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President’s Report
Some of the activities this week include.
- We are planning a big second virtual meeting to celebrate our club anniversary. Unfortunately, there will be no dinner this year but I hear a rumour that the Sergeant is going to make a return with merit awards for some of our members recognising their efforts during the last year, good, bad and crazy. I will send out the Zoom invite on Friday for a 5.30 pm start on Monday. Come prepared with your drinks and appetizers to enjoy the function. Please allow an hour for the meeting.
- I hope you all had a wonderful Easter and did not overindulge in the chocolate. It was great to see the citizens of WA responding so well to the requests of our politicians to stay safe and respect the social distancing guidelines. This effort is flattening the curve and hopefully will allow us to start meeting in person again sooner rather than later. Please reach out if you are feeling down or need some assistance, David Ellis and his team are there at your service.
- Kim and I have been keeping active and on our routine. Two days of Yoga, two days of outdoor gym in our roof garden and three days walking the suburb. I have even tried some Tai Chi this week but must admit I still have a lot to learn. Kim is devouring TV series, she just finished The Crown and has now moved onto Broadchurch and the new series of Killing Eve.
- Your piece of COVID-19 news for the week comes via Richard Ranshaw. Look up this organisation, GPHIN, They have produced early warning of the presence of SARS, MERS and COVID-19 (and many others) before any govt agency or WHO found these viruses. A great initiative by Canada and one all countries should support and listen to in future.
- To finish off this week I have a longish correspondence from our member in isolation, Peter Webb. For the last two weeks, he has been luxuriating on Rottnest. I will let him tell the story of his last 1.5 months in his own inimitable way.
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My partner Brenda and I had arranged a 7-week cruise to London, leaving early March and returning late April.
Unfortunately, the coronavirus intervened and when we left Singapore for Phuket, it became apparent to the cruise line and the ship's Captain that ports were beginning to close down in front of us.
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We, therefore, met with another ship of the line (the Columbus) off Phuket and arranged to take their Aus and NZ passengers and the Columbus took our European and American passengers. Apparently this was the first time such a passenger transfer at sea had been undertaken since WW2.
Our ship (MV Vasco da Gama) then turned to sail back to Fremantle. Our ship's company (of originally 840 passengers) lost about 65 passengers to the Columbus and gained about 170 for our trip back to Freo. The ship had a max capacity of 1250.
There was some trepidation on board as we turned for Freo, but not to worry, the cruise company and the crew continued to feed us magnificently and they continued amazing entertainment right to the port.
Upon arrival, (and after a few days of discussion) it was agreed that the 200 Perth passengers will be ferried to Rotto and the remaining Aus and NZ passengers will be put into quarantine in various hotels around Perth.
When we were ferried over to Rotto, the ferry was accompanied by a Police and Border Patrol launched. Bit of overkill we thought as a lot of our passengers were in there 80's and even their 90's so they weren't likely to go over the side and make a "run for it"!
The cruise company have promised to refund 100% of our travel costs and have offered a similar trip (WITHOUT the coronavirus! next year) at significantly less than we paid. (We paid about $24K for 2 and are getting a very similar replacement for only $9K for the two.
Anyway, here we are in a comfortable chalet on Longreach.
But we ARE in quarantine and the government sought to keep us occupied.
Our chalet included a big jigsaw puzzle, a Wordbook with crossword and other word puzzles, a pack of cards, information booklets etc. There was a day's food in the fridge.
We brought our duty-free vodka (all gone now!) gin and single malt off the ship. We are able to buy extras from the general store. So we stocked up on tonic water, lemons and limes; ice cream sweet biscuits and other essential items.
So, we guess like everyone else, our biggest challenge is boredom.
Brenda had her Zumba teacher send Zumba classes which she does each day. A group around our chalet will be having a "formal" evening tomorrow where we shall all get dressed up in suits and frocks and sit in our courtyards with our G and Ts (or equivalent) and chat! As we don't know each other THAT well, I'm sure that there will be lots to chat about.
But we are loving our chalet with the waves gently breaking on the shore about 20 meters from our windows. Lovely sound to go to sleep to in the evening.
As some of our cruise days were going to be at sea, I had bought a portable DVD player and we brought the fill set of Game of Thrones. (The violence is occasionally a bit much!)
Brenda is working through a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle when not doing other things.
So we guess our problem is not dissimilar everyone else's, although we are in a lovely holiday environment and the weather couldn't be better!
Looking forward to getting back in touch from my computer, next week.
Best wishes,
Peter Webb
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