We docked in Darwin at 7 AM and were off the ship by 7:30 AM for immigration. Everyone had to remove everything and do a face-to-face inspection, even the crew. After the inspection was done we had to leave our luggage with them and get back on the ship. We will be on the ship until 10 PM, when we board a bus and go to the airport. Our first flight leaves Darwin at 1:55 AM and lands in Singapore. We arrive in Singapore 4 hours and 45 minutes later at 5:10 AM and leave for Seattle at 9:00 AM. We arrive in Seattle 14 hours and 45 minutes later at 8:45 AM. Yes, we do arrive in Seattle 15 minutes before we leave Singapore. From Seattle we fly to Portland arriving at 12:20 where Richard and Joan are picking us up around 1:00 P M Saturday. It will be a long flight for sure.
We went straight to breakfast when we got on and Kim said, “look at you eating at 8:13 AM”. Yes, it was pretty early, for me.
One of the expedition leaders is a professional photographer and he puts together a set of pictures he took and some that guests took. At the end of this blog, I plan to put several of these pictures for your visual entertainment.
But first, a few funny things I heard. Keep in mind, guests have been aboard for at least 2 weeks now and I got in the elevator on deck 4, I asked for deck 7 and another guy asked for deck 5. The guy pushing the buttons says, “deck 5 has no bar on it why would anyone want off there”? I told him that Deck 5 was the pool deck and there is the pool bar, and the restaurant has a bar too. I then asked him if he somehow got on board yesterday, it was a sea day, which got a laugh. Kim came back on board with a joke she had read about 2 guys preparing to open a new store front. They had had enough of people knocking on the door and asking what kind of store is it going to be. Well, this elderly lady knocks on the door and asks what are you selling? He replies, idiots. She says well business must be good, I see you only have 2 left. Today at lunch I saw the captain, so I walked up to him to thank him for a great trip and inviting us to dinner earlier in the trip. Then I added that I was glad his navigator does all the math for the ship, because last night at the Fairwell reception you stated some people have been on almost 5 1/2 weeks. Those he was referring to have been on board for 55 days. 56 days would be 8 weeks. He laughed, but his fellow officers at the table laughed harder.
Enjoy the beautiful pictures, I plan to write one more time next week so I can add some short videos that you will enjoy watching and tell about our long travel day.
More later……..
Great photos! Thanks Steve. Safe travels. -Joe. PS: Loved the conversation about math with the Captain and his team!