Day 50 - 11/21/22 - At Sea to Sydney, Australia - Day 1

 Overnight we experienced the most motion of the ocean this entire trip.  The Captain had predicted that the Tasman sea would get rough, and he has a great track record for setting expectations.  The coffee chat this morning was with Kees, a Dutch 3rd officer on the Navigation team.  He was once again very interesting to listen to.  He happened to mention that one of the tasks was preparations for stormy weather.  So I asked him, "What are those preparations?"  His reply was to first make sure everything is secured.  And the hotel department probably has the most unsecured items to be accountable for.

At 10am we participated in a medallion ceremony where we received our Platinum medallions acknowledging over 700 nights on Holland America.  We certainly didn't have a goal to reach this plateau and the only benefit is that medallion.  The next and final level is the President's club with a threshold of 1400 nights.  We don't expect to and won;t strive for that award.  The financial benefits come from the "Stars" and we are at the 5 Star level which is the maximum.  There was a Mariner's lunch following this ceremony but we didn't attend it because we wanted to see Dr. Karen Woodman's presentation on differences in the Aussie and Kiwi language.  Her presentation was okay, but we didn't find her the most engaging presenter we've ever seen.  Many of her overheads were not readable due to the small print size.

At the noon announcement, the Captain announced that we were currently going full speed at 21 knots with all 5 diesel engines online and producing electricity.  He expressed caution that we might not make our 6:30am arrival time in Sydney because on Tuesday we will be experiencing extremely rough seas and winds and he's not certain we can maintain the current pace required to make the 6:30am arrival time.  If we don't make that arrival time, the next time slot for us to be able to use is 9:45am.  Between those two times, the port rules are that no thrusters can be used to dock or undock a ship as it disrupts the adjoining ferry traffic.  Furthermore, if we arrive late, we'll likely depart late on the next segment as the same rules are in effect in the afternoon.  He's been very accurate in his cautions and setting of expectations.

After lunch with Erik & Marilyn we attended the "Ask the Captain" session with Captain Wouter van Hoogdalem.  He presented a virtual tour of the bridge and pictures of the cleaning of the Westerdam's hull in Portland, OR last June.  He then entertained questions for the rest of the hour.  After that, a few of us met with him down in front of the stage for another 45 minutes of questions.  He is truly the most passenger friendly Captain we've ever sailed with.  In that session he once again expressed caution about our ability to make the early port arrival time. And he's been very accurate in his cautious expectation setting regarding previous missed ports on this voyage.  

Captain Wouter van Hoogdalem entertaining questions

Following this session, Angela and I spent time in the Explorer's Lounge reading.  During that time we decided to eat in the Main Dining Room as it was Dressy Night and we were already dressed up from the Medallion ceremony.  So we did and enjoyed a nice peppercorn steak dinner in a very loud aft Deck 2 Dining room.  It's especially loud as we going full speed which produces a great deal of noise and vibration.

Cecelia our greeter who we met on the Zuiderdam in January.  She and her crew transformed our time in the Caneletto there.  Her promotion was so worthy.

Salad

Escargot

Peppercorn steak & shrimp (really tender and tasty)

Coconut pie ala mode

Following dinner, we skipped the BBC Earth 7 Continents video on the Main Stage as we've seen it several times previously.  Instead we watched The Lost City on our stateroom TV.  It was rather corny.  While watching the movie, I received a message from a fellow guest that on the turnaround day on Wednesday, November 23, we would have to pack up all of our things and go through Australian Border Force (ABF) inspection and clearing.  I suspect it is due to the fact that we visited a foreign country and the next segment is only within Australian waters and they don't want to clear the entire ship again.  It fouls up our tourist plans for that day big time but there's little we can do about it.  We didn't received the letter, so I called Guest Services and our letter will be delivered tomorrow since we are changing rooms and need additional paperwork from them. We'll roll with the punches.

Tonight we gain another hour back to put us on Sydney time.  It was chocolate surprise time again tonight, but we passed as we certainly don't need the calories.  The Covid numbers today were down to 49 cases including one crew member.  It's really good that, while Covid is present, it's being controlled on our ship unlike other cruise ships sailing in these waters.