When we went to bed it was cloudy so I didn’t set the alarm but I was awake before seven so looked out our starboard window and saw clouds, but the Opera House was on the port side so I thought, “what the heck,” pulled on my pants, threw on a Raven T shirt and went up to Deck 9. There was just enough opening in the clouds for my Opera House sunrise. I went back to bed.
Our second day in Sydney was all about cruise friends. Holland America sponsors two grand voyages each winter, a World Cruise and one other long cruise. The others have included South America, Pole to Pole and Australia New Zealand. Many folks take one of these long cruises each winter. Last year and this Holland America arranged for the two cruises to meet. This year it was in Sydney. Volendam, hosting the World Cruise arrived this morning and is at White Harbor. The line has arranged two teas, one on each ship, where friends can visit each other. Many of our friends on Volendam are coming to Zaandam so we signed up for the Zaandam tea.
Suzi and I went out to stroll around Circular Quay and wait for the buses. We were meeting Miss Sondra, a friend from past World Cruised who we call periodically during the rest of the year.
Sondra doesn’t have a mobile phone and is not much on internet. We’ve been relaying messages through mutual friends on Volendam. But we had no set meeting place so we met each bus from Volendam. Sondra and her friend Ann got off the second bus. We escorted them to the dining room where we caught up. We had not seen Sondra since last year when our two ships met in Barcelona. That time we went to her ship. Along the way we met our friends Patrice and Leigh.
After the tea we met up with other friends, Pete and Judy, and Jo and her sister Elaine in the Ocean Bar. We chatted until it was time for them to leave because we were about to sail. Last year Jo was on the world and we, along with Jo’s two sisters, were on the Pole to Pole. Elaine and Eloise were in the room next to ours. Pete, Jo, and I are all bloggers and we discussed our mutual hobby and the pros and cons of AI (I do not use it.)
At 4:30 the captain came on the PA to tell us we would depart once we were untied and the harbor master had stopped all the ferry traffic so we could pull out and make a pivot to head out of the harbor. The ferries did not stop for long. Almost as soon as we were several dozen meters from the dock ferries were running between us and the dock. Sydney is two thirds of the way through this cruise and is place where you can drop off the ship or join the cruise. We lost 150 and picked up about 300 cruise mates.
Pretty soon after passing the Opera House the rain, which had held off for our entire time in Sydney, came and we went in for dinner.
