Tag: Cairns

Coral Princess – launched in 2002, maximum passenger number 1970, crew of 900 – maiden voyage January 2003. She and her sister ship Island Princess are the two smallest vessels in the Princess fleet. It is thought that the Coral & Island were kept by Princess because they were the only vessels small enough to pass through the Panama Canal.
Since 2016 when the new expansion of the canal was initiated the canal can now handle larger vessels.
I have heard that Coral Princess will be transferred to P & O Australia in a year or two.

Maureen & I had a balcony which we had booked a year in advance – I tried for a mini-suit but they had all been sold. The balcony cabin was fine except for the size of the shower – it worked well but I had to turn around to soap certain parts if I did not wish to turn the water off. It was challenging to keep the plastic shower curtain inside the shower base.

The view from our balcony – couldn’t complain.

Attending muster stations is no longer required – it is all on the TV – watch it on TV and then report to your muster station to be checked. The act of watching on TV I think registers on the system and on visiting the muster station your cabin key which is a Medallion     is scanned. The Medallion system worked very well. I have explained how the system works in earlier post, but will be happy to go into detail if asked.

Our cabin was on the starboard side and as we would be sailing north along the east coast of Australia, I would be able to photograph the sunrise from our balcony.

The best laid plans etc  . .

At least later in the day it was pleasant enough to sit outside.

Brisbane – the Coral Princess was one of the Company’s smallest vessels, yet it is still too large to pass under the bridge that crosses the Brisbane River. 
Brisbane’s cruise terminal is one of the most unattractive of all the cruise ports that I have experienced.
From our balcony we could see Brisbane airport and the various aircraft taking off and landing. There is a rail system from the airport into the city but there isn’t any public transport between the cruise terminal and the airport for passengers to use the rail system.
Princess arranged coaches from the cruise terminal to the city which takes about forty minutes at a cost of $40 per person round trip.
The first departure was 8.30 am and that group of people would be expected to reboard the coach for the return trip around 1.00 pm .
It was not a satisfactory arrangement, and the weather was not all that friendly with the promise of rain so Maureen and I decided to stay on board the ship.
This was our second visit to Brisbane via a cruise ship and we have yet to visit the city Centre.
The terminal cost $177 million dollars and was opened in 2020. To me it would be ideal for a fast river ‘cat’ to operate a service to/from the cruise terminal to encourage passengers to visit Brisbane city and spend money. We were not the only passengers who decided not to visit Brisbane because it was ‘all too hard’.

Our next port of call, which is stretching things a little, because it was an island, and the passengers were not allowed a shore.
We cruised off Willis Island and listened to a lecture about the island which is a weather station located 450 km (280 miles) off the coast of Australia.   I am writing this on the 16th December and a few days ago the island staff were evacuated due to tropical cyclone Jasper. Click below for the short film.

Evacuation

Finely managed to photograph the sunrise as we steamed towards Cairns.

On arrival in Cairns, we moored alongside at the passenger terminal which is only a short walk to the shopping area.
Larger vessel in the fleet would anchor off Yorkies Knob and the passengers would be tendered ashore and take buses to the city centre.

The dark building near the ship is Hemingway’s a brewery –
we couldn’t knock the welcome to Cairns. 

I took the above to record the artistical feel of the wharf, the brewery was on my left and the ship cast a shadow behind me. 

Cairns is a pleasant town with buildings that remind one of yesteryear. The last time we visited Cairns was around 1990, and not a lot had changed – wide streets, slow traffic, friendly people and the streets were clean.

As we walked around the town I clicked away with my camera but for some reason only a few registered – the above two are from the internet.

A gentle reminder to us that Cairns was a working port and we had to wait our turn to sail.

                                           Atlantic Infinity – Registered in Majuro 
Majuro is the capital and largest city of the Marshall Islands, which is a coral atoll of sixty-four islands in the Pacific Ocean, one of them being Bikini Atoll of atomic bomb fame.
We sailed soon after for Darwin.
The morning that we arrived I took the above photo – thick fog perhaps – but it was condensation on the lens of my camera as I stood on our balcony for less than thirty seconds.

A dry cloth and we were back to normal.

Our plan for Darwin was to visit the Cyclone Tracy Museum where they had a soundproof room to experience the recorded sound as Cyclone Tracy ‘attacked’ Darwin.

The aftermath of Darwin after the cyclone – picture from National Museum of Australia.

The cyclone wiped out 80% of Darwin, with winds as high as 217 km/hour (135 mph), seventy-one people were killed during the 24th to 26th December 1974, a Christmas never to be forgotten. 

The howl of the wind in the blacked out soundproof room was frightening, what it must have been like for the locals in 1974 I cannot imagine.  

Twisted powerlines during the cyclone – picture from Territorial Generation

Part of the wind damaged power equipment in the museum – I took the above photograph in 2018.