23rd June

At Sea Cloudy Skies Temp 23C.

From the Navigator

In the morning the Sun Princess will enter the Great Barrier approximately 21 nautical miles north west of Sandy Cape. Once we enter the world’s largest reef we will alter course to port and proceed on the north- westerly heading paralleling the Queensland coast through the day.

After breakfast Betty checked out the shops while I went to a lecture given by David Russell entitled “The sinking of the Bismarck” which was very good. He spoke about what ships were available to the British navy at the time and what Germany had. The Bismarck had just been built and while Sweden was neutral they did report to Britain when it left port on its maiden voyage. It started out with another ship which in profile looked very similar in fact the British fired on it thinking it was the Bismarck. They lost track of it’s where abouts but rediscovered it because a radio operator on the Bismarck sent a birthday greeting to someone and it was picked up by the British navy. During the attack the steering on the Bismarck was damaged causing it to sail in a circle becoming an easy target and it was sunk. It now lies deeper than divers can go so it is protected as a war grave.

While I was at the lecture Betty did her walk around deck 7 and then we went to lunch in the buffet. 8 of our group managed to get a table together. During lunch a waiter came up to us whom was the waiter on our table on the World cruise. His name is Rommel and he remembered us.   

After lunch Ian and I went to the lecture given by David Pilbrough entitled “Unlimited Stellar Energy” Where he described research being done into Nuclear Fusion. A lot of what he talked about would be better understood by someone with a more scientific background than me but it was interesting.

After our afternoon coffee we went to the Line Dancing which was quite simple and enjoyable, we will be going again.

It was a formal night tonight so on went the suit and bow tie for the first time since the World cruise in 2014, The Captain was suppling the sparkling wine tonight. After dinner we all headed down to the Princess Theatre to see the Show “Sweet Soul Music” by the Sun Princess Singers & Dancers. Everyone in our group thought it was just an average show, maybe it just was not music to our liking.

Piano and Vocal entertainer Darren Bethall was in the Atrium while we had our hot chocolates and he is good.