Wednesday, February 19^th, 2020

Fremantle/Perth

I love it when you have overnight stays in a port. I do miss the motion of the seas while I sleep, but it is so nice not to feel rushed on your first port day, and obsessed by getting back to the ship on time.

While we were out with family yesterday, due to strong winds, the ship had to be turned around.

We had been warned that the ship would be away from the dock between 6:00 PM and 7:30 PM, so not to expect being able to get on or off during that time.

Apparently they did a superb job turning her around, so I am sorry we didn’t see that. I did see her do a very tight turn when we were in Flam a couple of years ago. She is an amazing ship.

Lauren came to pick us up in the morning, and we drove through Fremantle to the very beautiful Cottesloe Beach. She mentioned in passing the previous shark attacks at the beach, which did not fill me with confidence, but it turned out there is a shark net for protection. However, we ended up swimming in the area outside of the net.

There are very clean changing rooms available – with showers to use after you are done. All very civilized. The water was quite cool, and it took Brian and I quite a while to submerge ourselves and do some swimming. However, once we were used to it, it was wonderful and we had a great time.

After our swim we drove to Perth going through the upscale suburb of Claremont and driving along the Swan River. We ended up at Kings Park and wandered through the park admiring the views of downtown Perth and the River. It was quite hot, but not unbearable, however, by lunchtime we felt we wanted to go somewhere cool.

We ended up at a restaurant called Zamia in the park where we had an excellent meal overlooking a pond. Highly recommended.

After lunch we crossed the river and explored South Perth and had a wonderful view of the skyline.

Then it was time to go shopping – we were very impressed with the supply of Vegemite there, however, we avoided it and stocked up on Cokes, nuts and chocolates (plenty of Cadbury Flakes and Smarties thank goodness), and headed to a liquor store to replenish our wine supply as I am considering hosting a stateroom soiree in the future.

We drove back to Fremantle through a lovely area with beautiful old buildings. It reminded me of New Orleans.

Then it was time to say goodbye to Lauren until we will be back in Fremantle next month, and watch our sail away.

This was the first sail away of this trip (I suppose we have only had 3, and one was after midnight) where folks have come out to wave goodbye. Well, Fremantle certainly seemed to appreciate us as there were loads of people on the quayside and the breakwater waving and shouting, and we obliged by blowing our whistle. It was tremendous fun, and someone with a drone has a good photo of our balcony as the drone came dangerously close to us. I smiled and gesticulated wildly. Not so much because I was pleased to see them, but if it had crashed onto our balcony it would have further damaged the paintwork. I wanted it to go away.

We were at a new table for dinner; it is a table for 8 near a window on deck 2. An acceptable position. Our new tablemates look like an interesting bunch, and they order a huge pile of chips (French fries) for the table each night, so what can be wrong with chips with every meal, except if you don’t want to gain weight.

Brian had work to do after dinner, so we headed back to our cabin and missed the show “Be our Guest”. It’s not my favorite, but I do enjoy it. No doubt it will reappear before New York in 2 months time.

Two days in port were fun, but I am happy to be back at sea again.