We start our day listening to the captain’s announcement about crossing the International Date Line. I covered the technicalities, trivia, and quirks yesterday, and now they come true for us over the next 24 hours. The captain explains that rather than adjusting clocks and dates as we pass the imaginary line, tonight at midnight, Thursday 8 October at 11:59pm will simply become Saturday 10 October at 12:00am. No Friday for us. We’ll go from being 22 hours behind Canberra to two hours ahead of it. Weird.
After the announcement we head off to a Beyond the Podium talk. Rodger McQueen is our host, a retired school teacher, university lecturer, and astronomer. Over the coming week he’ll be presenting a series of astronomical talks. Today’s focuses on our solar system, our galaxy, and some facts about nearby stars, planets, and nebulae. Rodger is exceptionally knowledgeable about all things in space, but lacks that certain something, and his talk reminds me of a Year 10 science class. He takes us through the planetary system in a data-heavy way: the size of each planet, orbital cycle, atmosphere, moons, and so on. Maybe later talks will be more engaging.
After the talk we go to the Retreat to collect our passports. While we were in French Polynesia the ship collected and held them all. French Polynesia is a French overseas territory, so French immigration rules apply, and the officials who clear the ship need to see the documents. Handing them over in one batch lets the ship be cleared as a whole, rather than 3,000 passengers each lining up for a stamp at every port. With tender ports, where everyone is already queuing to get ashore, that saves a great deal of time. We got by on our ship cards, and now we have our passports back ahead of New Zealand. The lounge is packed, so we head to our room and relax before lunch.
Lunch today is our least favourite offering, so we settle on a sea bass crudo, soup, salad, and a burger.
Later we take part in an indoor escape-room-style game in a team of ten. A series of cryptic clues leads us to open boxes and reveal more hints. I don’t know if we actually solve any of them, as the activity crew are generous with hints whenever they visit our group. We are a rabble, ten people who mostly don’t know each other, each going off and doing our own thing. Anyway, by some miracle we solve the final clue and are in line for the major prize round, which requires working out where to put wine bottles in a rack to unlock a drawer. Each team gets a minute at a time and has a couple of goes. By another stroke of luck we land on the correct combination. As we say in Australia, we “Bradburied it.” For anyone who needs a reminder, Steven Bradbury won Australia’s first ever Winter Olympic gold in 2002 by staying upright while every other skater in the final fell over. Funnily enough, we beat the annoying team who seem to win everything. No PopSockets for them today. And weirdly two of our team storm off muttering under their breath about not being included or needed. Odd!
After the game we head to the Retreat. It’s not as busy, but there are at least two people on their devices. Mardi asks a guy to use headphones, and he reluctantly agrees to turn the sound off. Other people sitting near us thank Mardi as I chat to him about neurodiversity. He says he’s never heard of it. His wife, sitting near him, is in a wheelchair, so I chat to him about invisible disability, but he seems unconvinced. A few minutes later we hear the noise again. Instead of staying, we leave.
I speak to Janet, one of the concierges, about the incessant use of devices in a quiet environment. She listens, but seems unable to do anything. Crew are understandably reluctant to question guest behaviour, since it can affect their tips. We relax in our room afterwards, balcony door open as it mostly is, listening to the calming waves and enjoying the fresh, cool air as we track farther and farther south.
A little later we complete the next round of progressive trivia. We’ve climbed the leaderboard and are now in fourth. Today we score 13, hopefully keeping us in a good position. Some quiet time in the room, then we head out again.
It’s Evening Chic tonight, or as I call it, Evening Shark. My shirt is a dark navy, long-sleeved button-up covered all over in a stencilled pattern of white sharks. They’re drawn in simple white outline, packed tightly together and swimming in every direction, each with a round dot for an eye, a jagged line of teeth, and gill slits behind the head. Worn open at the collar under a black suit jacket, it’s the sort of shirt that looks quiet from a distance and gets a lot louder close up. Mardi also dresses up in a striking teal blue skirt, belt and blouse. She made all four pieces: skirt, belt, blouse and my shirt.
We head to Martinis for a couple of cocktails before dinner. Dinner is a sumptuous sea bass ceviche followed by butter-poached lobster. Delicious.
A quick visit to the casino before bed. I watch some cricket, with Australia starting their Test series against South Africa in Durban. Midnight comes around, Thursday becomes Saturday, and I put the cricket down and call it a day.
