Sunday, 18 March, At sea

Position, 43 02.27 S 159 18.10 E
Crossing the Tasman Sea

The Volendam continues easterly across the Tasman Sea, headed for the southern tip of New Zealand's South Island... We left Burnie Tasmania yesterday afternoon, have sailed all night, will sail all day today, all night tonight, and a bit of tomorrow before reaching NZ...

Even then it will be a day of scenic cruising in Milford Sound, before we reach port at Dunedin.

Aboard, we are lazy, If up early there is coffee on the Lido deck... Breakfast is served in the dining room (and in the Lido) until 9:30 or so... After there is the library, talks (many offering shopping opportunities, but others about the places we are visiting) there is of course a casino, which is well patronized, and if all else fails, you can lie on deck by one of the pools and watch the world go by....

Of course, here in the Tasman sea, there is little beyond the sea, sky, and clouds to distract... This is not a well traveled shipping lane, so as one of the few ships to regularly transit the part of the world, apparently, our weather observations are a welcome addition to the local weather forecast. In fact, we have not seen another vessel since leaving Burnie...

As noted before, the Tasman Sea can be rough, but today there is just a gentle swell, expected to increase as we approach New Zealand, to 12' seas.

Today was the Captain's reception and brunch... This evening, a formal night in the dining room, in between I am blogging, reading, and a bit later will try the beer tasting (not just informal consumption, but an organized tasting of 4 or so beers). All in all it makes for a lazy day.

Complicating the loose sense of time, is our changing time zones... From Sydney, we gained an hour sailing to Melbourne, but lost that hour as we left Taz... We lost another hour over night, and I believe we are now on New Zealand time... I have had to reset the IPad manually in a race to keep up... But now, at least according to the recently synchronized IPad, it is time for beer...

Now we are sitting in the Crow's Nest, watching the sea ahead, in hopes of spotting a whale... The rolling swells of the last 24 hours now wear the occasional white cap, making spotting a spout a bit more difficult. So far we have not been lucky... If you climb high enough on the ship, you realize that your world, as defined by the horizon, is a circle, maybe 20 miles across... a bit like sitting in a snow globe, the sea the floor, the sky the dome, with a distinct lack of snow...