Day 42: 20231104 Saturday, November 4, 2023 At Sea in the Timor Sea
Our morning started out with a win at trivia in which we tied with one other team. We had a tie breaker which was “What term, which originated in the London Stock Exchange as a derogatory for someone who defaulted on their debts, became used to describe office holders going out the door?” Apparently “Lame Duck” is American colloquialism that Aussies don’t use because the other team didn’t have a clue. It’s good to have international representation on your trivia teams. We won Coral Princess coasters, and gave our two coasters to the other team as consolation prizes. Janet has been dutifully entering the Wake Show drawings as well, and found a bag of goodies on our door today from yesterday’s drawing.
We are now heading south westerly through the Timor Sea. It remains hot and humid outside (88.5˚F, 76% humidity). We hope that as we head south, we’ll hit cooler temperatures and less humidity before our next port of call.
After morning trivia was exercise and relaxation with Janet headed up to the pool deck and Ben to the gym. Janet says after swimming, it’s comfortable enough while you are drying off in the heat that it’s easy enough to drop off to sleep. Ben is working on getting his mileage back up on the treadmill after weeks of recovering from the respiratory syndrome we picked up after San Francisco. It is surprising how long it has taken to get completely over that. We have seen a couple of staterooms where a small table blocks the entrance. These are reportedly staterooms in quarantine. Even on the Coral Princess, there is plenty of coughing going around. We suspect most of it is the same non-covid virus that spread through the Grand Princess.
While having pool side burgers we happened to chat with an Australian couple next to us. We were wondering if they had Fosters on board as Janet had ordered Ben a Corona beer to drink in the heat. They had Fosters and a selection of Northwest microbrews on the Grand Princess. The waiter said they didn’t have Fosters, and when Ben told him the advertising tagline “Fosters- It’s Australian for Beer”, the Aussie next to us said “We real Aussies don’t drink that stuff. The preference is regional but in Queensland and NSW we drink Great Northern”. So we got a mini lesson on Aussie Beerology and had our first Great Northern Beer. It’s an easy to drink lager with 4.2% alcohol similar to Budweiser, Miller or Coors. In the heat, it was just the thing with a burger.
Our afternoon progressive trivia dealt us a heavy blow with one question in which we had to list 5 actors chronologically in the order with which they portrayed Sherlock Holmes. We got Peter Cushing correct as the first in the list (’68), but got thrown because Ian McKellen, one of the oldest remaining on the list of suspects, did a Sherlock Holmes movie in 2015 where he portrays a retired and borderline demented Sherlock Holmes. The others were Jeremy Brett (’84), Robert Downing Jr (2009) and Benedict Cumberbatch (2010). The way they scored it, we only got 1 point out of a possible 4. We didn’t win today’s round, and got beat by 3-1/2 points, but at the end of the day, our team remains on the top of the progressive standings with a 5.25 point lead.
We got caught by surprise that today was a formal day. Fortunately, Ben’s formal shirt and slacks arrived back from the cleaners in the afternoon, after we returned from the progressive trivia session. The Princess Theater had a production show “Stardust” featuring popular music from the 40’s and 50’s which Janet particularly enjoyed. We had seen the same show with a different cast on the Grand Princess, but it’s still enjoyable even in reruns.
Our clocks go back another hour tonight. I believe that should put us on Perth Time. We usually Zoom our kids every Sunday at 5pm, but now that we are a day ahead and halfway around the world, it’s hard to figure out a time that works out for everyone. 7:30am Sunday in Perth Time is 4:30pm Saturday in Seattle, 6:30pm Saturday in Chicago and 7:30pm Saturday in Newark. We’ll see if it works.
