Sea Day 8

The seas continue to be rough over the past night and day. I am really disappointed as we have had such smooth sailing on the Indian Sea in the past. So, it is like weather and you get what you get.

We slept in. We arrived at GDR too early for breakfast. Neither of us checked Currents for the hours today. We just waited downstairs on deck 5 for a half-hour since the ride was easier there than in our cabin on 7. We had a big weekend breakfast even though today is only Friday. We had time. It turns out we'll have time tomorrow too. Exmouth was not designated as a tender port in the original itinerary. It turns out it is a tender port though. So, while we'll arrive at 8am, we don't have a ticket for an excursion until 12:55pm. Of course, that ticket instructs us to allow a half-hour to get to pier side as that is where we are instructed to me. Tomorrow is one of our few paid excursions. Clay paid to go to the Great Barrier Reef earlier. Our Exmouth Highlights tour tomorrow is $69 pp. It is the only non-boat excursion offered here. I guess Exmouth is famous for the Ningaloo Reef.

After breakfast, our cabin still wasn't ready so we went to deck 5 again to wait it out. When we got back to the cabin it was just about time to get our lifevests for the 10:15am Life Boat Drill. They said maritime law requires they hold one every 14 days. In that case, we are in violation of the law. The good news is that they gave us the abbreviated version possibly due to the rough conditions and did not make us form up outside under our lifeboats.

I took a nap after that. I don't seem to tolerate high doses of meclizine as I used to and if I take more than normal like now I get sleepy. I didn't have anything else to do, so I slept. I woke up when the captain and CD started their noon announcements. While the seas are rough and it is windy, there is no rain today and it is only partly cloudy. The captain expects the same weather tomorrow in Exmouth. Given the potential of an unpleasant tender ride and the fact that we'll go ashore 2 miles from town, we'll probably not leave the ship until our tour ticket time. It is just as well, we got on a ship's tour here as otherwise we'd probably have given Exmouth a pass entirely.

We had Jacques Bistro for lunch in the GDR just because it is on deck 5. I am really sick of that very limited French menu. We both ordered one of today's specials. Cheese stuffed bacon-wrapped burger. Unfortunately, the menu failed to mention that the burger was really stuffed with sautéed onions and garlic with a miniscule amount of cheese. Clay liked it best of any burger he's had aboard but then he prefers onion on his burger. It was served with 4 potato wedges so I figured I ate a whole potato for lunch anyway.

At one pm we went to Sirena Lounge on deck 5 to watch the popcorn movie. More to eat! The movie was Florence Foster Jenkins. I had watched it on one of the flights but Clay hadn't seen it. It was worth rewatching and besides I had nothing else to do. Most of the movies they have on TV now, are either not in English or else we've already seen them multiple times.

We will stay down for dinner and go to GDR on deck 5 again. Thankfully we don't have a deck 10 reservation tonight. Tonight's menu is nothing to write home about, so I won't. I'll just be thankful to be going down to dinner instead of up. The other thing is that Terrace is having a Caribbean Dinner tonight. No thanks to that anyway.

Between 5 and 6pm tonight we had to go to the Reception Lobby to pick up our passports with Australian departure cards for our debarkation in Sydney. Still no idea what was up with Australia's extra passport scanning, but at least 2 of the 3 Australian Immigration officers are still onboard today. I guess they came on in Bali, met with every person aboard during the next sea day, scanned passports yesterday in Broome and can't leave until all passports are returned. Maybe they get off in Exmouth. I have no idea where they are based or live. Maybe they flew to Bali from Exmouth originally. Maybe they came from Sydney and have to stay onboard until then or fly back at some point. It is a mystery.

No Photos today. We are sailing west southwest so we'll have the sunset on the starboard side tonight. Maybe we'll get a sunset tonight, the skies are clear enough today at last. I don't expect anything noteworthy to occur the rest of the day so I'll close and post this now.