As the captain
explained last night, the ship left its berth at 6 am this morning but we
anchored in Moreton Bay. Mid-morning he announced that weather conditions were
as expected. The storm was a remnant of Cyclone Oswald combined with a low-pressure
system that was located northwest of Brisbane and moving very slowly toward New
South Wales. The Port of Brisbane had been closed as the seas were experiencing
high winds and rough waters. We would remain anchored in the bay until
conditions improved. The captain was hoping the storm would begin to move quickly so we
could proceed. There would be a further update at noon.
Tours for the
upcoming stops had to be adjusted since we would be arriving later than scheduled
in the next port of Whitsunday and one of the two days in Cairns was being canceled.
Today’s schedule was changed to one of a sea day. Jon went to his bridge lesson
and I worked on bringing my blog up to date. I never anticipated that it would
be so time consuming or how difficult it would be to upload pictures via the
ship’s internet connection, but I am determined to have it finished before the
end of the trip.
At noon the
information was basically the same. The worst of the storm was still to cross
our path and we could expect conditions to worsen. At 4 pm we were told that
the waves in the sea were reaching 18 to 20 feet and the wind was blowing at 92
miles per hour. No one complained
about remaining in our current position. At 5 pm the captain informed us that
no ships were allowed to travel in or out of the Port of Brisbane until at
least 8 am tomorrow morning.
We remained
protected in the bay. Even here the waves were large and we watched as they
rolled into whitecaps. The rain was heavy. We could hear the whoosh and
occasionally the whistle of the wind. We watched, which I had never seen before, the spray of water as it was picked up and blown by the wind.
The ship is
amazingly steady in all of this, something for which we are all grateful.
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