Smithy's Cruise Blog

Sydney has to be one of the world’s top ciites.  I woke to my alarm at 0500 and shot out onto the balcony expecting to see the approach into Sydney Harbour through the Heads. I was too late.  By then we were passing the Opera House and approaching our berth.  And it was still dark, so an earlier alarm call would not have helped!

The Overseas Passenger Terminal where we were berthed is in the heart of the city.  Southampton and ABP could learn so much from Sydney.  There are restaurants, shops and hotels overlooking the cruise ships.  The port is buzzing with people.  Sydney residents love to see the big, modern cruise ships in the middle of their city.  It is great marketing for Sydney and for the cruise lines.

We had been in Sydney in 2006 for 3 days after disembarking from the Sapphire Princess.  We had enjoyed it immensely. On that occasion we had booked a wheelchair friendly tour of the Opera House and, despite it being a sell out, had managed to pick up last minute returns for Swan Lake that evening. Fantastic!

This time we just had the one day. We took a tour of the city in the morning which was excellent and included a visit to Bondi beach.  You may be able to spot me on my surf board. The weather was glorious.

In the afternoon we took a ferry from Circular Quay to the Taronga Zoo.  It is set on a hill and we were bussed to the top and then made our way down with Jane braking hard all the way! The zoo is magnificent although one or two of the animals had clearly had their lunch and were sleeping!

By then the rain storm had subsided and we had a relaxed ferry ride back to the city via Mosman.  A beautiful bay with a marina and surrounded by multi-million dollar homes set into the hill.

Brisbane marks the halfway point on this epic voyage.  It is difficult to believe that we have been on the ship for nearly two months, but my waistline proves it.

Today we celebrated our first Cunard organised tour on this voyage.  At last they were able to arrange a coach with a wheelchair lift. Queen Victoria berthed some 40 minutes from the city centre, but it was an easy drive in. 

So what about Brisbane?  We had not been there before.  It is a lovely city and beautifully designed. Admittedly we were taken to the prosperous suburbs, with traditional as well as modern houses, but the whole city had a superb balance between the old and the new.

Brisbane is built around the Brisbane River which runs through the city in massive S bends and, as in London, old warehouses and wharfs have been converted into stylish apartments.  In the South Bank area, just across the river from the city’s CBD there is a restaurant and leisure precinct, with art galleries, theatres, museums and exhibition halls. 

Everywhere you look, on both sides of the river, are marvellous, tastefully renovated, old buildings alongside the new.

Fiji’s welcome was loud and dramatic.  At 0700 as we neared the quay we woke to the sound of a marching band.  They marched and they danced.  They rarely flagged but when they did take a break, a rock group, half hidden in the shed, played electric guitars at full volume. 

I guess they hid in the shed because they knew it would rain.  And it did for most of the day which was a shame. We ventured out and headed for the capital, Suva. The pavements were not great for wheelchairs but we took refuge from the rain in a modern department store and at the top were food outlets and WiFi.  

Our berth at Noumea was in the commercial port, but despite that we were greeted by a group of Polynesian dancers who performed to an unattractive backdrop of massive containers. No walking is allowed in these container ports and as the shuttle buses were not wheelchair friendly, a man with a van and a ramp was provided to get us to the terminal building.

It was hot, so we returned to the ship for a rest and lunch and then set off again. The local staff (pretty, young ladies) responsible for transport in the port said that the man, Thierry, and his van were under employed and arranged for him to take us to the botanical gardens and zoological park which Jane wanted to visit. 

When Queen Victoria was being built in 2006/7, Cunard let it be known that they intended to set up an exhibition on the ship displaying memorabilia from the earlier Queens – the Queen Mary, the Queen Elizabeth and the QE2.

The logbook was the hand written original covering Queen Mary’s first voyage from John Brown’s shipyard on the Clyde to Southampton and then the first six transatlantic voyages. It mentioned the visit to the ship of King George V and later on the same day the visit of Queen Mary, after whom the ship was, of course, named.

We crossed the International Date Line last night at about 2200 hours. There was a slight bump as we went over but no more than that. But sadly Monday 24 February proved to be a nothing day. It was a shame really. It just didn’t happen. I turned on Sky Sports News to find that it was still Monday for you in the UK but we had moved on to Tuesday.

A couple of weeks ago Jane celebrated her birthday. Thank you for all the good wishes and for the E-cards many of you sent. Because of the slow internet satellite service she was unable to pull them up until today. Clearly the system works better on the left of the International Date Line.

We had a party that day in the cabin and on the balcony. I will attach some photos. A prize for the first person to name the male twins (or should I say twin?). A clue – they are members of RMYC.

We were here in Tahiti last year when we had a fantastic day in the lush cattle country up in the hills. 

We thought we could cover Papeete on foot and then take the ferry, but because we found the walking difficult (high pavements and few dropped kerbs) and tiring, we gave up on the trip to Moorea. What we did see in the capital that stood out were the Parliament buildings. We were given a free rein to wander amongst the buildings and the gardens which were lovely. Parliament didn’t appear to be in session because the whole place was deserted!

Moorea is magnificent, but as Jane had to stay aboard I took a tender and made some rapid trips east and west from the dock courtesy of some black pearl outlet stores that were running free shuttles (ancient vans). I didn’t bother with the black pearls but covered a fair amount of the island. It was a hot and very humid day. Jane survived without me for a couple of hours.

The seamanship was exceptional. An ambulance was waiting. QV glided into the berth, a gangway came out and after some brief discussions between the medics and the ships agent, the patient was transferred. Then it was a very quick departure, the Captain turning the ship on a sixpence, before we headed out of the harbour and back onto our westerley tracks towards Fiji.

At 0630 as the sun rose above the horizon a small island lay ahead of us. We arrived off Adamstown at about 0800 as planned and shortlly thereafter a metal longboat packed with people was spotted motoring towards us.

We counted 48 people in the boat and as there are only 56 inhabitants, clearly just about all of them wanted to come aboard QV. The plan was that the islanders would set up stalls in the Queens Room and when they were ready the passengers, armed with US dollars, would be allowed in to buy. At the same time one of the islanders, Jacqui Christian, would give presentations in the Theatre about life on Pitcairn.

Meeting the islanders and listening to their stories enthralled us all. They had managed to relieve us of fistfulls of dollars and appeared to enjoy doing so! They sold us stamps and tee shirts, caps and carvings, jewellery and honey and every conceivable momento. They even managed to extract US$10 for a Pitcairn stamp on our passports!

To finish, after rapidly boxing up their unsold thrinkets, they sang beautifully to us all. They then piled back into their longboat and made their way back to the tiny quay tucked into the rocks, which formed the only viable access to the island.

We went round Easter Island yesterday. It might seem a strange thing to do bearing in mind that it is so remote and took us nearly 4 days to get there from Chile. Although you can fly there, and smaller ships do visit, we were considered to be too large.

We knew what to expect from lectures aboard. A volcanic island 15 miles by 8 and triangular and well known for its giant moai – stone heads, sometimes in rows and sometimes dotted about on their own. Their origin is a little blurred. They look inland and it appears that they are thought to keep the villages they overlook safe.

We approached the island at about 1600 hours and cruised along the southern side, about half a mile offshore, round the small islands at the western end, and then along the northern side before turning round and heading off on a westerley course towards Tahiti. It took about 2 hours to round the island. We had a commentary from one of the guest lecturers who knows the island well and he pointed out the landmarks and the giant stone moai.

Then it was off to Pitcairn and Tahiti and the rest of Polynesia.

We received an invitation to sit at the Captain’s table last night. The Deputy Captain Simon Love was the host. Jane sat next to him and he was in excellent form. We knew that he had gone to sea as a young man, had gained his Masters ticket, but after marrying had left the sea. And after 17 years ashore he had returned, working initially for P&O and then for Cunard.

Over the years I have met many men who left the sea when they married but I had never heard of anyone returning after such a long gap. Apparently he had worked for the family business while ashore and some 8 years ago his elderly father (who had been a P&O Captain himself) decided to take all his family on a cruise. They were on the Aurora and by chance the Captain was a man who Simon had worked with in his early years at sea. He told Simon that Carnival were trying to encourage people like him to return to sea. As his children were growing up and as his wife and children could accompany him from time to time, he took the plunge, requalified, started with P&O and has now moved to Cunard.

As many of you will know my father, George Smith, was a Cunard man. Born in Grimsby, Lincolnshire in 1914, he went to sea when he was 15. He studied at the Grimsby Nautical College and joined the New Zealand Shipping Company as a cadet. He had been round the world 7 times before he was 21.

In those days wives of serving officers were not allowed to travel with their husbands which meant that my father was away from my mother and the family for long periods. While on the Queens it was not so bad for my parents as the transatlantic runs meant that my father would be home for 2 days every 2 weeks while the ship turned round in Southampton.

I think my father was a Chief Officer at that stage. He went on to become the penultimate Captain of the old Queen Elizabeth and the second ever Captain of QE2. His last ship before retirement was the Franconia which ran between New York and Bermuda on a weeky basis. 36 hours at sea from NY to Bermuda and then 3 days tied up on Front Street, Hamilton and then 36 hours back to NY and a day to turn round.