Thursday March 23, 2023
The second sea day was once again filled with interesting lectures. The first was Gavin Robinson talking about running a wildlife conservancy. This goes on from what he spoke about yesterday where he spoke of capturing the animals. This was how to manage the areas once the animals are captured and how to know the land and food that is available on the land as to the type of animals that should be kept there. The animals each like different foods so it is important to manage the herd and the best way is to see the babies and if they are healthy and in expected numbers, the herd is fine. If the animals are thin and there are few babies, the mix is not good.
The second lecture was Stuart Usher a Military and Maritime expert who gave a detailed account of seven Irish prisoners that were incarcerated in Fremantle Prison, were harshly treated. However, as they were on work details outside of the prison, one slowly became friends with the local Irish Priest and through his help, he was able to escape on a ship ending in the USA. As he was settling in there, he arranged to have his 6 friends escape and go to the USA. The story was riveting and had many twists and turns and they very nearly did not escape. He entitled the lecture “The Flight of the Wild Geese”.
The third talk was the “Referee” of Wimbledon. Andrew Jarrett was a professional tennis player, then chair umpire and finally the “referee” of the Grand Slam Wimbledon Tennis Tournament for 14 years retiring in 2019. The “Referee” is basically the CEO of the Tennis aspect of Wimbledon. He does not manage the building, concessions etc, but everything that has to do with the tournament, the players, the seeding, the fines etc, come under his control. It was really fascinating to hear some of the back stories of the many years where he was the head person. The longest game (11 1/2 hours) that went 70:68 in the 5th set; the fumbled coin toss at the Federer Nadal final and many other such interesting stories. Again we are always amazed at the quality of the speakers and the breadth of knowledge they bring to us, the traveling passengers.
The evening show was Symphony where they have live musicians on stage and on the screen behind, many others, all playing the same music. Very impressive the first few times you see it, but we have seen it several times so decided to skip it and turn in early.
Roger & Anne Travels 