OOH!! My head!

Two major onboard events today. As we sail along through the Indonesian archipeligo and enter Phillipino waters, life onboard is starting to assume a character that reminds me of the tales that I have heard about life onboard the immigrant ships's line voyages to Australia from the UK in the 50's and 60's - the time of the "10 Pound Poms". It is exactly this character that I have been looking forward to experiencing and have done so for many decades. It gives this voyage a completely different feel about it to the shorter holiday cruises we have enjoyed in Australia. Of course, the ships, the food, the standard of entertainment of today is much more sophisticated than that found on those old line voyages - but underlying all that modern sophistication are all the basic human things like new friendship's, the need for human companionship and the desire for having simple fun. I think that when this voyage is all over, it will be these things that we will remember most.

The first event today was the crossing of the line ceremony. The ship already had one on the way to Australia under a different Captain - so today's was advertised as " CROSSING THE LINE 2 - NEPTUNE'S REVENGE". It was all a lot of fun and it was difficult to get close enough to all the action for good photographs. It was held on Oriana's aft tiered terraces - we found the day to be very hot, but the Brits can't seem to get enough of the tropical sun.
The second event was a "Brits vs Aussies" musical quiz, titled "The Ashes" - held in the Pacific Lounge to cater to the numbers that have been building up in the afternoon musical quiz held in Lord's Tavern.  The Deputy Cruise Director Dom is a very hard working staff member who seems to have the knack of getting people to do ridiculous things in public. The photo attached shows the Lounge before everybody arrived -
it was impossible to get any decent photos of the chaos that the event descended into afterwards. I think I need a quiet day today!