A Day At sea

Sunday February 28, 2010 Brisbane
Brisbane is the capital of Queensland. We were supposed to dock at 7 am. But shortly before the Captain made an announcement that due to the earthquake in Chile and the tsunami warning for the entire Pacific basin we are not permitted to go ashore and that we will be staying at sea until at least noon. We currently have 100 ft. Of water beneath us. I received an e-mail from John Donaldson, the private guide I had hired for the day for our trip up the sunshine coast and to the Glass Mountains expressing his regrets that we would not be spending the day together. He also sent me his family name relatives in Scotland to see if we may be related. I will have to check this out when we return home and get back to him. After breakfast, we spent the morning relaxing on our balcony and watching all the tankers in Moerton’s Bay which is a huge bay with the estuary flowing into Brisbane. At noon the captain gave the update that the tsunami warning was still in place and that the Australian Government had closed the port of Brisbane until at least 3 pm at which time he would make another announcement. We spent the afternoon at the pool. It was hot and sunny and I ended up burning despite the sunscreen. At 4:15 we got the all clear, and began the 3 ½ hr journey into city but this will be a bunkering for fuel only and we are expected to leave port around midnight.. What a beautiful port this would have been. The sand beaches along the sail in were absolutely beautiful and it is a shame we never got to see them up close and personal and unfortunately we will probably never travel these waters again. We changed our dining times today so that we will eat our late meal at 6 pm instead of 8:30. The last 2 nights we haven’t finished eating until after 10 pm and that is much too late for us. Our tablesmates are Aussie and British and what a jolly bunch they are.