DAY 27

Saturday, February 22^nd, 2020

 

At Sea

 

This is the bag I received last night:

We decided it was time to send out the invitations for our planned stateroom soiree on Monday. The issue is always how many people can you comfortably squeeze into a cabin? After much trial and error we had previously settled on 8, with a maximum of 12, although the level of comfort diminishes exponentially. Somehow we ended up inviting 12 guests, forgetting that it will actually be 14 people total if you include us. Oh well.

 

I went around the ship delivering the invitations, and by the time I returned to the Commodore Club I already had our first response. Friends came over and said they would love to come, but what time was the party? I couldn’t believe that I had forgotten to put a time on the invitations. Actually, yes I can believe it. I just have to stop being so scatterbrained.

 

In the afternoon we sat out on our balcony enjoying the sun. I am always in two minds about whether or not to go with a glass fronted balcony or a sheltered one. The decision is usually made by the price, the sheltered ones tend to be much cheaper.

 

With the sheltered ones the cabin tends to be darker, and you can’t see the water when you are sitting down or lying in bed. However, you can usually be out on your balcony when we are at sea, and today was no exception. There was enough of a breeze to keep it cool, but it was not too windy at all. In fact it was extremely pleasant. All that was lacking was a swimming pool.

 

You can tell we are sailing around Australia by the music we heard on board today. We had lunch in the pub and the pianist, Campbell Simpson, played Waltzing Matilda, and then when we were having drinks in the Chart Room the Mark Hodgson Trio played it again.

 

The show tonight was an Australian guitarist, Bruce Mathiske, who played the guitar and the didgeridoo simultaneously. Not a particularly pleasing combination quite honestly, but I was very impressed that he could do it. It takes all my efforts to play just the guitar, without also managing another instrument at the same time. Not even Rolf Harris tried to do that.