Sailing the high seas

Today's blog entry will be very short. We have travelled several hundred kilometres towards Alaska, without doing very much at all. When I woke early this morning I stepped out onto the balcony to see what was happening outside. From the bed I couldn't make out anything at all. When I opened the door I realised why I was unable to see anything. We were in a thick fog and nothing was visible. I went back to bed.

About an hour or so later I did the same thing. This time the fog had lifted and I could see a range of islands alongside. I watched for a while then went inside and got dressed more warmly and was out again. In the far distance I saw a movement and watched as this tiny dot became a boat heading straight for us. As it got closer it turned to parallel its run with ours. With the help of the zoom lens on my camera I made out that I was looking at a pilot boat and we were making our way through the Narrows with their assistance. A few buoys, a few lighthouses and lots of water later, the pilot boat began slipping behind us and moving around to the other side of our ship. That was when I noticed the dolphins following the pilot boat. I enjoyed watching them until the pilot boat had moved out of view. That was going to have to be animal sighting number one today. We were going to be sailing all day.

Ross got up and joined me on our balcony but was not particularly interested in watching us plough through the waves. Then I pointed out that off the ship by several hundred yards was a pod of whales. We did not see the whales in particular, but the plumes of their blows were frequent and represented quite a group of animals. Given the number, I am guessing they were orca. Humpbacks don't travel in such numbers and the frequency of the puffs into the air suggested there were some young ones in the group. We watched them for a few minutes and then they were gone. That was wildlife sighting number two.

There were no more for the day. I skipped breakfast but did a load of washing. Ross went to the internet cafe after his breakfast to find out about the football scores. He came back happy, then set about doing his washing. Feeding coins into the machine, shifting things from washer to dryer then bringing them back to the cabin to sort them out, eventually took us through to lunchtime. I just had to call in to the internet cafe to send off yesterday's blog. There is no wifi in the rooms and very slow wifi from one location. You pay 79 cents a minute and the shortest transaction is about 5 minutes because of the speed. An expensive activity.

Lunch was in the Bordeaux room and too fancy again. The food was lovely but I was craving ordinary. After lunch we both did some wandering around the ship for a while, picking up one or two small mementos then back to the cabin. Napping seems to have been a common feature for many of us in the tour. It just caught up with all of us today. The bed rest was delicious. I think Ross had three naps today. That is even more than normal. He has had a cough so the extra rest helped him with that too.

Tonight was a black tie dinner but we just couldn't be bothered. We went off to the cheap buffet restaurant which did not have a fancy dress code for the evening. We met some people at the lift who had decided to do the same. By the time we got to the right floor we found yet another couple and together we had good quality plain and simple food. A relief.

We chatted away for a couple of hours, during which time we saw two more cruise ships heading the other way. I was pleased we were not going in the same direction. Some of our stopovers are in small communities and just one cruise ship floods the village. Two would take away all the authenticity.

Back in our cabin after dinner I looked out the window to see the fog come down again. We went through the internal mail in our cabin letter box and I began writing. Ross fell asleep. Not an exciting day but it met our needs. Tomorrow there are several things planned and I need to try get this entry up onto the web. I wonder what treasure await us in Alaska.Lue lisää