Monday – March 9, 2026 – Cairns
The first time I heard the expression “No joy” it was while watching the movie “Top Gun”. The meaning is not to achieve the expected result. In this case, the expected result was docking at Cairns and taking an excursion to the Great Barrier Reef. Today’s featured photo is a panorama of the Cairns area as Magnifica tried to navigate the channel and currents so that we could dock. That was not to be. Heavy rains in the Queensland recently have filled the rivers resulting in higher-than-normal flow to the ocean. When added to the normal current in the Cairns area, the resulting current was above the threshold for Magnifica to successfully navigate to shore. In other words, we could have run aground! At the advice of the pilot and his staff, the captain made the decision we would not dock at Cairns. There were people who needed to get to shore to catch flights and there were people on shore who needed to return to the ship. For those, a tender was used to transfer people to and from the ship. The rest of us had to watch from our rooms as we sat at anchor within reach of Cairns. Kelsey, Jan and I were lucky we had the opportunity last year to take an excursion to the Great Barrier Reef. We feel sad for those who were not able to do so this year. But this outcome is part of the cruising experience – some destinations are “no joy”.
We had booked an 8 1/2-hour excursion for today that was to begin at 7:10 am. We went to the theater (our meeting place for this excursion) and waited. David – the staff person who is set to accompany us to China) explained that the captain was having difficulty navigating to the dock and we might not be able to visit Cairns. He showed us a plot of Magnifica’s movements with circles indicating 3 attempts to navigate through a narrow channel to port. Shortly after he talked with us the captain came on the intercom to announce that we would not be docking at Cairns and that all excursions for the day would be cancelled. He explained the problem with the narrow channel and higher than normal ocean currents. We were disappointed – especially Kelsey. Jan and I decided to use part of the credit we would receive for the excursion to book an “on-ship” excursion to view the bridge, engine control room, kitchen, laundry and backstage areas. Kelsey has been very interested in the stage area, and we thought this might be a good way to offset some of the disappointment. Our tour for the bridge and engine control would be this Wednesday and the other places on April 10th.
Although we couldn’t dock, we also couldn’t leave immediately for several reasons. The ship had to clear Australian immigration (paperwork, paperwork) and there were passengers who had to leave and rejoin the ship. There was also ship’s paperwork with the Australian authorities that had to be completed as this was our last port in their country. All those chores were complete by mid-afternoon and when they finished, we began our journey to Manila.
Kelsey spent most of the day with us either in our cabin or at the buffet. In the afternoon she went into our bedroom and crashed on the bed face down – she must have been very tired.
You’ll find today’s few photos and a video here.
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