2%

Just before we entered the Torres Strait, the ship came to a stop in a spot called The Wednesday Islands, just off the Australian coast. It is quite a picturesque spot. There was a need for a medevac, a passenger required urgent hospital attention so they were transferred to the land for transport to a hospital, most likely via the Flying Doctor.

This wasn't the first medevac of this cruise.   With number of elderly post 80 year olds on board, many using walking sticks, others with walkers and motorised scooters or wheelchairs, you could have expected a couple of medevacs per day.

While the ship waited, word spread quickly that there was mobile phone reception. Our cut price plan accesses up to 98% of the Telstra mobile network and I now know that The Wednesday Islands area falls into that 2% that our network doesn't cover.

It later turned out that most likely the passenger was offloaded to Thursday Island.