Day 5 - At Sea

Today was another day at sea while we sailed from the dreadfully boring Nouvelle Calédonie (New Caledonia) to a more promising Fiji. So after waking up at the now routine 8am, we headed down to have some breakfast before we needed to get ready to go into the International Show Lounge where the ship’s captain (Lorenzo to us, but Captain Paoletti to you) gave a virtual bridge tour about the Pacific Dawn.

Some of the highlights included the following facts:

• The ships gets most of its water through its two desalination plants or osmosis plant located on the ship, with occasional land water in Sydney or Noumea purchased and mixed with the water generated on board.
  
• The ships generates electricity from 4 diesel generators which in turn is used for both services and to propel the ship’s two electric propellers.
  
• When tonnage is referred to about a ship, it does not refer to the ship’s weight, rather it is a reference to the capacity of the ship (i.e.: volume).
  
• There are 9 telephones in the captain’s cabin/living quarters, including 1 above the toilet.
  When sailing into a port, the ships three flags represent the country of registration, the ship’s company flag (i.e.: P&O) and the flag of the country it will be sailing into.
  
• The captain can perform legal weddings (as he is Bahamian registered) but as soon as you step off the ship, it is null and void).

Once the virtual bridge tour was over, it was back to the cabin for a bit of a rest (and quietly, I was watching the Bratz movie, more because it was so bad I couldn't stop watching than anything else…). Lunch was served shortly after and then it was up to The Dome to check out what was supposed to be a ‘cruise fair’. This was basically an excuse for the ship to hold and event where they could sell more wine or something that is related to Valentines Day. It was back to trivia for our afternoon delight, but we were none the less unsuccessful in winning any P&O merchandise because we were so bad at the questions. Before dinner was another opportunity for me to have a bit of a work out in the gym (and watching Andrew drop his phone onto the treadmill along with the horrified looks on some guys face as he watched Andrew stumble trying to pick up his phone as the treadmill continued to rotate). The rest of the day was fairly uneventful, save for the beginning to watch some episodes of The Hills for the first time.