Perth and the "Ningaloo King of Eclipses" cruise

Well, nine very sad months have elapsed since I last updated the blog in July 2022.  Before I updated it today, the “upcoming holidays” list at the top of the page was:

17 April 2023 - Adam is cruising from Fremantle to see the solar eclipse.
4 October 2023 - Paul and Sandy are flying to England for a "Search for the Northern Lights" cruise.
5 February 2024 - Paul and Sandy are doing another New Zealand cruise.

Long before I wrote that blog post on 10 July 2022, Adam had booked his cabin on the eclipse cruise and was really looking forward to it, and was also already planning to go to the USA again in April 2024 to see another total solar eclipse.

We had known about the lump in Adam’s leg since late May 2022, and following some initial investigations (which had been done before the Carirns cruise) he had an appointment to see a surgeon at the Calvary hospital on 12 July.  After that appointment and some more tests, he got the devastating news that it was cancer (specifically, leiomyosarcoma), that it had already metastasised to four different places in his body and that it was beyond surgical help.  

A few months later and despite chemotherapy and other treatment, Adam needed a wheelchair to get around, and P&O kindly agreed to let me join him on the cruise so I could help him (no extra cost because a single person on most cruises is already paying two fares anyway). 

But of course, even that didn’t happen, as Adam lost his life to cancer on 8 January 2023. 

P&O then agreed to change the booking so that Paul and I could go on the Eclipse cruise in memory of Adam – again, generous of them because their rules say that booking changes can only happen if at least one person from the original booking stays on it, but they waived the rule for us.  (We could still have booked the cruise separately for ourselves, but the price by that time was much higher – and there wouldn’t have been a refund of Adam’s and my earlier fare either).

And of course, while Adam was ill, we cancelled the Search for the Northern Lights cruise as we were assuming that he would still be with us but that he might still need us to be here to help him get around.  Sadly, it turned out not to be.

So, anyway, I’m writing this as we’re just finishing our packing for the trip – later this evening we’re flying to Perth for the Eclipse cruise.  It’s something new for us, as neither of us have ever actually experienced a total solar eclipse – although sometimes it felt like I had because of all of Adam’s previous experiences of them 😊 .   

Paul has also never been to Perth before, and I’ve only been there once for work (in the early 1990s) and didn’t see anything apart from the state headquarters of the Dept of Social Security – not so exciting.  And for both of us, our experiences of Fremantle consist of a few hours there one afternoon – should have been a whole day but the cruise ship's arrival was delayed.   

Hopefully we’ll get a chance to look around tomorrow and Monday (the ship doesn’t sail until 9pm) and after we return (we get back on Saturday 22^nd and aren’t flying home until the Monday).