Monday, February 17^th, 2020

At Sea

Packing Day

I have to change cabins in Fremantle when Ruth leaves and Brian arrives.

I had tried to see if I could remain in the same cabin until New York, but someone new is moving in there on Tuesday, so I have to leave.

I would really rather stay in the cabin. I love being on deck 4, you feel more contact with the ocean, and the cabin has air conditioning that works, a fridge that actually keeps things cool, a toilet that flushes, and Joanna who is absolutely wonderful.

However, it is not to be, and I have to get organized so that they can move all of my belongings to deck 6.

For the first time this voyage you knew you were on a ship. There had been absolutely no sign of motion until the middle of the night when I detected a very slight movement. Not much at all, but it was nice to feel it at last.

Ruth returned early from her morning stroll around the promenade deck. She thought she was going to be blown overboard, so she decided to retreat to the safety of inside the ship. It was even too windy to stand out on the balcony, and the waves were huge. The wind is at a force 7, which is near gale force.

I watched the waves from the Commodore Club. They really are enormous, but we are still very stable with only a small amount of up and down motion. I can remember similar waves on the Queen Elizabeth reaching the Commodore Club and breaking the windows in the Garden Lounge. But we are just still sailing calmly along.

I went to this morning’s talk on Super Volcanoes. These are not your regular volcanoes, but the huge ones that cover large areas in ash – like by the definition the state of Washington would be covered by 14 feet of ash, or was it 18? Anyway it was a lot. The good news is that they don’t erupt very often, the last eruption being many thousands of years ago. The bad news is that there is one not too far from us in Idaho, in Yellowstone National Park. Unfortunately I have forgotten the details, but the general idea is that it erupts every 600,000 years, and the most recent eruption is 600,043 years ago. Hmmmm……………..

I was very sorry that I had chosen not to be in the choir this time. Their performance was held in the Royal Court Theater, and they did a sort of Cunard Goes to the Proms concert – and yes they did sing Jerusalem. This was the first time I have heard Jerusalem on this voyage, except when I listen to my play list on my phone.

Ruth braved the launderette in the afternoon, and as always learned a lot. Apparently there are either 800 passenger disembarking and 600 embarking, or 600 disembarking and 800 embarking. It depends on whether you listen to the lady ironing or the gentleman fighting with the dryer. Anyway, it’s quite a lot of people. The majority of the new passengers are Australians doing the round Australia itinerary.

Ruth was still waiting for an update on her plane ticket. Because they couldn’t cancel me off of the original ticket without canceling her as well, they had gone ahead and canceled the joint ticket, and were going to issue her a new one. As we were getting ready to go for farewell drinks in the Commodore Club, the Guest Relations manager called to let her know that she had a new ticket. The only problem was that her final destination was Boise. Other than the fact that I live in Idaho (nowhere near to Boise) we couldn’t think why on earth the folks at Cunard Air wanted to send her there. So it was back to them trying to book her another flight.

I had been expecting the parade of chefs to occur during dinner, as it is the end of the segment. It never happened. I have mixed feelings about this – it is a horribly tacky tradition, but I do like the idea of acknowledging how hard everyone works to keep us well fed.

We had missed the show as it was an early one. This usually happens on the last night of a segment, so I suggested that we go to G32 after dinner for what was billed as “ABBA vs. Bee Gees. 2 mighty contenders battle it out for the biggest sing a long hits”. Being a HUGE ABBA fan I didn’t want to miss this – and then I discovered that Ruth had never heard of ABBA. I mean where has she been? She said they must’ve been popular when she was in Law School, and she just never noticed them. I sang a few of their hits to her (I know all of the lyrics of their songs too), but she showed no sign of recognition, except for Mamma Mia. She knew there had been a movie of that name.

We ended up not going to G32 alas. Not only due to Ruth’s lack of musical education, but also because we were getting anxious about her plane ticket. A return visit to the Purser’s Desk did indeed provide us with a plane ticket, just for Ruth, to Phoenix. Finally. She went on line to try to book seats, but the few seats available were all middle seats. She did not relish the idea of an overnight flight and a 16-hour flight in a middle seat, but at least she did have a plane ticket. Not the itinerary she had wanted, and certainly not where she wanted to sit. Hopefully she will at least be reimbursed for the money she spent on reserving seats for her original flight before she realized that I was on the booking too.

We had another very bumpy night. It wasn’t like you were going to be thrown out of bed, but a very comfortable movement. The best kind.