Day 35 – February 19, 2011 – At Sea on the way to Melbourne, Australia

The seas were a little rough this morning but not too bad.  During the morning bridge lesson, Captain Scala announced that we would be headed to Melbourne as fast as he could and would dock around midnight.  There was a storm in the Bass Straights and he wanted to get through quickly and into the shelter of the Bay of Melbourne.  He told us that we would have waves all day and that from about 3-6 until we entered the Bay we should be careful.  In fact, they closed the outside decks in the afternoon for safety reasons.

The Captain was right..the seas got rocky

Yes, it was windy. The weather was changing as we left Hobart so the Captain chose to change our course and go around the west of the Island instead of the east. This morning we had fog, rain, and wind. It was going to get worse so Captain Scala (who is the best!) decided to go as fast as he could and get us to Melborne tonight.

It is now about 9:00pm in the evening and we are sailing in very, very smooth seas in the bay. We had a bumpy crossing with high winds but luckily no big swells. The wind was high enough that we were certainly bouncing and if you were prone to be seasick, you would have been. We will be docked between 11-12 tonight but we won't be cleared until the morning.

About 6:15pm we entered the bay and everything calmed down and we had a wonderful evening.

Tonight was the Gold, Platinum, Titanium event which was a Bingo Reception hosted by the Captain. Now, I know that sounds weird but Captain Pier Paolo Scala is a lot of fun. Early in the cruise, on the first segment, he hosted a bingo party for the crew where he bought the prizes. The crew just loves him!

So tonight there were 230 invitees to the party and about 1/2 showed up. There were 5 games with the Captain being the bingo caller. Amazingly, Fred won the first game...now don't fall off your seats, but the prize was.......

* a lesson with the Executive Chef on steak tartar!!!! How exciting (smile, smile). We can bring another couple and learn how to do steak tartar!!

The prizes for the next games were....
* 2 oz of caviar
* a trip to the "wine cellar" with the Head Wine (now I can't even remember how to spell it...it is late tonight)
* two bottles of premium wine
* an invitation from the Captain to join him on the bridge for the sail away from Melbourne with a
glass of champagne
* a behind the scenes trip through the ship with Jamie

The weather on land is much better and we are looking forward to a nice today tomorrow.