Day 44 - Friday Feb 10 Albany, Australia

Albany photos

position at 6:30 am: S35:01:30 latitude E117:52:99 longitude
(Albany, Australia)
temperature: 62F, 59% humidity, sunny
distance since FLL: 15,640 miles

Another rough night, but no where near as bad as the night before last. Today is Capt. Dag's 50th birthday. He was on Voyager Today on TV to be interviewed for it. He said that when it so rough the night before last that he could not sleep so he walked around the ship alone and thought. He thought it was a lot more fun to turn 30 than 50, but turning 50 was better than the alternative. He also thought about how lucky he was to have this crew and these passengers. Jamie said that we have 273 World Cruisers onboard. Dag also talked about his concerns with the upcoming rebranding and how he turned down being captain of The World to take Voyager. He said that he recently told Mark Conroy that he thought it was a very bad idea to paint the smokestack funnel "plum" (apparently the new corporate color for Regent Seven Seas Cruises) and why and how they should leave it white and just have only the new logo in plum. Dag was happy to report that Mark told him recently that he mentioned his concerns at a rebranding meeting and that the funnel would be left white and not be painted plum. (Thank God!) Jamie began Voyager Today with "should we get to Albany this morning"... Happy to report that we docked just before 9am. Departure was pushed back again to 1pm with all aboard at 12:30pm. It was a small town of about 30,000 and we got to see all the sights we had researched plus some and wandered downtown as well. We walked to town and took a shuttle bus part of the way back. It was another friendly town with people offering help and advice. They had a group of about 150 local school children aboard for a tour and candy and cokes and then they sang a song from the dock for the captain's birthday as we cast off. A lone bagpiper played as we left the dock.

They had a big buffet lunch on the pool deck for Capt. Dag's b-day. It was bright and sunny but cool and very windy. They had a band playing and lots of flags and banners out. They served everything from brats to caviar.

We went to an introductory talk on horse racing in Australia at 6:30 in the Constellation Theatre so we would be ready for our day at the races tomorrow. We then ate in Compass Rose and had slices of Capt. Dag's birthday cake for dessert. We had good intentions of going to Dag's b-day party in the Constellation Theatre at 9:45, but ...

Albany photos