|
Sunday October 28, 2007 (Day 12)
The Spirit of Tasmania
We where awake early and just chatting about stuff and then the fire alarm begins
to ring. I was a scary walk down the hall with everyone else who had just been
awaken from what looked like nightmares actually just people waking up. We all
ended up outside on the lawn awaiting the fire department which could be heard
off in the distance heading our way. They arrived and checked things out and
silenced the alarm and figured out someone's hairdryer had exploded and set
off the alarm.
We are off and moving again towards Tasmania via the airplane to Melbourne.
This is our 6th flight of our journey again on Qantas airlines.
The shuttle ride to the airport seemed unusually long this day as we stopped at many hotels
on Alice Springs on the way to the airport. Little did we know that the
plane was well over and hour late inbound to Alice Springs. The metal detector
at the Alice Springs airport picked up a short rode in my travel bag that
they spent a lot of time looking for it. Come to find out it was a stylist
from my PDA. I lost this stylist and had purchased another way back
when and now I have two.
The flight to Melbourne was about two hours but since we where well over 3 hours
late we talked the transfer van driver to take us directly to the "Spirit of
Tasmania II". We arrived a little early and ate at a nice restaurant near
the ship and then boarded at about 6:30 PM. The room was the typical ship
type room where they are two single bed separated but a two foot wide aisle
and a bathroom. The total room including bathroom is no bigger than 8 by 14.
We had a nice onboard dinner and then walked on the deck for a few minutes
as the winds where strong and the waves a little high. They where
predicting 1 to 2 meter swells but I never felt them.
The super fast 29,000 tonne Spirit of Tasmania I and II have more than 700
berths (220 cabins) and make nightly crossings in both directions, leaving at
2000 (8pm) and arriving at 0700. Additional sailings are scheduled in peak
periods, with a daytime sailing in both directions leaving at 0900 and arriving
at 1800 (6pm). On these days the night departure is 2100 (9pm) arriving at 0600.
|