Pitchin' and rollin' and plans change

Today was to be a day of cruising through the fjords on the southwestern part of the South Island of New Zealand. After leaving Dunedin yesterday evening we started to pitch and roll as we neared the Tasman Sea. All through the night the ship bounced up and down. By morning, we knew it didn't look good for entering the fjords. About 9 am the announcement came from the Captain that for safety reasons, the ship would not be entering the fjords today but instead head west toward Sydney to get ahead of the weather front that was moving in.

A ranger for the Fjordland National Park had come aboard at Dunedin as he was to commentate during the cruise through 5 fjords. Instead he presented a slideshow and commentary of the fjords in the theatre here on ship. His talk was kind of boring but the pictures of the fjords were beautiful. There were people in the audience taking photos of the slideshow! Guess they wanted documented what they were missing. It would have been nice to see the fjords - and for many this was to be the highlight of the cruise - but I guess we'll just have to put it on the list of things to see if we can return to New Zealand some day.

We pretty much camped out midship today and read our books. Tomorrow we have to report to an Australian Immigration Inspection in preparation to leave the ship in Sydney on Saturday morning. They are very strict about what cannot be brought into Australia. New Zealand is strict, too. At each port there was a beagle dog sniffing handbags and backpacks to be sure no food stuff, plants, etc. were being brought in. At one port, the beagle hit on Terry. The dog sniffed the backpack and then put a paw on Terry's foot as a signal that this one must be searched. Terry was pulled aside and the backpack searched. We had nothing but concluded that the beagle hit upon the scent of a banana that Terry had eaten just prior to heading down to leave the ship.

We now have 2 more days at sea as we head toward Sydney. The seas are better this evening so hopefully we are getting away from the bad weather. The ship's stabilizers work pretty well to correct the rocking but nothing can be done to prevent the pitching (up and down) over the swells. The 'barf' bags were out in the hallways this morning (taped to the elevator doors in case one needed it) and I'm sure some people were getting seasick, but we're fine.

UGH!