Another day at sea, heading south-west towards Sydney and at the time of writing, we have 200 miles to go.  We are intending to take our pilot at 5:15 tomorrow morning, which should see us docked in White Bay cruise terminal by 7:00.

White Bay is a new Cruise pier and not at all popular with us, if the truth be known.  It is miles away from the centre of Sydney, at least by road, that is.  As ‘the crow flies’ it is quite a short distance, however, we can’t fly and thus have a 45 minute ride by road, be it bus or taxi, to areas of interest for our guests.  There are alternative berths of course, the prime one being Circular Quay, right in downtown Sydney, however this will be occupied on our arrival day and besides, they, (the populace) don’t like cruise ships being there overnight.  Then there’s Darling harbour, here, were one to use it, we would pass under the famous Sydney Harbour Bridge and then turn to port, docking a reasonable distance from the centre.  White Bay is on the opposite side of the water, with all the incumbent challenges.

We have 170 guests leaving us here, having completed their ‘segment’; however, we have 110 joining us, to start their cruise.   We have a Port State Control inspection scheduled for the morning and in the evening I am attending a reception for a new inductee into our Culinary Council. This is a group of world-renown chefs, who share their culinary experience with HAL; the result is a culinary delight for our guests.   Tomorrow evening we induct Mark Best, owner and chef of ‘Marque’, one of the top 10 restaurants in Australia.

As you may gather, with all that’s going on, it’s highly unlikely that I will see much of Sydney this call. 😥

It occurred to me, during one of my more lucid moments, 😕 that I have forgotten the obvious during all my blog posts; all you ‘techies’ out there may have wondered about our Bridge and I have yet to post any information.  Look no further, for here it is.  Any mariner and any pilot, (air), would recognise most of the instrumentation; it’s just bigger on a ship.  It is GPS-driven of course, gyro compasses as well as back-up, magnetic. In theory, much like an aircraft, we could, once we have left the berth, switch to our navigation systems and the computers would do the rest; courses, speeds can all be (and are) pre-set, however we tend to do it manually until we are in open water. Then let the computers take over, until we are near our destination.

Helmsman’s position

What a teeny-weeny wheel 🙂 . To the left is the centre joystick and its visual indicator, right and left of the wheel are back-up steering levers; centre up is magnetic compass readout, at the top are steering motor controls, gyro compass readout and the white screen is autopilot.

Centre console

Showing, left to right; azipod polar handles and rpm controls, a multipilot radar, helmsman’s position, multipilot radar, Chartpilot and another multipilot radar.

The manoeuvering controls are, of course, triplicate.  One can’t see the sides of the ship from the centre control, so each bridge-wing has its own stand, with controls and slave radar available.

Starboard wing conning

This evening, I have a ‘farewell’ reception (for our departing guests), to attend and then an early morning for arrival in Sydney, I hope the light is good enough for photos…..