THURSDAY, FEB 11TH--AT SEA

Much better ride last night and so far this morning. It is now 9am, Thursday, here and we just finished our coffee and cereal from room service. Our position is approx 19S150E and are 300 nautical miles from Cairns, Australia, our next port of call. Will be docking there tomorrow morning at 7am. Had a much better ride last night and so far this morning. It is mostly cloudy with rain showers all around and 82F. I have Skype set up now and tried calling my parents and Rebecca’s brother but internet is not very good now. As more passengers log onto the ship’s internet it really slows down and is not very reliable. Can’t make calls in evening when everyone is at dinner because it would be in middle of night back in states so will get up earlier and try to beat everyone else here on ship. I did get to talk a minute or two with my dad so was nice to hear his voice again. All you more “senior” (will not say older) people may remember the TV game show host, Wink Martindale. He and his wife, Sandy, boarded in Sydney and he will be doing a couple of lectures for us. This evening will be his first. Rebecca & I had a nice talk with them before last night’s show. Long story but he used to visit family in house next to Rebecca’s mother’s house. So they talked about the past, Tiptonville, and Boyette’s (catfish and hush puppy restaurant on Reel Foot Lake). We will try to have dinner with them some night as they will only be on ship for two weeks. Sandy, his wife, dated Elvis for 6 years before they met. Should be interesting talking more with them. They are super nice. We are miles from land but there are several birds flying around the ship now. Not to interested in the two other lecturers on ship now. One is an astro-journalist who talks about the skies in the Southern Hemisphere. The other is a British sports journalist. At noon we are having another meeting of Masons that I will attend. Other than that we are just going to relax today. Will talk around the ship and talk with some of the people we have become friends with. I think our Dallas friend, Allan, has arranged with the chef for some blackened salmon for dinner tonight for the four of us. Will go to Wink’s lecture before dinner and the show after dinner. We really enjoyed Peter Cousens show last night. He is a fantastic Australian singer and sang mostly Broadway show songs last night. I would say he is in top 10 of all the headliner show artists we have heard on our 60+ cruises. It was his first performance on Regent Cruise Lines and Jamie, the cruise director, said it certainly will NOT be his last. Tonight’s show is by Hayden Smith again. I talked about him on Feb 8th post.