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| Many beautiful reefs around the north end. |
We have reached the top North end of Australia. The channels were tight between the small hills or mountains in the water, so we slowed down and the captain had to do some tricky navigating, mostly due to the reefs in the area. We passed some beautiful mountains in between some reefs.
The captain was doing a lot of explaining but between his accent and the bad speaker system we didn’t have a clue what we were seeing other than pure beauty. The days have been hot and the nights very warm. We have been enjoying the sun and lounging by the pool. It’s about 2 days between each stop so with no internet access we haven’t been doing much but being lazy. We have a routine even on the ship.
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| Darwin, Australia |
Coffee in the room (that’s a first for us, something new for Royal Caribbean) breakfast and then we decide what we’ll do in the evening which is typically the same. Attend the ships entertainment at 6:30 pm, Dinner afterwards and see a movie in the theater at 9:00 pm. Between breakfast and the evenings entertainment, we usually read, nap, play card games, swim and talk.
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| Port Side is just a beautiful |
And we talk about the strangest stuff! Our last conversation is our end of life decisions (where do the ashes go?) and how and where we want to live our lives when we aren’t able to take care of ourselves. No one likes to have these conversations but at some point, it needs to happen. We hope to have most of that all handled by the time we settle down so if/when that time does come our 3 children won’t have to worry about any type of decisions.
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| The boats, water and clouds make for a beautiful scenery |
Being we’ve lived through it for our parents, it’s a burden we don’t want to leave on them. One thing we have decided on for sure is to live our life as if there is no tomorrow and enjoy every minute of every day. Life is too short to worry about yesterday. It’s gone, it’s over. We can’t change it. So, this is why we are in the middle of the Pacific Ocean on our way to Bali, Indonesia even though we’ve been there before. It’s a cruise stop so we have no choice.
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| Storms are frequent this time of year but its amazing how the colors of the coral water and the deep blue sky make a beautiful view. |
We left Darwin, Australia yesterday. Darwin is the capital city of the Northern Territory of Australia, situated on the Timor Sea. It is the largest city in the sparsely populated Northern Territory, with a population of 148,564. It is the smallest, wettest and most northerly of the Australian capital cities, and acts as the Top End’s regional center. Darwin’s proximity to South East Asia makes it a link between Australia and countries such as Indonesia. With the heat and Chuck’s knee we decided against walking to town and none of the excursions excited us. One was about crocodiles, but we plan on seeing more interesting wildlife in Geraldton, Australia. That’s a stop after Bali.
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At the very top of Australia squeezing beneath Papau New Guinea
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| Small islands as we cruise through the north end. |
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Hope your valentines was a special one. We celebrated in the Centrum (middle of the ship with all the activities) with balloons and cake. We usually celebrate it along with our anniversary of our engagement. Its hard to believe its been 32 years since we decided to get married. Our wedding date was scheduled to be the following year on the same day but I couldn’t wait and moved up the date in October. We celebrate February 17th always and rarely our wedding day. 
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| I love the wake of the ship that seems to be endless. |
Hope my Virginia friends are enjoying their first, small snowfall of the season. I can say we don’t miss it at all!
May God bless you all!
Chuck & Lea Ann
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WorldTravelReynolds 
Happy Valentines Day!!
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Happy Valentines Day!!
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