The many sea days were always going to be a part of this cruise, we could have done without the two extra ones but had no control over the circumstances that brought them about. It never occurred to me that weather conditions would prevent some of the stops in Australia so you live and learn.
Today we passed Willis Island and I have been trying to get to the bottom of why we didn’t follow the same procedure as we did in 2017 when on Celebrity Solstice doing an Eastern Australian itinerary. Here is a quote from my blog back then.
“As this cruise is all Australian home ports it isn’t technically an international cruise and therefore the ship is not allowed to sell any duty free items. To get round this the ship has to drop anchor very briefly off the coast of Willis Island so that it can be recorded in the ship’s logs and thus qualifying it as an international stop. The whole process took around 45 minutes and during this time we were given a talk over the PA by one of the three meteorologists that live on the island for 6 months at a time. The weather station on the island is used to monitor and record weather conditions which hopefully will provide early warning against cyclones in the region.”
Today, we slowed up and just sailed past while being receiving a talk over the PA by one of the meteorologists. All the stops have been Australian so the requirements for selling duty free must still be in place.
On the way back to the cabin I happened to spot the captain so seized the opportunity to ask him about the difference. He explained that the regulations have now changed and there is no requirement to drop anchor, it’s an environmental issue because there were concerns about the operation breaking the coral. Also if the weather was bad ships didn’t bother dropping anchor anyway. He went on to say there is loads more paperwork to contend with if you do drop anchor so the logical answer is just to sail past and record it on the ships logs. It still serves the same purpose but is less damaging to the coral.
Just before we arrived at Wills Island, we started to be accompanied by lots of sea birds which were a mixture of Brown Boobys and Red Footed Boobys. My perseverance paid off and I managed to get some reasonable photos.
Fitbit Steps 10,061 .
Nice shots on the birds!