Friday June 7 – At Sea

Today we began travelling in the Gulf of Aden, very close to Somalia and Yemen.  This is pirate territory, so the security people on board are on high alert.  They have someone positioned on deck bot day and night although my feeling is that a little band of pirates would be very brave to attack a large cruise ship with 2000  passengers and 1000 staff. Water hoses and sound projectors are used for protection.

This afternoon, two large birds accompanied the ship for over an hour.  I tried to photograph both of them but only succeeded in capturing one.

Joanna Lumley is the godmother of the Sea Princess.  She is one of our favourite actresses and we enjoyed her travel show on the Old Silk Road.   

I went to a talk given by Neale McShane.  Neale was a policeman in Birdsville for many years.  He was responsible for a desert area that was as large as England.  He said that there was no crime there and that most of his work involved search and rescue.  He talked about seven different rescue operations he had been involved with, all of which had ended well.  One involved a young man who came off his motor bike and could not move his hands or feet.  It would have taken them two days to reach him by four wheel drive, so he had to ring around to get a helicopter.  This was proving difficult because they needed a helicopter that would be big enough to hold a stretcher.  Then, out of the blue, something happened that had never happened in Birdsville before.  A Chinook helicopter landed in Birdsville to refuel.  When asked to assist in the rescue, they agreed and while they proceeded to get the necessary authorisations, Neale got together the stretcher and the local nurse.  It just so happened that a doctor was in town, just passing through, so she was roped into the operation as well.  The whole thing ended well.

The moral of his stories was that when travelling in the outback, always let someone know where you are going and what time you expect to arrive, never travel down a closed road as they are closed for a purpose and always make sure you have enough petrol, food and water.

 We learnt new moves to the Cha Cha today and tonight we listened to Carlos Leal play the grand piano and sing audience requests while the waiters showed their juggling techniques while making after dinner cocktails.  They would put Tom Cruise to shame.