Day 37 - 11/08/22 - Sydney, Australia - Day 2

 Well, this day didn't end as expected. But such is the life when doing long distance cruising.  Sometime overnight the ship was moved from its unscheduled Circular Quay Overseas Passenger Cruise Terminal berth to its scheduled berth at the White Bay Cruise Terminal.  The White Bay Cruise Terminal is located in a former industrial port.  There are NO services here and the transportation options to get back to the city are to walk or take an expensive taxi.  There are no buses or other public transportation except that HAL arranged for a $10RT bus shuttle over to Darling Harbor.  We opted to use that option to get back to the ship after doing a private excursion with 12 others.  But first I need to recount what happened at 4:15am.

At 4:15am I became restless and my wife asked me why there was a bright light in the cabin.  I gained consciousness and realized that my CPAP machine was not operating and I was having to breath a bit more heavily through my mask.  Of course, this had to be changed, and I removed it after checking the power cord and connections.  We had no power.  Even the 24/7 bathroom LED light was out but the super bright emergency light was doing its thing.  Around 4:30am the power came back on, and I donned my mask and turned the CPAP machine on and rolled over to try to get back to sleep.  I was successful and didn't remember anything until around 7am when an alarm went off. There was never an announcement about the outage and I have yet to learn what the issue was.  I had thought initially it was due to the transition from being on shore power but I learned later that we had been docked for quite some time.  

After breakfast we met our tour group in the Ocean Bar and waited until just before 9am to depart the ship as Simon, our guide, was scheduled to pick us up at 9am.  We all had "In Transit" passes which allowed us quick passage through the terminal to the shuttle pick up point in front of the terminal building.  While waiting for him, I signed Angela and I up for 2 shuttle tickets for a ride back to the ship from Darling Harbor.  Simon arrived just after 9am and we all boarded his large and clean Mercedes van.  Fortunately the front seat was available, so I took it so I could more easily hear his commentary.  It also gave me a better vantage point from which to take pictures.  Without doing a blow by blow of the tour, essentially we did a brief tour of the downtown area before heading out to the beaches and communities of the the area to the south of downtown including Bondi Beach and Mrs Macquarie's chair.  In the late morning Simon pulled over at a nice little park and whipped out a picnic brunch of hot coffee and tea and various cookies including a Vegamite and cheese pastry that was super yummy as were the ANZAC biscuits.  It was a nice touch and demonstrates the value of an independent small tour.

Simon only does half and full day city tours or day tours to the Blue Mountains.  He's super friendly and knowledgeable.  I highly recommend him.  His website is https://sydneyscenicprivatetours.com.  He's a one man show.

At the conclusion of the tour we were dropped off behind the aquarium which was also the pickup point for the shuttle.  Angela and I were the only ones to get off, and we walked a couple of miles along the harbor and enjoyed the sights. The rest went back to the ship in the van. We also chatted about what we might do when we return in two weeks. We returned to the shuttle pickup point and just missed a bus as we didn't want to stand for the ride back to the terminal.  Finally after about a half hour wait, the next bus came and we barely got on it as there was so much crowding by the later arriving passengers.  It was about a 20 minute drive back to the Cruise Terminal and we got to pass over the ANZAC bridge.  

Back at the terminal, we were there a couple of hours before our required on board time of 5:30pm which had been changed from 6:00pm.  We lingered behind and read the historical placards mounted near the terminal entrance.  There's also a large brass propellor from a German cargo ship serving now as a sculpture.  With our in transit cards we quickly reached the queue for the face to passport check which we easily passed.  Once we went back on the ship, we were not permitted to leave the ship.  I had not sooner gotten to the room and downloaded my pictures from my large camera to my iPhone when I received a message from Erik using the Navigator APP that they were in the LIDO.  So I joined them.

Joining Erik and Marilyn in the LIDO we compared notes about the previous day and today.  They went to the zoo and their big treat was seeing the meerkats which were not out when we were there.  They were super cute! Erik also recounted his tale about getting up during the power outage earlier this morning, but could not find out a reason for the outage. Dinner time came and it was a bit cold in the Lido pool area, so we moved inside.  6pm came and went with no departure.  Then we heard a message from the Captain that we were waiting for some passengers to get the proper NZ Electronic Travel Authorizations or ETA.  Names and room numbers were then called.  6:30pm passed.  We still hadn't departed.  At 6:45pm, the Captain came on the PA system again and said that due to some passengers not having their ETA's we still hadn't received clearance to sail. Because of this, we couldn't sail until around midnight because of the tide levels.  I consulted a tidal chart online. To my untrained eye I could see that there was no way we could depart until around 3:30am. When the announcement about the delays, there were audible voices in the LIDO shouting  "Throw them Off!".  It's hard to believe that one could get on the ship without the proper documentation, let alone discover it after one is onboard.    In any event the Westerdam didn't leave.  

The LIDO dinner was really good.  There was prime rib as well as the best pork ribs we have had so far.  I didn't realize there was a full lunar eclipse, but there was.  So I fetched my large Nikon camera and went it deck 9 and watched and photographed the eclipse.  It was really nice and blocked a few times by passing clouds.  My big camera captured the sequence of the eclipse pretty well.  By 9:40, the full obscuring of the moon occurred and it became a "blood moon".  

At 10pm the Captain made a final announcement over the PA system.  He said that our departure would now be at 3:30am due to a shortage of Sydney pilots.  This didn't make sense as I had looked at the tide tables and 3:30am was the earliest we could depart.  We also received notice  that our clocks would be advanced by one hour (lose an hour).  With that, midnight soon came and a very eventful day ended while still berthed at the White Bay Cruise Terminal 

I should comment that we've seen a number of changes in the cruise as we transitioned from a repositioning cruise to a two week cruise.  But I'll discuss that tomorrow as this blog entry has gotten too long.