My first Bass Sraight crossing
February 10th 2007 01:58
My first Bass Straight crossing.
I had been keeping my eye on the weather maps of Bass Straight for five or six days and all my experience showed that we were in for benign conditions. The captain later announced. “The weather for the crossing is, light nor east winds to fifteen knots with waves to one point five and seas one to two metres.” A relative duck pond I thought to myself. I can tell you that I am ok in big seas but welcome an easy ride whenever I can do so. I was surprised at the time it took to get out of Port Philip Bay with a long line of markers showing the major shipping channel out to sea. It was just about over two hours and our speed for the crossing was going to average twenty six knots. We were due to pass the Spitit of Tasmania 1 about one am and arrive in Devonport about seven am. Hopefully I would be asleep when we passed ships in the night.
I am sorry I can’t give the history of the “Spirit” her size, tonnage and capacity and so on and perhaps I will in another blog. She is a big ship and her lifeboats carry one hundred and fifty passengers each and two crew. There are four life boats. Added to this there are dozens of life rafts, the smallest being for ten people the largest seemed to be for twenty five, attached to slings on either side of the ship. I noticed some of the life jacket holds had Russian lettering on them and as they were built in as part of the furniture I assume that she is of Russian origin, Probably a Baltic sea R.O.R vessel.
Great bars and of course a gaming room which they elaborately call a casino. There are chairs for sitting in for the crossing and I chose to pay for a tourist class but there is business class and they are much more comfortable. We have to sleep in our chairs and that is a problem. We can’t sleep on the floor or on the very comfortable lounges but the few security guards on at night would have had a mutiny on their hands if they had tried to enforce this. I was mildly chipped for walking to the bathroom in bare feet. I was advised by those that know that a cabin of any description is the option. They are available from luxury class to share a cabin with the other peasants. Meanwhile I could only afford to go “cattle” class. All bars and all common rooms are available to all passengers so nobody knows if you are part of the great unwashed or a lord from the manor while you are on board.
There are two eateries. An a la carte dining room and a bistro. Some bars also sell pies, pasties and sausage rolls. Kids have an un-supervised playroom and there is television in all lounges tuned to cricket, tennis, news and so on. Day crossings show movies. No showers except for the cabin classes so the great unwashed tend to remain that way. Staff are very friendly and helpful. There is a tourist office on board for making bookings on the island. A very neat, clean and well run ship in my opinion.
We were about an hour early getting in to Devonport and I can tell you that Sydney City Rail cars rock more than this ship did on this particular crossing. Of course you can’t bank on that. By getting in so early many passengers missed breakfast but the bars were open and doing a roaring trade in coffee and tea. Departing Devonport I picked up the major road leading south to Hobart and Launceston. What a dramatic change in the country side! I had just driven along the Hume Highway from Sydney across drought stricken country with a few sheep and cattle picking lethargically in the dust. Here there were dozens of fat woolly sheep and sleek cattle to the green “pasturised” acre. I did note that a lot of the farm dams were a long way from being full so maybe even over here things may not be what they seem. I have a first impression of Launceston but I will save it for my next blog.
My room is small 3.5 x 2.8 metres. I know that some prisoners have larger rooms than this but on my swivel chair I can reach both desks, the sink and built in wardrobe and my dried food pantry and bar fridge. I may never need to stand up except to pull on my pants. I have only met two of the six guys sharing this section of the building. Although they claim to be old they are still much younger than me. There is a guy called Mahomet who gets around in long flowing robes and I look forward to meeting him. My first night in my room I fell asleep on top of the bed with an empty glass of red and woke this morning to pouring rain
To be continued.
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