Saturday, February 2, 2008




Warm but rainy today (at 9:10 am) as we angle away from the coast on the 1st day of 3 towards Guadalcanal. Seems like the first real day of the cruise. There really wasn't much to do in Newcastle, but I took at 3 mile walk around the coastal area watching the surfers and visiting the out of place imitation European type cathedral. A highlight was observing the matching drilling of a band of Sea Scouts. (I have no idea what Sea Scouts do, but they were marching and apparently being hollered at so that they do it properly. I asked an Australian couple onboard and was told that "it's an Aussie thing.")

Since Newcastle is only 2 hours from Sydney, a few new passengers from around the area who boarded in Sydney actually went home for the day to keep stuff they forgot to pack to maybe feed the cat. My guess is that they really just wanted to say they could go home for the day. Let's see them do that in Papua New Guinea.

Formal night tonight. I was invited to dine at the "Security Officer's Table". Hope he will join us. Planning on the maiden night of my hand tied bow tie. No chance it will look perfect and be mistaken for a clip on type. Last night I ate with an English/Swiss couple--he was on 60 minutes some years ago for "suing the Swiss government" for some reason he didn't state nor if he was successful--along with the dance host (a retired salesman from California), a Danish retired banker who I met the night before, and tonight's entertainer, a young French-Canadian singer. Chose last night to avoid the "world renown comedy magician" and went to the top deck to look at the upside down Orion.

Having some problems confirming uploads to the blog pages. This might be due to the cable cut that has disrupted Internet communications in Asia. I would appreciate confirmation that the "M/v Silver Whisper" and this post are visible along with one picture each.

Probably no new post for a few days unless something really exciting happens. The fire in the cigar bar didn't reach that level of exciting. I went to see if they were serving the Scotch I like and was disappointed it was only a fire. Oh well.

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