Leaving the cute fruit bats

First you hear the hint of sounds on the front of the ship. Then rustling a little louder with metal being scraped now and then. So I got up and looked out to see the beginning of dawn and the men on the front of the ship with lines ready.

Cairns is surrounded b degree turny rounded mountains and you can see the ridges extending into the distance forming a chiaroscuro (sp) effect into the distance. The ship is sailing through a very wide clear channel with small boat craft on both sides of this channel and some ferries moving quickly along that area too. In the distance, the sun begins to rise over the mountains and this illuminates the glass faces of the buildings on shore.

Cairns is much more developed since we were last here 7 years ago. Lots more tall apartment buildings along the harbor. A Crystal ship is already docked.

We get to the area near our berth and the thrusters begin to make themselves heard as we do a 180 degree turn in the harbor to put us headed out to sea for our departure this evening. Then they slide sideways into the berthing site. Why can’t cars do this for parking I’m always thinking.

Great Barrier Reef

You can tell when the ship gets into this area as the seas calm down and remain that way until your vessel leaves. It is not quite eerie.

We met our friends and headed out into the hot, humid weather. We walked along the esplanade which has free WiFi but at a baud rate not quite enough for our needs. This finally dawned on us about over 30 frustrating minutes. We had among us: 4 iPhones, 2 iPads, 3 laptops. So then we went to Mickey D’s for a coke and to hook up there. A slight bit better baud rate but not by much. We had to sign up for Macca, their web site here but now we are permanently registered with them. At least this place was air conditioned and no one gave us funny looks.

Well we figured out we could do this until the ship left, so we wandered to the Hilton nearby and I told them I was a Hilton Honors person. They didn’t care, they gave us the password for the lobby with a smile. This still was not good enough to download iTunes on the laptop, so these lovely people pulled out a direct connection cord so we could use really good WiFi. What a group. I have to write HQ for Hilton a nice note. Frances was able to call Amex and complete some business with them that was keeping her awake at night using Ed’s cell phone and it also gave her an opportunity to call her son who is looking after things for them at home. This was all done using Facebook connections.

We were hot and sticky by now so we traipsed back to the ship to drop off all this heavy electronics and have lunch. Then we all walked along the esplanade and lagoon (so much has changed since we were last here). We walked through some of the streets looking for the fruit bats. We found them; I couldn’t make them out but our friends got smiles from them (they think. Ha).

We saw much aboriginal art in various places. People are very friendly and helpful.

The trees are festooned with fruit bats, and now with their babies. Alas I could not see them but others did. The flies are giant sized here. Reminded me of flies around cows and horses.

But I was beet read, had heat rash all over, short corns between my toes and it was time to go back to the ship and a WONDERFUL shower. Ed and I are absolutely wiped out by heat and humidity. This helped quite a bit and we are now catching up on our news.

We continue to try to complete the updates of all our apps etc. None of us could ever back up our iCloud accounts but since Ed downloaded iTunes thanks to Hilton and their help, we can download to the laptop so if we lose or damage our iPhones or iPads, we are not totally lost.

Leaving Cairns

It is fascinating to see how they loose the lines to the ship along with the help of the little tug boats and then use the thrusters to get out into the channel. We still had some sprinkles as we were leaving and as we got farther out, the seas got more like you expect an ocean to feel.

Lucian, our head waiter, was in fine teasing form this evening. He is leaving us in Dubai and we have come to enjoy his wry humor. He will return to Bucharest for a much deserved rest.

Photos

We’ve come to know all the photo personnel and have fun with them. They work very hard as they have to be printing and doing other work when they aren’t actually taking photos or videos. It isn’t a cake walk by any means.

Tonight’s show

Wow! New crew and singers and they are all incredible. Their athleticism is marvelous to watch and the new singers have strong, booming voices. Tonight’s show was mostly Latin and with great energy. The male dancers are now pretty tall  but the females are shorter than I am.

Rabaul

We are now off to Rabaul, a part of New Guinea. We’ve been there twice before. It is a small island with a volcano but mostly we stop here because it is a great site to scuba dive and see the old WWII planes ships in the bottom of the harbor. They have also excavated some planes on shore. Not exactly a heart stopping port for us but a fun distraction.