DAY 17

Wednesday, February 12^th

At Anchor in the Straits of Malacca

Well we haven’t bid Asia a fond farewell just yet. We are still just off shore near Port Kelang.

When I got out of the shower instead of seeing the Malaysian shoreline I came in face-to–face contact with a crewmember of our refueling ship. Time to dive back into the bathroom to get dressed.

Refueling took all day, and half the night. Even Captain Hashmi said it was taking longer than expected. The refueling ship belched out whisps of smoke and a rather unpleasant odor. I decided to spend most of the day indoors.

We were not the only ships at anchor outside the harbor. Apparently some were waiting for a berth in the very busy Port Kelang, while the others were awaiting instructions from their owners as to where they should go in order to get the best price for their cargo. We must’ve looked quite out of place among the tankers, smaller freighters, and giant container ships.

At his noon announcement the captain asked us a question. If a ship is anchored such as we are, and a ladder with rungs 12” apart was placed over the side so that it just touched the water, when the tide dropped by 3 feet, how many rungs would need to be added to the ladder so that it still just touched the water line? Place your answers in the box at the pursers’ desk and the winner will get a private bridge tour, and get to push the noon whistle button.

Hearing of the opportunity to push that magic button I sped off to place my entry in the box. I must confess I did add a couple of extra entries. Well Ruth didn’t hear the announcement, and if Brian had been on board he would have given the same answer so I thought that in the grand scheme of things that was OK. I mean I lived in Chicago for many years where ballot box tampering was a city sport, so I could have been more devious and ensured that I won, but I overcame the temptation and was resigned to the reality that I may not win, and like the chances of sitting at the captain’s table, or getting an upgrade to the Grills, I may never get to push that magic button.

At 6:00 PM the captain announced the winner. No, alas, it wasn’t me. I hope the man who did win will get as much enjoyment out of sounding the noon whistle, as I would have. Mind you, I do have a secret fear that if I did actually get to sound the whistle I would mess it up, and only a pathetic noise would emerge. Better leave this to the experts.

Many guests seem to have spent the day working on their Australian visas and ongoing travel arrangements. It has been frustrating for some, but in general everyone is resigned to our change in itinerary. Despite attempts to contact Cunard, we still don’t know what flights Ruth will be on to get home from Fremantle.

We heard that the Westerdam was finding it difficult to find a port to take them, and the cases of flu on the Diamond Princess are rising. Heading straight to Australia certainly makes excellent sense.

The possibility remains that one of our passengers or crew could go down with the flu, and then we would be going nowhere, but the sense on board is that we will deal with that should it happen. Meanwhile let’s enjoy life on board.

This is why I was surprised when I saw a link to articles about us in the Daily Mail and the Sun. A Benidorm actress on board is having the “Honeymoon from Hell” after being quarantined on the ship. I must say I have not seen the panic that she described. Yes there have been some frustrated guests, but everyone I have talked to or observed seems grateful for the decisions made about our itinerary change, and is very thankful for openness of the captain when updating us.

It is disappointing when a holiday of a lifetime to Asia just doesn’t work out. But there are worse things in life. Like being infected with the corona virus. This could still happen, but we feel that the precautions we are taking minimize the risk. There is seldom zero risk in the real world.

With many of our entertainers and speakers now well on their way home, the entertainment staff have been doing an excellent job at keeping us busy.

One lecturer who stayed on board is Steve King who has been speaking about music. Today in the Royal Court Theatre he organized a Sixties Music Quiz. He asked 20 questions about 60s music, and played snippets of songs. It was great. Unfortunately I came in late and missed hearing the first 4 questions – out of the 16 I did, I got 15 correct. Well the 60s is totally my kind of music. Knowing all of the lyrics to 80% of 60s hits takes up a lot of much needed space in my brain.

There is also a choir for this short segment to Fremantle. I decided not to join this time so I would have more quality sunbathing time, and it would be nice to hear the choir rather than be in it for a change.

We had our pre dinner drinks at the bar at the deck 8 pool. It was very pleasant. We were still fueling, but it wasn’t quite so smelly as there was quite a brisk breeze. It was nice to sit out under the stars on a warm night with the lights of Port Kelang in the distance.

The entertainment tonight was the crew talent show. I am always amazed at how talented the crew is, and it was as usual really excellent. This was especially impressive, as they had only been told 2 days previously that there was to be the talent show.

I had loved Pam Ayres poem about Queen Mary2, so I was thrilled that she had had the poem printed up on Cunard letterhead paper, and it was being sold for charity. I popped over to the purser’s desk to purchase my very own copy right away.

We were still fuelling when we got back to our cabin at midnight. I hoped they weren’t experiencing the same problem we had putting petrol into a friend’s boyfriends car. It was in the late 70s in what was then Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe. We had petrol rationing, and our monthly allocation of petrol coupons were like gold.

My friend’s boyfriend was out of town and we had been using his car. We wanted to refuel the car before he returned, so we went to the petrol station, and asked the attendant to fill it up. We watched as it took gallons and gallons of precious fuel. Wow, it had a big fuel tank! Then we realized that it had consumed all of my friend’s allocation of petrol coupons as well as mine. We asked the attendant to stop fueling, and jumped out of the car.

Well, as it turned out, her boyfriend had failed to tell her that what looked like the opening to put petrol into the fuel tank, went straight to the boot, and there was another hidden one that went to the tank. That way if someone tried to siphon petrol out of the car they would not be able to, as it was not connected to the tank. Well, except that day. Our next task was finding out how to deal with a full boot load of petrol, and work out how we were going to manage to get to and from work without any petrol for the rest of the month.

Her boyfriend was an interesting chap. He also had a Coca Cola machine hidden in a back door of the car. I suppose that’s what happens when you go out with an engineer.