternoon and hot chocolate and rum was served on the Lido and Sun Decks, which are on deck 12 and 13 respectively. The ships circled around one another and at one point their bows from each of the ships was almost touching one another. There was a helicopter flying overhead taking pictures and someone was also taking pictures of both ships from a small ship from the Serenity. The weather was perfect and it was an event that we will never forget.
Before this rendezvous we had a get together from those passengers on board the ship who post to the Cruise Critic Web Site. We organized this get together during the afternoon tea, starting at 3:30 PM. Today’s tea was English Colonial Tea Time. We see many of our fellow passengers from Cruise Critic each and every day and it was nice to get many of them together in the afternoon. We have included a picture from our get together but several people who were there are not in the picture including Keith who took the picture.
Before dinner, we attended a reception hosted by our travel consortium.
This evening we enjoyed a wonderful dinner in the main dining room. We each enjoyed wonderfully prepared swordfish, along with various vegetables and a wonderful salad.
Congratulations go out to our children. Our son completed a major milestone for the year with his successful dinner series at the university that he is attending. He and his fellow student partner did an outstanding job in coordinating, preparing and executing a dinner earlier this week that was attended by over 75 patrons at the restaurant that is run by the university. And, today, our daughter ran and successfully finished her first 26 mile marathon. This run involved a great deal of training, preparation and determination. We are very happy and proud of these two major accomplishments of our son and daughter and look forward to seeing them very soon.
Today was another very special day.
Keith & Anne Marie
