Leaving Oz

Yesterday, we spent the entire day sailing through the "Inner Passage" - between the Great Barrier Reef and the North Queensland coastline north of Cairns - the passage is quite narrow and was very calm. On one side we had the mountains of the mainland and offshore islands - on the other side were submerged reefs. Thankfully, we had a Barrier Reef Pilot onboard to guide us through and to give us commentary as we went along. At around 4PM, we rounded Cape York. This morning we are off West Papua and our voyage around the World has begun.

It is quite hot and humid as we head north towards the Equator. Hopefully after we cross it, it may start to cool down just a little as it will be Autumn in the Northern Hemisphere. We have 4 sea days ahead of us. It will be nice to relax for a while. One of the onboard activities which is proving to be popular and a lot
of fun is the "Name that tune" competition held in Lord's Tavern each  afternoon. Perhaps it's popularity and the amount of frivolity that it is generating has something to do with it's coincidence with the daily "happy two hours" between 2-4PM - 600 ml pints of English ale for 1.30 UKP (or a Pimms for the ladies).