Sea Day Foggy Start Sunny 26C.
From the Navigator.
At approximately 7am Sun Princess will pass
Magnetic Island at a distance of 20 nautical miles on our port side. Magnetic
Island is named because of the apparent magnetic effect it had on the ship’s compass
of Captain Cook, as he passed the island when sailing up the east coast of
Australia in 1770. The Island has effectively become a suburb of the city of
Townsville, often
Referred to as the “Capital of the North”,
which we will pass in the afternoon at approximately 2pm. Sun Princess will
then continue on various northerly headings and in the evening pass the town of
Cooktown on our port side, named because Captain Cook beached the Endeavour for
repairs in 1770.
Our first event today was to attend the
Port Lecture about Kota Kinabalu which is the next port after Darwin. The
Destination Expert is Luca De Pasquale who is Italian by birth but has lived in
numerous places. It turned out it be one of the most boring lectures I have
been to and I am not the only one who thought so. Firstly his accent is so
thick he is hard to understand and he spoke about the history of the place for
about 45 minutes of a 60 minute lecture and 15 minutes for the part most people
were interested in like what is there to do there etc. I don’t know why
Princess don’t employ more Australians or even English. We needed a coffee
after all of that so we got take-a way. Betty went back to the cabin and I went
to another lecture given by David Russell which was delivered so much better.
The subject was “Operation Pedestal August 1942”
In 1942 Malta was almost alone in the
Mediterranean as an English possession. It was ringed by countries already in
the enemy hands. It was the most heavily bombed area of the war with 6700 tons
of bombs dropped in 154 days. King George secretly visited the island and
granted it the George Cross in recognition of the bravery of it’s people. Their supplies which all have to come from
overseas were so low that the British commander said that if they were not
supplied before the 15th August he would have to surrender.
Churchill said that Malta must be saved at all cost. A huge convoy was
assembled including many Merchant ships with 3 from the US and 3 Aircraft
Carriers plus Cruisers etc The biggest tanker of the time the Ohio carried fuel
for the island. Fuel was also carried in jerry cans on the decks of most ships.
Everything was fine until they got within range of the enemy aircraft and they
came under intense attack. One Aircraft Carrier was hit and sunk with it’s
aircraft still in the air and running out of fuel. They had to land on another
ship and some planes had to be push overboard to make room for the incoming
planes. The merchant ship the Brisbane Star was badly holed in the bow but the
Master continued to sail on and eventually made it to Malta. What was left of
the fleet reached Malta on August 15th which is a significant
religious holiday in Malta, someone was looking after them. The resupply helped
greatly to allow Malta to be used to open a second front in Europe and shorten
the war but 400 lost their lives and many more were injured in the operation.
I was going to another lecture given by
David Pilbrough entitled “Climate Change Are We Causing it” but as I have heard
so many opinions I don’t think I need another one.
It was a lovely warm afternoon so we spent
it in our cabin with the balcony door open and we caught up with some reading.
After dinner tonight we went to the Princess Theatre to hear Chris Powley a
singer from New Zealand and he was excellent. He sang a great range of music
all of which we knew including some Tom Jones, some Elvis P and Neale Diamond.
He has another show in a few days and we will not be missing it. It’s
entertainment like this that makes cruising so enjoyable for us.
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