Gulf of Alaska

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    • Day 3

      Hunting the Holgate

      May 16 ⋅ 🌫 37 °F

      After a good night’s sleep at the Spruce Lodge, we all got up and packed our luggage for a transfer to Celebrity Summit to occur later in the day. The Spruce Lodge Shuttle took us a quarter mile down the road to the beautiful Resurrection Road House for a hearty breakfast. We were their first customers in the new season. On the way to the restaurant we passed a moose grazing on the side of the road. When breakfast was over we returned to the Spruce Lodge to load our luggage into the shuttle. The staff agreed to allow it to remain locked in the van until our pickup after lunch to take us to the ship. The shuttle dropped us into town around 10 am for our glacier and whale watching adventure starting at 11:15.

      As we were waiting to board the boat on which Major Marine Tours would take us on a fascinating tour of Resurrection Bay, Angela and I grabbed a delicious cup of espresso from a railroad car converted into a coffee shop. We climbed aboard the Spirit of Matushka and had good luck to start with as we encountered several pods of orcas. The so-called killer whales are not whales at all, but actually dolphins—the largest of the porpoises. They are extremely intelligent, hunting in packs and devising elaborate and inescapable strategies for securing food. Orcas are the alpha predators over a greater part of the surface of the earth than any other species. They are such good hunters that cetologists have documented several instances of animals of different species bonding temporarily to prevent orcas from attacking their young. The killers were out in force today guarding their own babies and teaching them orca ways. We also passed seals, sea otters and several bald eagles.

      The high point of our trip today came when we reached the beautiful Holgate glacier. This gleaming white tidewater glacier was showing off its iridescent blue crevices on this overcast day. Our thoughtful skipper turned off the boat’s motor for more than 5 minutes as we floated silently in front of the timeless behemoth. Soon we tourists stopped our chatter and we simply basked in the wordless glory of the artistry of the glacier and its Creator.

      After returning to Seward we scoped out several restaurants and decided to go back to Ray’s. I had sable fish in a Japanese miso sauce, and Glenda had a macadamia encrusted halibut garnished with a Thai red curry sauce. When dessert came, we all enjoyed a part of a piece of macadamia and coconut chocolate torte served with vanilla ice cream. Glenda insisted on paying for the meal. So did Angela. I suggested we settle it by a game of rock-paper-scissors. After our laughter about the childish game, I suggested that tomorrow night we could decide by a round of thumb wrestling. It turned out that Angela had never played the game before. I told her that Randy and I would show her how it was done. Only then did I glance at Glenda’s brother’s hands and discovered that they are huge. I swallowed hard, we locked fingers, and he had my thumb pinned in less than 5 seconds. Angela laughed hysterically.

      Miffed at my defeat, I told our waiter how we had decided about the bill, and he said, “Oh yeah, I know how to play that.”

      “Put out your hand,” I said as I grabbed his. He started this long litany about thumb wrestling as long as the Preamble to the Constitution. I had never heard it before. We sure didn’t use it when I was a kid on the west side of Charlotte. I didn’t know when the recitation would end, but as I sat there listening to him, the chant suddenly ended, and he instantly pinned my thumb.

      Oh, well. Dessert was delicious.
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    • Day 202

      At Sea

      July 1, 2023 ⋅ 🌧 48 °F

      It’s mid-morning on this day at sea as we cruise from Dutch Harbor in the Aleutians to Kodiak, Alaska.

      I should actually say as we jiggle and shimmy our way to Kodiak as today we are experiencing the roughest seas of our thus far 202 days on Insignia on this voyage. The sea state looks to be 12-15 feet or more to me. We’ll see what Captain Maro has to say in his noon update.

      Oddly, the bangs and clangs that usually reverberate through the hull as the ship slaps back down after being lifted by the waves are missing … at least at our location near the stern of the ship. Many will more than likely disagree, but that to me is a sign that Insignia is handling the conditions well … despite the pitching we are experiencing.

      Not crazy enough to go out on the veranda, so both videos are from inside the cabin … the bow view is from the TV.

      With all this jiggling, I wonder if Mui’s staying between the lines in his art class 🤭
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    • Day 202

      Itinerary Revision #18

      July 1, 2023 ⋅ 🌬 48 °F

      Indeed, in his noon announcement, Captain Maro confirmed my 12-15 foot estimate for the swells we were battling this morning as being in the 13-15 foot range. (If this sentence doesn’t make sense to you, see the previous footprint.)

      That confirmation, however, wasn’t the takeaway message from the Captain’s announcement. In fact, the stats followed the words I’d been expecting (but hoping not to hear). Namely that Kodiak, Alaska has been canceled. I had been monitoring the map and couldn’t see how we would make it there tomorrow as scheduled. Now, we all know that we won’t.

      Captain Maro explained that he took the steps to cancel the port due to a gale warning in the area … with winds of up to 50 knots. Instead, we’ll have another day at sea tomorrow. We hope to arrive in Seward, Alaska on Monday as scheduled. In fact, if the “Currents” delivered to the cabin this evening is to be believed, we’ll be arriving at 7:00a instead of 8:00a. I’ll believe that when it happens 😊.

      In the meantime, we continue to jiggle along. The swells may have diminished just the teeniest-tiniest bit, but somehow Insignia’s movements seem more pronounced.

      Since alcohol and the motion of the ocean don’t necessarily play well together, we opted not to go to tonight’s O Club Party … the second one for this segment. But I’ll leave you with one stat that I know OCA Cella will mention … only 50 of the 560 people who are currently onboard are first-time O cruisers, everybody else is a repeater.

      Hoping for calmer seas overnight and into tomorrow so that we can make some serious headway towards Seward.

      P.S. Just for fun, I am inserting two collages of photos of some of the things we did in Kodiak when we were there for three days in 2010.
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    • Day 20

      Valdez - Whittier Fähre

      April 30, 2023

      Heute nehme ich die Fähre von Valdez nach Whittier, 145 Km rund 5.5 Stunden. Das Wetter ist leider nicht besonders, die Wolken hängen tief. Von dem schönen Panorama ist nur der untere Teil sichtbar. Doch ein kleiner Lichtblick gabs trotzdem, Fisch Otter auf einer Eisscholle!Read more

    • Day 171

      Hubbard Glacier, Alaska

      July 4, 2023 ⋅ ☁️ 52 °F

      AMAZING ALASKA

      Which State is the Eastern-most, Western-most AND Northern-most State of the entire U.S. ?

      - 663,268 square miles on the mainland of Alaska
      - 15,000 square miles of fjords and inlets
      - 34,000 miles of indented tidal coastline
      - Mount McKinley 20,310’ and the highest peak in North America
      - 1/3 of Alaska lies in the arctic circle
      - 4/5 is permanently frozen
      - Tundra - half of the State’s surface are treeless plains
      - 130 active volcanos in Alaska
      - Earths most active earthquake belts

      Today we went to Hubbard Glacier (named for Gardier Hubbard, the founder of National Geographic Magazine) Hubbard is known for its advancing ice margin of up to 7’ per day and 3 story icebergs that cave turning deep blue.

      We traveled all day to get close to this glacier. Ships make an “appointment” to come into the glacier bay surrounded by ice to watch some calving (the 20+’ pieces of ice that break off and tumble into the bay with a loud crashing sound). The Hubbard glacier is 76 miles back from Mt Walsh and the face of is 7 miles wide extending 350’ above water level. At 4:30pm the deck was crowded with everyone ready as we approached for our 5-6pm time slot. And then … our Cruise Director Dottie Kulasa and Captain Maroje Brajcic got on the loudspeaker to inform us of the fog (very) quickly rolling in and the added danger of trying to get through the broken ice that extended for miles.

      What to do? Sit tight, take some photos, enjoy the sunshine and comradery, drink, watch as the Captain turns the ship around to keep us safe (remember the Titanic) and chat about where everyone was going for dinner! If you have never been to Hubbard Glacier (we have) and you want to see its majesty, see our last photo.

      P.S. In case you didn't figure out the trivia question above, its ALASKA!
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    • Day 196

      Fähre Whittier - Valdez

      August 22, 2022 ⋅ 🌧 14 °C

      Fahrt durch den Whittier Tunnel (13$), welcher abwechselnd auch von der Eisenbahn benutzt wird.
      Gebucht haben wir die Fähre nach Valdez für den 24.8. Das Wetter ist aber so was von miserabel und Whittier ebenfalls, dass wir am Terminal fragen gehen, ob ev. noch Platz auf der Fähre ist.
      Juhui, unser Womo wird als letztes Fahrzeug noch knapp reingequetscht.
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    • Day 14

      At Sea- Hubbard Glacier

      June 7, 2022 ⋅ ⛅ 11 °C

      We started the day with coffee and pastries delivered to the room. How very civilized.

      After a very busy land tour, we were very happy to have a sea day, be able to sleep later, and have a chill day.

      About 3 pm we began to cruise along Hubbard Glacier. There just aren't words...

      In addition to the enormous glacier, we saw Sea lions basking on ice chunks, and an otter out for a swim.

      We had dinner at the French Bistro- Scallops, Goat Cheese croquettes, Fruits de Mer, and Poire Helène for me, Escargots, Fruits de Mer and Maron Clementine for Wayne, and Scallops Duck a L'Orange, and a Chocolate mousse log with a lovely Pinot Noir for Julianna. The waiter also brought us a Floating Island that was quite delicious.

      Julianna and I went to the "Rock You Tonight" show featuring music from the 60s, 70s, and 80s. Something for everyone. Then at 10:15 we went to watch sunset. It was the first sunset I'd seen while in Alaska, since the sun set at almost 2 am when we were in Fairbanks. This was a Very. Long l. Sunset- and then it still didn't get very dark for a long time.

      With memories of another spectacular day, we turned in.
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    • Day 164

      Around the World Brunch #3

      June 27, 2023 ⋅ ☁️ 46 °F

      For the third and last time we had a brunch for the Around the World Team. Maybe it was all the champagne, but it sure seemed that they went even further this time to make it special.

      Yes, there were every type of breakfast offering you could imagine and many lunch options (although there were even more items that couldn’t fit on the menu) but there were additionally more desserts than ever.

      What a great idea to seat us right next to the desserts so I didn’t even have to get up … only reach over for some more sugar. At one point, the Executive Chef reached over and gave me an entire tray of napoleons … how generous and we also polished off the bounty cake, giving Krista and Tim the bow to celebrate their 48th anniversary (the first time … since they had 2 days of celebration because of the IDL).

      The meal was highlighted by the Panache String Quartet only a few feet away … making it very pleasant to eat and drink and talk and listen to music and have cappuccinos and REPEAT from 10-2p!

      PS Loved the traditional croque-monsieur!
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    • Day 168

      Sea Day - Rough Waters, Slow Going

      July 1, 2023 ⋅ 🌧 48 °F

      Friday 6-30-23 Late evening thru Saturday 7-1-23
      We left Dutch Harbor 30 minutes early yesterday due to expected bad weather that was coming. The waves started to pickup last night before bedtime. We went to sleep looking forward to a busy day at sea before we got to the next 5 Alaskan ports. As they say, “the weather started getting rough, the tiny ship was tossed”. We were up much of the night as we rocked forward, backward and side to side.

      The rocking and rolling and the swaying began, and the listing continued all night. No one had a good a nights sleep ... some of us finally fell to sleep early in the morning just to wake up a few hours later feeling pretty woozy. The activities for the day were almost all cancelled. Room service became very popular.

      Then the Captain came on the Emergency Messaging System. He told us about the STORM and GALE FORCE WARNING and then explained why we were not getting to Kodiak, Alaska tomorrow. The plan is to skip Kodiak and go right to Seward, Alaska and get there early Monday morning.

      Currently and most of the day and night were experiencing 15+ foot waves with winds of 50+ knots. We were going a very slow but steady 6 knots to avoid any extra rolling. Thinking good thoughts as this is the worst of the weather we have had in 6 months … even worse than Drakes Passage.

      .
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    • Day 271

      Spontanious (Suprise) Glacier Water Tour

      September 24, 2019 ⋅ ☁️ 5 °C

      We actually wanted to go hike. But then we met a couple who told us about this (way to expensive, but really amazing) boat trip the the glaciers. So we changed our plans and went on a cruise catamaran to see some sea-otters, sea lions, seals, a black bear and massive glaciers reaching out into the water. We were lucky and could go so close to the Harvard Glacier. Then Surprise Glacier and 24 others on our way. We saw them calving. We tried the ice.
      What a change of plans and, wow. What a day.
      And not enough. While heading to Homer afterwards we saw a moose and a moose-cow. Nearly too much for one day 🙈😄 but, yes, I’d do it again. ☺️
      *****
      Eigentlich wollten wir wandern gehen. Aber dann trafen wir zwei Personen, die am Tag zuvor eine (viel zu teure, aber so beeindruckend schöne) Gletscher-Cruise-Bootsfahrt gemacht hatten. Also waren wir kurze Zeit später auf eine risigen Edel-Katamaran und beobachteten See-Otter (wie süß!!!!😍), Seelöwen, Robben, einen Schwarzbären und unendlich große, massive Gletscher, die bis ins Wasser reichten. Wir hatten Glück und konnten ganz nah an dem Harvard-Gletscher ran, danach zum Surprise-Gletscher und dazwischen 24 weitere. Wir haben sehen können, wie sie kalbten und haben das Eis gekostet. Was für eine Tagesplanänderung!
      Und als wäre das nicht genug, sahen wir noch einen Elch und eine Elchkuh auf der Fahrt hinterher. Fast zu viel für einen Tag. 🙈😄
      Aber ich würde es wieder so machen. ☺️
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    Gulf of Alaska

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