Day 45 - Saturday Feb 11 Fremantle, Australia

Fremantle photos

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

Last night was much different than the two previous nights. It was relatively quiet with not much creaking and cracking and no moaning (from the ship or Debbie). This morning we have rounded the lower western corner of AUstralia and headed north toward Fremantle and Perth. The swells are all but gone at the moment. We seem to have left them in the Bight.

Today's Voyager Today was hilarious. It tracked Jamie around the ship trying to get Capt Dag's birthday celebration set up. He spent time in the crew quarters trying to get them to paint signs. The first sign had Dag's name as dog with the wrong age, so they had to redo it. There was also a meeting with the officers in a food freezer/locker. They said it was the only place Dag would not overhear them. They spotted Dag so they exited the freezer in single file eating popsicles as Dag looked on. Hotel Manager Lars told Dag they were just having an ice cream social. They also showed an audition for someone to sing a Marilyn Monroe Happy Birthday song for Dag as well as several other skits. It was amusing.

We docked on the port side about an hour late at 10am. We came in to the mouth of the Swan River, which is Fremantle Harbour, and the dock was on the starboard side, but of course we made one of our trademark pirouttes and sidled in on the port side. We stood in a long line to disembark and we were ashore by 10:30am. We had sailed by our target the WA Maritime Museum on the way to dock. To be safe, we asked a tourist badged/uniformed woman at the information desk in the Victoria Quay terminal building for walking directions. She told us to go through the terminal building to the escalator, take it down, exit the building, turn right and walk straight there. Sounds simple enough, but alas, it was not to be. We spent a long time touring the fence line of the parking lot, before walking out what would have been only about 50 steps straight through, but no, we asked for directions and followed them. Anyway, we walked through the E Shed Markets on our way. It is one of Fremantle tourist attractions. It was a disappointment, but it was shaded. By the time, we got to the parking lot of the museum we checked our watches and we would have about 20 minutes to spend in there at $10AUD each before we had to head back. Our special event tickets here, "A Day at the Races", are for 12:30pm with instructions to be at the bus by 12:20pm. Roger said on his TV talk here that there would be lunch served to people on ship's tours here, but if you were on your own that lunch would not be served at the special event. So, we also need to have time to eat before 12:20pm. Also, it is very hot and cloudless, so we had sweated through our clothes already, wearing shorts and sunscreen. But, the dress code for the special event is country club casual so we have to change clothes before 12:20pm as well. We turned around without entering the museum. We walked back to the ship by street in Fremantle instead of the port complex. We went into the Wool Stores Mall just near the pedestrian bridge from the Victoria Quay Passenger Terminal Building. Bought some new heel protectors for Debbie and, since Clay ate ALL the Malteasers the first day Debbie was seasick and she got NONE, Clay had to buy more Malteasers. Debbie is not hoping to get many of those either, Clay is like a crackhead around malted milkballs. We got back about quarter of noon and went to Compass Rose for sandwiches. We got them down by 5 past 12 and scooted upstairs to change and get back to the bus.

There was a long line for buses and we were the second couple on the top deck of the third bus which was a double-decker. There was not much AC on the bus and it was about a 50-minute ride. The special event was at the Ascot Turf Racecourse. RSSC had part of a large tent down hill from the most distant part of the course that was accessible to the public. We got there as the 2nd race was underway. The 2nd race started at 1:27pm. We got 2 seats in the front of the tent, which was most distant from the entrance to it, and had a 5-second view of the horses going by. They told us on entering the tent to take a seat at any of the tables with floral centerpieces, that they were for Voyager passengers. There were about a third as many tables for some other group that seemed to be all Aussies. Or, they told us that we could wander out to the track fence and over to the paddock and mounting/cooling off areas to see the horses and the jockeys get weighed, etc. It was very, very hot and stifling under the tent. There were some servers, but not near enough to handle the crowd and there were not enough seats for our group, and there were 3 buses coming behind ours. Debbie went and asked Roger if we wandered, when we should be back and where, to take a bus back to Voyager. Roger told her it didn't matter and that the track was right in front of her. She told him she did not want to sit for an hour in 100 degrees to see 5 seconds of horses and that she had only asked was when and where to get the buses back. He seemed to understand then and said that yes, he thought because of the conditions that most of this group would start back by 2pm and that the last bus would probably leave at 5pm. So, he said, just come back whenever between these times and when a bus was full that it would head back. OK. We wandered over and for the price of lunch we could have sat on a 2nd story in AC and seen the whole track in front of the enclosure and finish line, but on principle we didn't. We watched the 3rd races' horses and followed the advice of last night's lecturer and bet a quinella on his pick to win and on 2 horses that Debbie liked. One of Debbie's horses won, but the expert's pick came in 9th out of 10. And one horse didn't finish the race! The 3rd race was at 2:07pm. We walked back to our "marquee" and Clay got a cold tap beer and Debbie got a warm Coke. They were serving lunch and dessert in the tent at the tables, but there was no breeze in there since it was in a downhill hollow, unlike the rest of the public area of the racetrack. We tried to get to the fence in front of the marquee to watch the horses come around but the passengers were 3-4 people deep there. One horse fell at the last corner, we don't think it was one of ours, we hope it wasn't, but we couldn't get to where we could see anything, including the big display board in the center of the field, until we went around the fence enclosing our marquee. We lost $3. We walked around the betting areas and bars and restaurants area. Waited for the 4th races' horses to come out. Decided to ignore Voyager's expert's advice and Debbie picked our horse, she didn't like the look on the jockey's face, but on the basis of the horse, stayed with her first pick. We did follow the expert's betting advice and bet "each way" which is the same as win, place or show. We bet $2. Race 4 was called the "Seven Sea Voyager" and was at 2:47pm. Each of the 8 races had a name as well as a number and it seemed that at least some of them, such as #4, had been named by a paying sponsor. We got a spot right on the fence in front of the mounting/dismounting paddock and just a few feet past the finish line. Since we were at ground level we could not see the starting point, but we could see the giant video screen in the middle of the field. So we saw the whole race. Debbie had her mini-binoculars and said her horse was number 2 coming around the last corner. At the finish, her horse stretched out and was ahead by a neck! It took until after they weighed the jockeys again at dismount but finally the race was officially confirmed and we won $7, or $5 profit on a $2 bet. That also covered our loss on the previous race and we came home $2 winners. We walked back over to the Voyager marquee to decide whether to wait for the 5th race at 3:25pm or not. There were very few passengers left there and piles of uneaten food on all the vacant tables. Since we were told that we would not be fed and it was so miserable in the tent with no view at all, we suppose that explains it. The idea of sitting down at one of the vacant table and eating scones with clotted cream or eclairs seemed suicidal in this heat. Anyway, there was a steady stream of passengers on the way to the parking lot and we just joined in and got on the bus they said would leave first as soon as it was full. For whatever reason, there were 4 buses being loaded and no bus would leave until it was full. This made no sense, why would people get on buses just to sit there in the broiling sunshine? They must not have understood and we wonder how long people had been sitting in buses waiting or would sit waiting. We left about 3:30pm and were back at the dock by 4:30pm. The law is that all retail establishments have to close in WA at 5pm on Saturday. We checked the museum times, etc. and indeed everything but pubs, restaurants, closes at 5pm on Saturday. So, we were done for the day. The bus driver back gave some narration and told us this, and that the temperature at the track was 36 degrees Celsius. That is 97 degrees F. Clay honestly thinks it was hotter than that. Debbie thinks factor in the humidity and the heat index was probably just over 100. The bus driver told us that there is something called the Fremantle Doctor. It is a breeze off the Indian Ocean that makes Fremantle about 10 degrees cooler than the other side of Perth, where the track is. He also told us that WA (Western Australia is the state here) stands for "wait awhile" which he said was the mentality of the people who live out here in this very arid region. Clay had already discerned that it applied to the whole country. The racing expert who lectured last night and gave us our betting tip sheets, "Mr. Horse Racing" Peter Morley, had told us that the whole country was very casual, not too formal, hence the country club casual dress code for the race track. Debbie had observed on our 2nd day in Sydney that the whole day, each day felt like being in a Wal-Mart, and it wasn't just Sydney or the zoo, we both kept that impression all the way through to here, our final port in Australia. Debbie stopped in at the stalls in the terminal building on the way back this time and found about 6 loose Kimberley mine diamonds. Three were pink. One was a very nice color and size at a good price, but it was oval-shaped. Debbie's intent for such a diamond was to add it to her 10-year anniversary diamond pendant to symbolize 20 years of marriage in 2005 when we started this trip but the oval just did not look very nice when she placed them side by side. Clay says, isn't that too bad. Debbie says the day could have been better spent in Perth diamond shopping!
The jury is still out on these World Cruise Special Events. It would have been special if they had put us up in one of the 2nd story air conditioned enclosures with a meal for the races, but this event did not feel too special, nor very well-organized again.

Dinner at Compass Rose. Tonight is Country Club Casual. We both ate from the Simplicity Menu on the back (except for Clay's appetizer of California vegetarian spring rolls). Back up to the room just as we were sailin out of the harbour and back out into the Indian Ocean. We have 3 sea days to our next port of call in Bali. It is mostly ship's tours for the rest of this segment to Hong Kong. Sadly, Clay's ankle is still extremely swollen and sore. But, he gave up the cane 2 days ago as part of his recovery plan. By the time we reach Hong Kong and Singapore, Europe, places where we had planned to tour on our own and needed to walk, we hope that he is closer to fully recovered and only New Zealand and Australia will have been negatively impacted by his fall.

Fremantle photos