Days 58-60 – at sea

Wednesday 11 March, 2026

We don’t usually create diary entries for our sea days, as one day pretty much merges into the next. However there are a few things worthy of a mention today.

Firstly, this morning at 7.40, we passed the Queen Mary 2 off the northeast coast of Australia, on her circumnavigation of the globe, going in the opposite direction to us ☺️. There was much tooting of horns and waving and hollering across the divide. See you in Southampton QM2! ⛴️

As it then proceeded to hammer down with rain for pretty much the whole day, we attended a talk this afternoon by our Great Barrier Reef pilot, Captain Vikram Hede, who is sailing with us from Darwin to Brisbane. All ships over 70m in length, sailing through the Great Barrier Reef, the Torres Straits and the Great Northeast Channel (a journey of some 500 miles), are required by law to take on board a pilot with specialist knowledge of the waters. Captain Hede explained that during his days on board, he will work shifts of up to 17 hours at a time, with only 2-3 hours of sleep in between. His guidance, whilst only given in an advisory capacity (the captain of the ship remains in charge at all times), assists vessels in transiting this precious but also hazardous waterway, and helps protect the Barrier Reef from damage and polluting events which have occurred in the past.

Captain Hede showed us some very interesting slides, including the one below which is a ‘to-scale’ image of the Titanic superimposed onto an image of Royal Caribbean’s ‘Icon of the Seas’. Isn’t this it amazing how tiny Titanic looks alongside the behemoths of today?!

Captain Hede concluded his talk by asking the audience to pause for a moment to think about the 60,000 or so seafarers (most of whom are responsible for keeping the world supplied with food, fuel, minerals, medicines and all types of essential commodities), who are currently stranded on either side of the Straits of Hormuz, living in daily fear of sabotage, whilst America wages another pointless, criminal and reckless war in the Middle East.