Today was our 3rd cruising day. I love these days, because I don't have to get off the ship. Now don't get me wrong, getting off the ship she'll be apples (is fine or okay), but sea days are relaxation days in between.

Hope and I headed up to the Windjammer for breakfast. I love omelets, especially when they're made to my liking. The coffee is really good too. Takes about a half a cup of cream, but it's really good. As we ate and talked, we watched the ocean crashing against the ship. Nothing but beautiful blue water. Today, I nabbed about 4 slices of the fruited challa. This stuff is so soft and moist. I love this stuff and wished that I could have it toasted, but that would be worse, because then I'd like to slather it with tons of butter.

After breakfast we lined up in the Promenade for the Bella Perlina sale. This is one of many, "smash and grab" jewelry events on the ship. I like the jewelry sold from the ship and both Hope and I have purchased it before. It never tarnishes nor causes any skin irritation. Hope stood behind a woman and I stood next to Hope. I told Hope that I stand with my feet apart and I don't move. Not even a single step. At these events, you cannot do your block (lose your temper). The little Asian women are the funniest. They're small and they poke their heads between folks' arms and try to wedge their way in towards the front. You cannot move or you'll find yourself with tins of folks in front of you and right at the counter. The "wedgers" don't arrive early and take advantage of any opening, somewhat like a mouse.

Anyway, the countdown began at about 10 seconds. As soon as the saleswoman called out the number nine, everyone in unison called out the number ten and the smash and grab event began.

I grabbed a bunch of jewelry boxes, closed them and stacked them up in my arms. I told Hope that I'd forgotten my shopping bag in the room. I could have held them better. After Hope and I had nabbed a bunch of jewelry, we headed into the liquor store, to sort and look through things we liked and didn't like. Then we took the "didn't likes" back and shopped some more.

After settling on our choices we headed back into the liquor store to pay for our stuff and drop it off in our cabin.

Hope and I then headed up to the top deck to await our arrival to Willis Island. We sat on the lounge chairs, as we waited and watched tons of birds flying along with our sailing ship and it was quite windy. I'd just washed and set my hair last night and just knew I would not have single curl when I went back inside. It was pretty chilly too. After about 30 minutes, I told Hope that I was heading back in.

I came back to the cabin and opened the sliding door to the balcony and watched the birds from there. I also took a few photos. I assumed we were getting close to Willis Island. After a while, Hope came back to the cabin and stated that she overheard folks talking about a passenger being airlifted, due to sickness, from the ship in the early morning hours and our journey to Willis Island was delayed.

So around 2:30 or 3 P.M. we were sailing past Willis Island.

We then headed over to the Star Lounge for Bingo. During our last game the announcement came over the PA system, that we were approaching Willis Island. The Reef Pilot Andrew Wyatt then started with his commentary pointing out points of interest of the islet. When the final game ended, Hope and I conceded that was another $39 gone to the wind.

We ran out the exit door of the lounge and looked for this island and we had to walk down the aft of the ship to see this little bitty spot in the ocean

Willis Island is the only permanently inhabited island in the Coral Sea Islands Territory, an external territory of Australia, located beyond the Great Barrier Reef in the Coral Sea. The island is located some 450 kilometres (280 mi) east of Cairns, Queensland. It is the southernmost of the Willis Islets, a group of three islands which with their associated sandy cays stretch in a NNE to SSW line for about 12 kilometres (7.5 mi). Willis Island itself is aligned NW to SE and is about 500 metres (1,600 ft) long by 150 metres (490 ft) wide, 7.7 hectares (19 acres) in area, rising to about 9 metres (30 ft) above sea level.

The Australian Bureau of Meteorology has a weather monitoring station on the island. There are usually four weather observers, one of whom is Officer-in-Charge, and one Technical Officer (electronic engineering) living on the island.

The Willis Island weather monitoring station was established in 1921 and equipped with a radio transmitter in order to provide a cyclone early warning service for Queensland. The first officer in charge was John King Davis.

The most common inhabitants are wedge-tailed shearwaters, sooty terns and common and black noddies. Their numbers are usually quite high and bird cries continue day and night on the island. Several species of booby migrate through the Island including masked, brown and red-footed boobies, and also the lesser frigate bird. Crested terns are also seen to migrate, although not as often. Other birds mentioned by John King Davis are the buff-banded rail as a resident, wood sandpiper, and sacred kingfisher and red-tailed tropicbird as occasional visitors.

Truly a disappointment. Not only did we not dock there (we were not supposed to), but we were so far away, all you could see was a small island in the middle of woop woop (middle of nowhere) with what looked like a small sand-colored building on one end of the island. You would have needed a pair of binoculars to see anything over there. Royal Caribbean did not even need to add this to their sailing itinerary.

After this we headed up to the cabin to get cleaned up and dressed for dinner.

Dinner was nice and the comradery is always nice.

After dinner, Hope, Gigi, Erma and myself headed to the La Scala Theatre to see the Hypnotist, Shane St. James. Hope ordered the drink of the day, a Starboard Madras (vodka, orange and cranberry juices with a splash of Sprite). The show was really funny. I thought that the show was fake, in that, the folks were not really under hypnosis. Both the folks from the audience and the hypnotist were really funny.

We then headed over to Studio B to see the Quest Game Show. The show was really, really funny and entertaining. They broke the audience up, into 6 teams and each team had 2 captains. And as the cruise compass reads; "you'll be hooked within the first few minutes."

Tonight I stayed up wayyyyyyyyyy past my bedtime, but it was cool.

I headed up to the cabin and Hope headed to the casino to see if she'd won the $1M+ Lotto Drawing. I blogged a bit before retiring.