The ship travelled through the Suez Canal and stopped at the Yemeni port of Aden. The ship would first berth at Fremantle, Western Australia, then steam through the Great Australian Bight to Melbourne, Victoria and finally onto Sydney, New South Wales, dropping passengers off at each point. Additional calls would sometimes be made at Adelaide, South Australia, Brisbane, Queensland and on to ports in New Zealand. Following the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, the Suez Canal was closed until 1975. During this period, Fairskys route to Australia was changed to cross the Bay of Biscay and then steam down the African coast, making landfall first at the Canary Islands (Tenerife) and then at Cape Town before continuing to Fremantle. Passengers were able to alight at each port and these calls were often overnight. An alternative route sometimes used by Fairsky was to cross the Atlantic Ocean with a stop at the island of Madeira, then on to the Panama Canal via Curaçao. Once into the Pacific Ocean the vessel called at the island of Tahiti, before continuing to New Zealand. Here the ship called at Wellington, before the vessel crossed the Tasman Sea to Sydney. Later career and demise In 1970 Sitmar lost the migrant contract to Chandris Lines and Sitmar was forced to seek new markets for its two remaining liners (Fairsea had been disabled by an engine-room fire mid-Pacific in 1969 and sold to shipbreakers, while Castel Felice was also sold for scrapping in October 1970). Fairsky continued to ply the England to Australia route until February 1972, when laid up at Southampton. Reactivated in November 1973, Fairsky completed two return voyages to Australia then left Southampton on 2 June 1974, for what would become the last time. Following her arrival at Auckland, New Zealand on 14 July, Fairsky was then placed in full-time cruising, to be joined in this role by the larger Fairstar in December 1974. Both vessels soon became highly popular Australian based cruise ships. Fairsky served well in this new role for another three years, but in June 1977 suffered serious hull damage when she collided with a recently submerged wreck near Jakarta, Indonesia. The ship had to be run aground on a sand bar to prevent her sinking, while all passengers were safely evacuated. Temporarily patched up, the ship continued to Singapore under her own power, but when the extent of the damage became apparent