Nome Census Area

Awake at 02:00, showered, repacked and in hotel lobby with cases at 03:15. Quick dash down 2 escalators (then back up) to pick up breakfast boxes and get on coach for our 3:30 departure for the airport. So 04:00 at the back of a long queue to check in for our charter Alaska Airlines flight to Nome. Spent a lot of the next hour redirect people to the Flair check in desk as they mistakenly thought this was a queue for that check in. A lone young man then joined the queue, when advised it was a charter for Hurtigruten he said that was correct, transpired he is one of the Hurtigruiten cruise designers coming for a test voyage on this ship as he is organising next years voyages for her sister ship the Fridtjof Nansen, which by coincidence is the one we booked on to go to Iceland next year. We had quite a long chat as the queue slowly moved along (had to check all the covid stuff as well as check in), hopefully will see some of my website improvement suggestions next year! Bit nervous that you have to find the single conveyor to put hold luggage on that everyone in the terminal uses, but as we have our luggage the system must work. Another long queue through security and than into an equally long queue for US immigration. As we neared our turn to be seen at one of the visa entry desks, I used the hand sanitiser placed just before you go to a desk. In hindsight this was a mistake, as it then took several attempts and hand drying for my fingerprints to properly register. Anyway 06:00 we are through and accepted into the US only to see the plane was delayed 40 minutes to 7:40 and oddly showing as Anchorage rather than Nome. It transpired the plan was in Seattle and would need to come up to Vancouver, but then the crew had only enough hours left to fly as far as Anchorage and they would mind a new crew for us there. We finally left Vancouver about 8:30. Interesting flight, above the clouds seeing the white tops of various mountains poking through. Adjusting our watches for another hour difference ( now 9 hours behind UK), we finally arrived at 13:00, so we had been on the go for 12 hours! As we boarded one of the yellow school buses sent to pick us up, we were given a sheet of paper with options for the afternoon as apparently we weren’t being taken to the ship for another 4 Hours! Nome doesn’t, look to be a very exciting place, I presume the roads were cement or tarmac, but one couldn’t tell as they basically looked like mud tracks, which also hid the numerous potholes. Karen told the supervisor ( appeared to be some local community group taking care of us) she couldn’t manage that and shortly after a girl from Hurtigruten appeared an said our cabin was ready so we could go straight to the ship. So Karen had the privilege to be the first person registered for the voyage. Actually we were quite useful for them as the reception supervisor used us to help train 6 new crew members on how to process passengers when they arrived, giving each one an iPad and guiding them through the process. Arriving at our cabin the cases were outside waiting for us, shortly after some sandwiches, fruit and juice arrived. We downloaded the app which you have to use to book things ( I.e. restaurant reservations), managed to change the television settings back to English after Karen somehow changed to German. Picked up our expedition jackets (collect boots tomorrow) and found our way to the correct muster point for the lifeboat drill test. Sailed at 07:00, day at sea tomorrow, which might still be today or “tomorrow tomorrow” as we cross and recross the international date lineRead more