World Cruise - Day 41 - Feb 22 - At Sea

Today is pretty overcast, so not sure that there will be any sunrise photos this morning.  If there are, it won’t be until much later, since the clouds are pretty much covering the horizon, can’t see the sun yet (although it has now risen).  Here was the best photo I could get at sunrise, although the sunrise is actually out of the frame to the left (and fully shrouded in clouds):

I do like the colors I was able to get in that pic.

Today the high is forecast to be 66 degrees and a low of 59 degrees.  I’m still walking around in shorts and a t-shirt.  This is summer weather for us (OK, well at least May, maybe even June weather).  I remember when we first moved to Seattle and I was surprised how long it took for summer to arrive.  But then July and August were glorious and September continued to be nice.  Most places we have lived, June to August was summer, but in Seattle it seems to be July to September.  Down here, it’s December to February.  So I guess we’re coming up on the equivalent to late August in Alaska (since we’re so far south).  I think yesterday was as far south as we will go, so it will be warming up each day   Although I will admit that I put on a robe this morning over my shorts and t-shirt while we sat on the balcony.  Yes, it is a little bit chilly.  Princess provides two robes to your cabin if you ask for them.  I don’t use mine very often, but Krissie does use hers quite a bit.

Speaking of wearing a robe, there is one couple on this ship that wears a robe and slippers all over the ship, often until the middle of the day.  They look like they just finished a spa treatment, maybe they did, but if they did, they are doing one every day.  He’s usually dressed by midday, but I think I only see her in her robe or dressed for dinner.  There are a lot of eccentric people onboard.  I guess we all have our little eccentricities, you just get to know them well when you’re all on the same cruise for 107 days.

I forgot to mention yesterday that we saw something in the water that look like dolphins, but they weren’t really jumping out of the water and didn’t have a dorsal fin.  For awhile we couldn’t figure out what they were.  I couldn’t photograph them, since they didn’t stay up long enough to capture with a pic.  We found out that they were seals that are swimming in the fjord.  Very cool to see them.  Lots of marine life sightings and a lot of different birds and animals at each new port.

We’re basically heading west and slightly north across the Tasman Sea.  It’s Wednesday here and we arrive in Burnie, Tasmania on Friday.  The seas have still been relatively calm.  Apparently Bass Straight, which is between Tasmania and mainland Australia, can be rather rough at times.  We will pass through it on Saturday on our way to Sydney on Sunday.  We will be spending two days (Sunday and Monday) in Sydney.

So here is the first pic of the sun breaking through the clouds this morning:

I was able to take this from our starboard balcony, so we must be heading at least slightly north in order to have the angle to take this pic.  Sorry, Sonia, I had to put the horizon near (although not at) center on that pic, that was the only way I could get both the sun and the reflection in frame.

We have a Cruise Critic meeting this morning to discuss Burnie and Sydney.  We will also be doing the Fantastic Fifteen photos from this segment.  That’s our way of sharing our best photos during the cruise with others.  The main photo contest is Fantastic Fifty, which will take place at the end of the world cruise.  But some people are just on segments, so this is our way of sharing with them as well.  There are four segments on the world cruise, San Diego to Sydney is the second segment (Fort Lauderdale to San Diego was the first segment).  Next segment is Sydney to Singapore, then last segment is Singapore to Venice.  I’m bringing my laptop to the meeting and then putting the 15 best photos from each contributor into its own separate folder on my laptop, then copying them all back out to those participating and those who would like copies, on either flash drives or SD cards.  When I get home, I will take the Fantastic Fifty and put them on a photo sharing site such as Flickr for everyone to see and share.  I may post some of the better ones here, with attribution to the photographer, if I have time along the way.

This is what I picked as the best photo from the first segment, a photo from Lanny Alexander:

I love the colors in the photo and the way he setup the shot with the level of detail in the feathers.

At our Cruise Critic meeting, Peter Paki (performer from the other evening, from Sydney) stuck his head into the room (I found out later that he thought there must be a concert going on in there, since there were so many people), so I snagged him to give us a local's view of Sydney.  He was very helpful.  Great meeting, we are all set for Burnie and Sydney.

Tonight is formal night, the fourth one of the world cruise so far.  We get to go to the Captain’s Circle Cocktail Party to hear from our Captain, John Foster.  He’s a pretty funny guy, several people quipped that he should be selling his CDs at the door.  They also serve free drinks, which makes it a pretty popular event.

After dinner, the sunset was beginning to take shape, but I only had my PowerShot camera.  This was the best I could do with it:

At sunset, I had to choose between going back to my room to get my DSLR and being late for the show or just taking it with my pocket camera.  I opted for the latter and got this interesting light scattering effect:

We sat with Ken, Lorraine and Chuck at the show:

The show was called Stardust and featured songs from the 30s and 40s.  Nicely done:

After the show I got a picture of Stella, Chuck and Dan:

…and Dan took a pic of me and Krissie:

Tomorrow is sea day #5 of 5 on our way to Burnie on Friday.