Traveling with Ray Owens

Day 15 January 28, 2025

After my accidently set alarm woke us up at 6:00 I went back to sleep (Penny did not). Woke up at 7:00 and prepared for this day at sea. We are heading for Tasmania to visit Hobart.

We ate breakfast in the world cafe. I arrived first and found a table. I texted the others where I was. “I am sitting starboard near the bow.” I was trying to communicate with Frank our resident Naval veteran. I was half correct I was on the starboard side the right side as you face the front of the boat. My mistake was the cafe is at the stern not the bow. We all found each other.

At 10:00 we partook in a tour of the laundry facilities. I am always amazed at organizational skills of this operation. They have to do laundry for everyone on the ship. This includes the 400+ crew members and the 900+ passengers. Then there are the towels, sheets, pillowcases,tablecloths, napkins, washcloths, bath robes and everything else made of cloth. There is an amazing machine that you put in a clean and washed tablecloth or sheet or napkin and the machine dries, presses and FOLDS the item and it comes out ready to deliver.

Lunch today was a taste of Tex-Mex. It was actually pretty good. There were too many items with cilantro but I enjoyed the tortillas soup and the burritos.

Dinner this evening was at Manfredi’s Italian restaurant. It was delightful. I ate too much but it was hard to say no. I had a seafood with linguine. There was a langoustine in the mix, I had never had one. It looked like a huge prawn or a tiny lobster. The tail meat was very very good.

The show tonight was the Viking singers doing duets from pop to show tunes. It was great.

Tomorrow we may see kangaroos and devils of the Tasmanian type.