Sea Crossing to Australia

Traversing the sea from Australia to Borneo

It takes five days to cross from Exmouth to Kota Kinabalu in northern Borneo on the island of Kalimantan. We passed Bali on our port side as we ran through the channel on our second day out. The sea was an amazing mix of flat calm and swift currents as the water crossed the shoals and forced the currents to pass at much higher rates. The ship moved cautiously through the sea. Islands emerged on either side of the ship. Little outrigger boats were fishing from the villages on the shore.

The sea was warm and the air temperature about 85F with a humid ambience. Some passengers sought relief in the pool, others in the shade, reading. The life on the ship hummed along; food, entertainment, line dancing, gym, painting school, lectures and so on. Everyone should experience this at some time in their lives. Sheer relaxation.

So the days went on. Get up, shower, have what ever you liked for breakfast, play trivia with your new friends, wander round the ship, do a little dancing class, stop and talk to all sorts of interesting people or, if you are like me, spend some time people watching. And so to lunch, more of what you fancy; the pub, the Britannia restaurant, the Lido (help your self) or one of the outside bars on the various decks. If you want to go upscale then it’s the Todd English restaurant (if you remembered to book).

We crossed the equator again this morning, this time moving north. A party was thrown for the pollywogs (first time crossers of the equator) This involves humiliation for king Neptune’s pleasure in the form or kissing a dead fish and being thrown into the pool after slathering in some objectionable fluid. Time honored, so they say but in older times the ceremony was much more severe. Our friend Harry (80+) took part and came to no harm. This time the captain’s wife took part and pulled the captain into the pool after her, much to the delight of the passengers. We actually crossed the equator at 4.0 pm with a salutary blast on the ship’s whistle followed by some tricky playing of the whistle by the navigator or staff captain.

At noon precisely each day, the ship’s whistle is blown to set time on the ship. This is followed by a report from the bridge on our exact location, plus the weather forecast and interesting stuff like how deep the water is under the keel. Highest numbers so far are around 6000m meters or 4+ miles.

More fish appear as the water depth decreases near the coast lines. Flying fish streak from the ship’s shadow. Some, looking for all the world like swallows, fly with fins shaped like wings. They flap at enormous speed over the tops of the waves for about 150 yards, then sink quickly below the surface.

The sea changes its mood very quickly. Mornings in the tropics start with a bright sunrise and calm seas with hardly a ripple. The rising sun makes the long path of reflected light on the calm sea look like a wide ribbon of molten metal while the rest of the sea looks deep and dark with occasional fluorescence from the wavelet crests. By afternoon the breeze usually picks up blowing any small clouds away and the sea mood changes. The ship is so big that any wave action makes little difference. We did experience some heavier weather at one point, even to gale strength and we did have a little rocking and rolling.