Another warm and sunny day. Australian immigration day. I was supposed to go Masquerade's for my Aussie immigration check at 10:30. On my way to breakfast I passed by and as there was a tiny queue, I did it there and then. P&O once again have kept my passport.

After breakfast I worked on my webpage on a laptop that is still miraculously working. That took until lunch, with a break for the World Cruisers Captain's Coffee Morning. He never turned up!

Barb and I then had lunch on the back deck, Rob and Linda joined us and then so did Phil and Yvonne. B and I joined R & L on the back of deck 11 until quoits, which I lost in first round. I then managed to get my laundry done. 10 minutes too late for Individual Quiz, though.

The ship is taking a weird route to Australia. We arrived on the east coast at Bay of Islands and trickled our way down to Tauranga. Instead of passing between North and South Islands, we then went back north and passed round the top of North Island. We're now heading south west to Melbourne.

The ship had a £26 million refit last November. Most of the money went on the engines. In the meantime, things are slowly dying. First, two of the tenders basically gave up the ghost (they're lifeboats for crying out loud), then the machine that irons bedding and table linen died (so the table cloths and sheets are crumpled) and now the GPS equipment that's used to plot our course and show it on the Bridge Channel on our TV's is kaput. Let's hope it's a separate system to that which they use to navigate.

Last formal night of the sector today. Black and white night. After dinner we saw Micky Zany on the relay in Masquerades. Funny. Then we sat on deck 8 and drank mango pisco sours that Barb had bought in Valparaiso. The girls then went to bed or the casino and the boys went to the Crow's Nest for a couple more before bed. Definitely not an alcohol free day!

Clocks back an hour to GMT +12.