March 2 - At Sea

Monday, March 2 - Day 26 - At Sea

After breakfast Dick goes to his final trivia session.  His team is consistent in losing by 2-3 points.  We are nothing if not consistent!  After trivia the whole team adjourns to a nearby bar area for coffee and conversation for about an hour.  Three of our six are getting off in Sydney and the other three are on until Southampton. It has been a fun team and while we have never won we have laughed a lot and enjoyed our time together.

Carolyn participates in her favorite cruising past time...reading and napping on our balcony. The weather this cruise has not been to conducive for that since it was so rainy the first part and then so hot and humid. Since the last day before New Zealand it has been balcony weather.

The second lecture on the Bounty Story is at 12:15PM and we find out about the ultimate fates of all the mutineers; three hanged and the rest killed in fights with each other and male Tahitians over women and land while on Pitcairn Island.  Only one, John Adams, dies a natural death as a fairly old man.  We also learn of the people of Pitcairn up until present day with descendants of Christian and Adams being the predominant residents.  The rest of the population are descendants of other mutineers.  The speaker shows many pictures, including one of Fletcher Christian’s son October Thursday Christian who changed his name to October Wednesday Christian because he found out his dad had his calendar wrong!

The afternoon is spent packing; a long, tedious process.  This is Carolyn’s show and Dick helps, sort of, and mainly stays out of the way.  We expect to have problems with our carry-on luggage on the Virgin Australia flights so everything has to be carefully weighed.  Carolyn planned for this, sort of, and paid for two extra pieces of checked luggage but our concern is a 7kg weight restriction on carry-on items.  We simply cannot meet this with our camera and electronics bag plus our medications, iPads, Kindles, etc.  We shall see!

Tonight is our last dinner and we do go to the Britannia Dining Room to say goodby to our waiter and finish a bottle of wine on which we have been working. Carolyn has liked the dining room food more than Dick but neither of us has starved!

The bags are finished, locked and outside the door for pickup by 10:30PM.  It has been a stressful day and tomorrow could be worse!