Cruising the Tasman Sea, Day One

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We had a beautiful sailaway last night sitting by the window on deck 12 at Silk. Silk had a new menu last night! The specialty restaurants have fixed menus so that was a surprise. We both ordered new dishes. My black pepper beef dish had been replaced by an XO sauce beef dish. It was good. BUT. When I asked the waiter what XO sauce is made from, he said condensed beef stock. I asked, No seafood then or fish? NO. When I Googled it later, I could not find a single recipe with dried shrimp and scallops! I guess it is good I don't have a shellfish allergy. Clay ordered a duck breast dish that replaced I don't know what. He said it was very good and quite spicy. Spicy has been hard to come by at Silk so he was pleasantly surprised.

Clay was up early and deck walking before sunrise. We hadn't cleared the coast of New Zealand when we finished breakfast. It was calm sailing all night until we turned west to go between the North Island and the Three Kings. Breakfast started in Marketplace at 7:30 am and we didn't arrive until at least 8, so I was dismayed to find a blank spot where the granola should have been. I wound up with a spoonful for yogurt but not until closer to 8:30 am after I'd eaten a giant warm flaky chocolate croissant as consolation. I hope the granola situation is sorted out by tomorrow and I really hope we don't run out again!

Once we passed through that strait at the tip of New Zealand things smoothed out again. The captain said at 9am that the seas should remain at about 4-6 feet swells. That would be great since the Tasman Sea is famous for being rough. I think in the past we've mostly been lucky but have had some rough times too. Fingers crossed that it all goes like today. The captain said we are doing about 20 knots running 4 of 6 generators and need to maintain at least 19 to get to Sydney on schedule. He anticipates arriving by 3pm instead of 5pm on Friday. That would be good as we have Sydney Symphony Orchestra tickets for 8pm. We heard the captain's announcement in Palm Court today as most days. The new yoga teacher is onboard and teaching a wildly more aggressive yoga than the Kitas. She also did not enforce quiet during the captain's announcement as the Kitas have in the past. He was barely audible over the yoga students conversing over him. This seems to happen more often than not in all public spaces onboard. It is especially concerning as Crystal has a no announcements policy meaning they only do make announcements to convey crucial information.

Today everyone on board Serenity had to clear Australian Border Force inspection personally. They started calling us by assigned groups at 9am. We were in group 10 and did not get called until after 10:30am. The last group I heard called at noon was 15. I don't know if that was the end or they Border agents broke for lunch. (It must have been the end as I never heard anymore announced.) We got to hold our passports as we passed through Galaxy Lounge and through the face to face inspection. Not a single stamp! Kudos on a job well done to Crystal for the day last segment when they had us each go through landing cards for the entire voyage. Our completed and signed Australian landing cards were handed to us with our passports as we entered the port side of the theater and we turned them back in as we exited to starboard side. Australian Border Force only scanned our passports, presumably to verify our ETA, and compared our photos to our faces. Easy.

Tonight is formal night. We have a reservation at Prego which has also had some menu changes. I think less change than at Silk and I don't think the changes will effect us.

We spent the day mostly in the cabin, online, reading or doing needlepoint. It has been chilly today so Clay hasn't spent much time on the balcony. Correction: we spent a good portion of the afternoon out on our starboard facing balcony. It was a beautiful blue world out.  We are headed about due west so the sun is not shining on us! We spotted leaping dolphins in the distance traveling away from us. We saw some kind of big albatross flying toward us. I am not good enough at identifying birds but I Googled and any one of several species of albatross that inhabit the Tasman Sea could have been it.

We got back from dinner to find Bob on the bed. Mind you Bob has been relocating about the cabin every morning and evening while we're out so that wasn't too surprising. But tonight Bob was on the bed and Bob isn't really allowed on the bed. We gave Bob a pass because he was guarding gifts. Crystal gave us WC 2019 logoed gifts of a golden lapel pin for Clay and a thin silver bangle bracelet with a charm and a promise of 3 more charms for each segment for me. We still think it is funny that our cabin stewardess figured out where Bob sleeps and that he likes to look out the balcony when the curtains are open and that she took it upon herself to help Bob out.

We moved the clocks back an hour tonight so we get extra sleep before arriving in Sydney in 2 days!

An excellent sea day.

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