Day 36: 20231029 Sunday October 29, 2023- Willis Island and the Coral Sea
To say we did scenic cruising of Willis Island would be a major exaggeration. Willis island is a tiny island that rises at most 30’ out of the coral sea in the middle of nowhere. There is a permanent meteorological station there manned by 4 people who must have drawn the short straw at the Australian weather service bureau. When we went by was a special day because they were actually switching out crews, so the population was 8.
The most noticeable change between cruising across the Pacific and Tasman Sea has been bird life. Between the islands of the Pacific, there was virtually no bird activity aside from an extremely rare albatross (one spotted in over 20 days at sea) in the distance. In the Tasman sea, we saw birds as we came into the coastal area around Sidney with mostly silver gulls as we got into the harbor. Beginning early today, we began seeing various Boobys- Brown Boobys and Red-Footed Boobys. They would circle over the bow of the ship hoping we would stir up some flying fish, and sure enough, although not a regular occurrence, I have seen a rare to occasional flying fish on the bow wake during my walks on the promenade deck in the morning. As we approached Willis Island, the density of sea birds became fairly impressive with a mix of Booby’s and Shearwaters, with perhaps a few Petrels thrown in off the wave tops.
The ship slowed as we approached Willis Island and radio communications between Willis Island’s scientific officer and the bridge were piped over the ship’s bridge camera channel. The scientific officer gave us a brief virtual tour of their little outpost. The ship never got closer than about a half mile off shore so it didn’t really feel like “scenic cruising”.
On our 60d Around South America cruise, the Island Princess circled Devil’s Island and even anchored in close enough for a tender to ferry vendors from the Island aboard the ship to sell some souvenirs on the Lido pool deck. This was more like a narrated speed bump in the middle of the Coral Sea. But it was a change of pace and a chance to snap a few bird photos.
Our trivia pursuits continue to eat up our spare time. During our morning trivia, we got soundly beat. During the afternoon progressive trivia, we probably blew our lead as we scored 4 points behind the top team on today’s session. If they started less than 4 points below us, we’ve been knocked off the pedestal that we had occupied so briefly. But in the evening Logo trivia, we did manage to win some Princess drink cozies emblazoned with Coral Princess 2023 World Cruise logos to go with our luggage tags. I guess we got to inherit their left over world cruise swag since the Coral Princess’s world cruise ended in Sydney just as we were boarding.
The Princess Theater featured instrumentalist Darin Trainer. We had missed his first show but as soon as he came on stage we recognized him as the piano man from the Grand Princess’s Crooners bar who had the place packed every night. He put on a high energy and well performed Billy Joel and Elton John show which was thoroughly enjoyable, although he did make the audience sing the last verse of one of his last songs. The Coral Princess stage band/orchestra seems a bit more polished than the cast on the Grand Princess in that the instruments were better balanced and the piano, guitar and sax solos were all more innovative and well played, suggesting more mature and experienced musicians.
Cuisine wise, Ben did have some real Vegemite on toast with breakfast, and if you butter the toast and then spread the Vegemite very thinly, it's actually quite tasty.
Tomorrow we arrive at Cairns, which we have learned is pronounced Caans by the locals. We guess it’s a lazy “r” like in New England only in a slightly different linguistic direction. The temperatures have been rising as we go further north. We are at about 16˚ S Latitude so we have crossed north of the Tropic of Capricorn (23˚ 26’ 10.3” S latitude).
Funny the ship didn’t make a big deal about that like when we crossed the Equator. It should be pretty warm ashore. We are booked to see a crocodile show in Cairns, and will also hopefully get to see a bit of the town which is a 10 minute walk from the Trinity Wharf. However, if it’s too hot and humid, we may retreat to the ship for tea and air conditioning like in Pago Pago.
