Our second sea day was January 28, 2025.

The map shows we made progress towards Hobart!  

A look outside showed it was raining!  That was good because everything had been coated in a light salty crust due to the sea spray and wind.

Not much to see from the observation deck!

We went to a Cruise Director’s coffee chat.

The interviewees were two cadets on the ship.  The cadet program seems like an internship.  The terms are three or four months long.  Upon completion, the cadets go home to complete exams and wait to see if Holland will hire them as Third Officers.

Regina is from the Philippines, an electrical engineer, and working in the Electrical Department in Engineering.

Salma is from Morocco and graduated from naval training in Morocco and in the UK.  She is training in all things on the bridge and aspires to be a young captain.

Salma and her husband have only been married for three months and apart for most of that time. 

His ship, the Seabourn Quest, was in Lyttelton/Christchurch on the same day as the Westerdam last week so they got to see each other. (We have a cruise booked on Seabourn next year and I took this picture just in case it was our ship – it wasn’t.)

Our next activity was a port talk on Hobart, Tasmania.

Initially, the British set up a military post in Hobart to deter the French.  In 1803, European settlement began along with penal colonies.

Ian, the port consultant told us lots of things but we had a full day excursion in Hobart so didn’t have extra time.   There’s nothing wrong with knowing there are lots more things for a future visit.

He told us about an extinct Tasmanian tiger at the museum.  It was a carnivorous marsupial and hunted to extinction.  The last known tiger was seen in 1936.

We also did not go to Port Arthur penal colony, but it sounded very interesting. In 1830, the British developed a prison of “reform” at Port Arthur.  Over 10,000 convicts spent time there.  It closed in 1874.”

We went to an Australian Brunch in the main dining room hoping for some meat pies, kangaroo pizza or Australian brew.  Those weren’t available. I had pasta and Randy has fish and chips (with calamari and shrimp).

After brunch we tried to walk the promenade deck but it was closed.  We walked around deck 3 on the  inside and ended up in the gift shop again.

The alcohol was mostly on the floor because of the rough seas.

We spent time in the ship’s library. It was quite a big deal for many cruisers when ship libraries were taken away during Covid.  The libraries have returned in the last year or so.  The Westerdam library was quite well stocked.

We went to the Ocean Bar and found Emely setting up for the Mixology class. 

Randy enjoyed mixology classes on a previous cruise so signed up again.

Augustin, with Holland America since 1999, began by explaining his bartender tools. He said experienced bartenders don’t use jiggers because they count the drop sounds.

They began with a cosmopolitan.

And then a Cosmopolitan with raspberry liquor.

Randy recognized bartender Mark from doing the Mixology class on Nieuw Statendam in 2023. Mark, in the center on the Westerdam picture, is on the right in the 2023 “graduation” picture.

I left to get seats for the next event in the World Stage, Port Consultant Eli’s, presentation about Australia.  

He showed several interesting facts about Australia and its size and sparse population.

This is how the Australian airline, Quantas began!

Major exports of Australia are coal, iron ore, natural gas and EDUCATION.  People come from all over to be educated in Australia. This fact will be visited in a future post, so take note.

Ian was beginning a section on how aboriginal peoples used song lines and constellations to travel, communicate and maintain history.

Then he started getting interrupted by security alarms and calls for emergency personnel.

We didn’t know what was happening but hadn’t been instructed to go to our cabins and get life jackets.  Our presenter kept trying to keep going with his talk.

On the fourth interruption, the captain said there had been a cabin fire on deck seven and it was handled. The emergency crew was dismissed.  (We heard later it had been an electrical fire but no details.)

The last section of the talk was about creative expansion of solar production and technology.  Unfortunately, any chance I had of really listening to technology information had gone away with the interruptions.

Randy noticed that the captain seemed to be changing the route, and the captain later said he was doing so to avoid most of the bad weather. 

We had a very nice table for our dinner at the specialty restaurant, Pinnacle Grill.

One of their specialties is a bacon clothesline.

We finished the night with another show by Rebecca Kelly.  This was a tribute to Carole King.

We gained another hour as we went to Hobart and our next shore excursion.  We should see a Tasmanian devil!

Next up:  Hobart, Australia