Day 49 - 11/20/22 - Auckland, NZ

 After a short overnight sail, we arrived at 7am in Auckland, NZ for our last New Zealand port of call.  Unfortunately, it was our shortest stop as well.  While we were able to get off the ship at 7am, we elected to stay in bed for another hour or so of sleep.  Since we've been here before, we decided to just use our few hours here to attend the Sunday worship service at Baptist Tabernacle which is one of the oldest churches in Auckland.  So we walked the roughly 1.75 miles there which was pretty much uphill.

Upon reaching the church we were warmly greeted by the senior Pastor, Neil Baker.  He explained how the service would work and we found some seats and watched the worship leader practice.  We warned the Pastor that we would likely need to step out during his message as we had to be back on the ship by 12:30.  And it ended up happening just like I thought it might.  We left the service at 11:45 for the 25 minute walk down the hill to the ship using Queen Street.  We re-boarded the ship at 12:15 after experiencing a light rain shower.  Angela had forgotten to bring her government issued photo ID for the check in, but they accepted a picture of her passport which I had on my phone.   I was also surprised that we had no immigration or border check to leave the country like we had experienced leaving Australia.

After the invigorating walk, we headed for the LIDO pool area to find Erik and Marilyn.  We found Marilyn first sitting at a bar table as all of the regular tables were taken in all areas of the LIDO deck.  Erik joined us later and I built myself a couple of tacos from the Taco bar while the girls ordered from the Dive-In hamburger/hot dog stand to avoid standing in line inside the LIDO kitchen area which was packed.  At 12:40 an initial single blast from the ships horn rattled the LIDO area.  Then an announcement came on the PA system looking for a passenger.  There were a couple more blasts and by 12:45pm we were backing away from our berth to the sound of 3 blasts which indicated to the surrounding traffic that this large ship was backing up.

We pivoted counter-clockwise and began our sail out of the harbor.  The Captain had announced that we might be experiencing some pretty rough ocean as we cross the Tasman Sea over the next few days and that it would be quite windy as we left the harbor area.  The Tasman Sea is reputed to be one of the stormiest oceans in the world.  He noted we might be able to see some southern wright whales as we pass by the island nature conservancy several hours after our departure.  And he also updated our Covid numbers:  Instead of the 6 cases yesterday, he said that there were 9 and that there were 2 new cases today.  He hasn't given any total case numbers in his announcements over the past several days.  But using the last total case count numbers, I computed that we have 56 cases onboard.  But I don't have access to the recovery statistics.  Perhaps in the crossing, he'll disclose the total numbers.

After lunch Angela and I went to the Crow's Nest to get a seat to watch for whales and read a bit.  Eventually we ended up with window seats on the port side.  We traversed through rain squalls and high winds off and on and never saw any whales.  About the only marine life I saw were white birds and smaller black birds.  As of this writing at 9pm, we still haven't cleared the northern tip of New Zealand and we've been sailing at 21 knots since leaving the immediate port area. The Captain said that all 5 engines would be needed to do this high speed crossing.

I squeezed in a small dinner before attending the 6pm interdenominational service.  The persons currently leading the service are disembarking on Wednesday, and I think I'll be leading and speaking at the interdenominational service for the next two Sundays.  It's a volunteer activity and I've done it many times before.  We then watched the Step One Dance Company perform their set, Musicology, which is based upon the instruments of the orchestra.  

Tonight we get the first hour of two hours back.  There's an Orange party, but it's at 10pm and has such a focus on drinking and too much close contact in the BBKing lounge that I'm uncomfortable in attending.  

Tomorrow is the first of two sea days and we receive our platinum award at 10am.  There are also a couple of lectures including one new lecturer who just joined us today.