Day 33 11th February 2011

Pacific Ocean

We lost another hour last night so we are current at GMT – 5 or five hours behind the UK.

The calm seas disappeared overnight and this morning the ship is moving a good deal. This seems due to the wind rather than the waves but does make moving a round difficult. When you want to know about the weather or the ships position you turn on channel 1 on the cabin television. This gives you the details about speed, direction, location, wind strength and temperature. At the moment when you check the location it is clear that there is no land within hundreds of miles. Easter Island is 600 miles away and we should sail past it tomorrow afternoon. This is one of the most remote spots of earth. In addition to the distance from other land we are also sailing over one of the deepest parts of the Pacific. Apparently, the ocean is many miles deep at this point.

Last night was a Captain’s party. These are essentially short drinks parties which the Captain hosts to explain what will happen next during the voyage. They take place at the start of each stage of the trip. They are always on formal nights when people wear dinner jackets etc. The dinner on these nights is slightly better than on other nights mainly the choice is wider in that lobster and similar dishes are available. We have often attended these events but last night decided to play truant in that we had had enough of them for the moment. We went instead to Raffle’s for a pre-dinner drink. The bar was very quiet and pleasant with only a few customers.

Today we have largely been reading and having a quiet day. We meet another couple who are disabled and they are organising a trip to the Blue Mountains when we reach Sidney for wheelchair users. This would be in a specially adapted vehicle. We said we were interested and they are going to organise a meeting to discuss what we all want to do to see if we can reach agreement.