January 12, 2026 Sea Day #3

Today would officially be Sea Day #3 of 8, when Townsville was cancelled another Sea Day occurred.

As we have found, like southern North America in summer and fall, there are hurricanes. In the north of Australia and in Papua New Guinea and the islands, now is cyclone season. There could still be other changes to our itinerary. Of the final fourteen destinations, six are scheduled as tendered, which are vulnerable to weather conditions.

The ship was “rocking and rolling” all night. If we can feel the pitching on Deck 1, it will be more intense on the higher stateroom decks 4 to 8 and 10. Our jackets on wall hooks were gently swinging when we awoke this morning. The 8 a.m. temperature was 28°C, mainly cloudy wind 46 kph and 85% humidity. The waves were around four meters with white caps.

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First on today’s agenda was Coffee with Robbie in the Rolling Stone Lounge where he was joined by two behind the scenes staff members, the Hotel Executive Assistant, Jex and the Media Manager, Yvonne. They keep the activities on schedule and make changes to the daily program when unexpected events occur, like ports being cancelled.

Like last Monday, the dining room hosted Brunch from 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. which we squeezed in before dashing to John Hocknull’s presentation “The Role of a District Officer-Why This Gig?” about John’s four years as a KIAP - from the German word for captain. Australia administered Papua New Guinea from the end of World War 2 until 1975 when it gained independence. The District Officers, mostly Australian men, were in charge of the day to day administration like policing, supervising elections, organizing construction of air strips in communities as they requested an air strip. It was a matter of discussing with villages in an area cooperating to make a project happen, constructing an air strip with only the labour of the villagers and some provided wheelbarrows and shovels took 18 months. The District Officers were guiding the population to communicate with neighbours to become self sufficient and self governing. It took 30 years.

The job required walking on ancient paths with native men carrying sealed metal boxes of supplies on long poles, which were the frame of the District Officer’s bed at night. Sometimes the boxes contained cash or its equivalent to pay the workers at construction sites. There were few roads through the rain forest, just paths.

Papua New Guinea was the first Australian victory over the Japanese in World War 2, in large part because of the cooperation of the native people. In terms of general deaths of Australian men - 15% of Australian soldiers died in World War 1, 11% of Australian soldiers died in World War 2, 3.5% of Australian District Officers died performing their duties and 1.5% of Australian soldiers died in the Vietnam War.

At the noon captain’s announcement, position 30° 36 minutes South and 49° 41 minutes East having travelled 320 nautical Miles from Cairns and have 307 nm to go at an average speed of 18 knots. The wind should decrease and waves should decrease in height later this afternoon. The ship will be entering the Solomon Sea around midnight and arrive at about 7 a.m. in Milne Bay and dock at Alotau by 8 a.m. There is a possibly of a light rain tomorrow, north winds of 10 to 15 knots and high temperature of 30°C. Currently, the waves were still four meters high, winds NW 40 to 50 knots or Force 8 (Gale) on the Beaufort Wind Scale.

The great arc of islands located north and east of Australia and south of the Equator is called Melanesia (from the Greek words melas, “black,” and nēsos, “island”) for the predominantly dark-skinned peoples of New Guinea island, the Bismarck Archipelago, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu (the New Hebrides), New Caledonia and Fiji. (Encyclopedia Britianica)

Papua New Guinea encompasses the eastern half of the island of New Guinea; the Bismarck Archipelago (New Britain, New Ireland, the Admiralty Islands and several others); Bougainvilla and Buka (part of the Solomon Islands chain); and small offshore islands and atolls. The national capital, Port Moresby, is located in southeastern New Guinea on the Coral Sea.

A busy afternoon with Berny giving a port talk about the two destinations in Papua New Guinea, Alotau and Kiriwina. It is 1.5 km to walk to the main street of Alotau from the pier. Passengers can exchange money to Papua New Guinea Kina (PGK) when a bank representative comes onboard tomorrow. There is no use of credit or debit cards here although Australian money might be accepted, the PGK is the best to use. Exchange is 3 PGK for $1CAD. Kiriwina is a tiny island with a simple lifestyle based on family ties. Yams are the staple food. They use hollowed logs to craft their canoes that are the main transport. You may be able to arrange with a local to ride in one. Their dances convey their traditions. If Kiriwina people are in your camera range finder ask permission before taking the picture. Kiriwina is a tender port last tender back to the ship in 4:30 p.m..

We were going to walk on the Promenade Deck but it was closed due to the high winds and the deck and windows were wet from the waves’ spray reaching five decks high. We tried walking on Deck 4 halls but after twice around the starboard and port hallways, our legs were getting sore trying to walk and adjust to the rolling of the ship with every step. We headed to the Library Café for coffee.

The show performance today was at 3 p.m. in the World Stage. It was Spanish guitarist Nathan Sinclair. The theatre was less than half full.

Tonight the attire for the dining room was “Dressy”. The officer guest at our table was Valeria from Mexico who is the new training officer. We had a great dinner with complimentary red and white wine. We found out how each couple met and how long they knew each other before marrying and how long they have been married. There were lots of stories of wonderful crew members.

The Library Café was our regular post dinner coffee time.

At 8 p.m. in the World Stage “Masquerade” was the event of the evening. Officers were distributing eye masks to guests as they arrived. Some people had made their own earlier in the day. Space was made for a dance floor in front of the stage, not much larger than the dance floor in Rolling Stone Lounge. For the first 40 minutes the violinist of the Vivace duo played great melodies for ballroom dancing, but there was no indicators that it was time to dance. At 8:45 p.m. the Rolling Stone Lounge band went on stage and the entertainment team did a line dance routine and kind of encouraged audience participation. Then the rock music continued and the floor filled to capacity. The party continued for another two hours.

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