Day 5 - Sitka

Today we were in Sitka. We’d signed up for an ocean raft tour, but when we made the reservations at home Tim was waitlisted, and nobody cancelled. So yesterday Dave changed the reservation to Tim instead of me. They had to be at the gathering point for tendering at 7:15. You might think I would take the opportunity to sleep in, but as usual I woke up before my alarm (or Dave’s) so I headed off for stretch and abs, and since there was no Dave to have breakfast with I went ahead and did day 4 of Bodyfit – Alex says we’re going to do day 3 on Friday so I figured I’d round it out. Then 

I went to the Ocean Bar to get my tender ticket, and ended up pulling up to the dock just behind the raft that Dave and Tim were on. They had to go back to the outfitter’s to get out of their expedition suits (like what the crab fishermen wear on deadliest catch), so we met at the shelter at the end of the pier.

Their excursion sounded like fun. There were only 6 people on the raft, and it Dave said the seats were almost like saddles with inflatable bolsters on them. They zoomed across the ocean to an island across the sound, and I think if they’d been from somewhere other than the Pacific Northwest it would have been a really super excursion. As it was they enjoyed themselves (Tim particularly enjoyed the expedition suits), but a big part of the excursion was seeing the scenery and the wildlife, and most of what they saw was pretty much just like home.

Once we met up we convinced Tim to come to the Raptor Center with us. It remains a wonderful place, full of owls and eagles and hawks. We measured Tim’s and Dave’s wingspans (we think Tim’s is slightly longer), wandered through the fight training center, and enjoyed the part where one of the eagle trainers comes out and talks with a giant bald eagle sitting on his arm. The eagle, Hailey, was a 4 year old female who had a crooked beak and something of an attitude, and the trainer was funny and engaging. One of the things I like about the raptor center is that all the people who talk are genuinely there because they want to be, and their delight in what they’re doing comes through very clearly. Tim fell for the saw-whet owl just as hard as I did – it stands maybe 8” tall and rarely moves, so you think it’s a stuffed animal because it’s so cute, and then it moves. Kind of like the sneezing statue in Venice, or the tarnished bronze soldier statue we saw in Seattle.

One of the things we don’t eat on the cruise are the burgers – they are just not good. So for lunch we stopped at a pub near the pier that somehow manages not to feel touristy and Tim and Dave got their burgers. We tried to walk around Sitka again, but just like last time got to the corner and decided we didn’t need to, so we went back to the ship (Tim had left earlier). We both fell asleep on the tender. When we got back to the room Dave decided to go work out, and I went for my massage which was woooonnnnderful. I’m not sure which kind of massage I ended up with but it had hot oil and biofreeze and at the end I felt like warm pudding. If I’d been any more relaxed I could not have gotten off the table. I borrowed a robe and went down and took a very quick shower (the scalp massage left me not exactly presentable) and zipped over to the Queen’s lounge for our next activity.

We booked this cruise through Mama’s travel agent, who is part of a consortium, and they had a special “sip’n’swirl” reception with culinary host Jacob, where they poured 2 Barefoot wines and he showed how to make 3 appetizers, which they had samples of. They’d expected about 100 people and only 20 or so showed up, so there was plenty of food! We got a chance to talk to Jacob after, and I asked him pretty much flat out why the food on the three one week cruises we’ve taken has been so mediocre, while the food on the Hawaii cruise was so good. He said (although he said to remember we hadn’t heard it from him) that it wasn’t how long the cruise was, it was how high the proportion of at-sea days was. Apparently people don’t like sea days, and get depressed, and write bad reviews, so they actually budget more for better food to keep the passengers happier. We think this is nuts – sea days are the best! – but it made us think our next cruise should be an Atlantic crossing.  We need to learn to dance the classic dances before we go, though, because 2 weeks without dancing is not a possibility. Unlike our Alaska cruise last year, which had lots of places where you could dance as a singleton, this one pretty much has none except the disco – and that’s  right out. Too creepy!

We went up to check out the guitar player in the crow’s nest, because the daily planner said it was Michael, which is not the Alexander who was there at the beginning of the cruise. We’re not sure if it was the same guy or not, but I am sure I didn’t like him just as much, so we headed down to the room, changed for dinner, and went to the Ocean Bar for the BarbieCats without Barbie, who are great. I even enjoyed their rendition of “Girl from Ipanema”, which is the song that everybody has to play on this ship. They play the same music as the RobbieCats play in the Ocean Bar after dinner except way better, but unfortunately they are the show band so they don’t play on nights when there are shows with music.

They take a break at 5:15 to make sure that the early seating people get to dinner on time, so we headed over. Oddly, Tim didn’t show up for dinner, so we’re assuming he slept through it and went to the Lido to get something to eat. My dinner was unusually good – perfectly cooked tuna with a maple glaze, which didn’t really taste all that great until I combined it with the potato-apple salad. Then it was really yummy.

Assassin break: When we got on the ship, Tim and I noticed a young man – probably in his mid to late 20s – who was wearing a suit and had perfect hair. There was something slightly sinister about him. Tim said he looked like someone who would be a hit man who would kill people in ways that weren’t very interesting, so we named him The Assassin. He shows up where we are quite often, looking bland and sinister. He’s from Wellesley, MA. Dave managed to get a clandestine picture of him using his telephoto lens, so if anyone dies in a suspicious but boring way, we have a picture to give to the police.

After dinner Dave needed some deck time, so I went down to the ocean bar to blog and listen to the RobbieCats. If it weren’t for the invidious comparison, they’d be very enjoyable. Tonight there was an older couple dancing (very well), but in general although the ship is quite full the lounges have not had many dancers at all. I think HAL may have miscalculated on what type of music to provide. They took a break at 8:30, so that was a good time to go up to the room and drop off Arnold, get Dave, and head over to the piano bar for Elton John with Barry from Boston (dot com).

I actually wasn’t sure how Elton John night would go. Barry has done some Elton during the request times, and it’s been variable. The problem is that with the vocal and piano tricks he likes to do it can get frustrating when you just want to be belting out the words to one of your favorites. But it turned out just fine. One of the great things about Barry is that he has an incredible wealth of knowledge, so that makes it interesting as well as fun. People did not sing along as much as they might have, but by the end everybody was singing along and it was very good. We missed the last long , because Dave wanted to see the illusionist, Leon Etienne, who was very good. My favorite trick he did was also not really an illusion, but it was magic. He had a 10 year old boy come up for the trick, and had him hold a roll of toilet paper. He’d pull off increasingly large lengths, ball them up in his hand, then move them quickly from hand to hand and ask the boy to say which hand the ball was in. The trick was, at some point he’d toss the rolled up toilet paper ball over the boy’s head to his assistant who would catch it in a large fishing net. So we, the audience, could see it, but the boy could not. It was sort of mean, I guess, but it delighted me. After the show we decided to go straight to bed. We’re exhausted!

Tonight’s towel animal: ok, I liked this. We’d carefully moved the elephant over to one of the desks, and they took it off the desk and put a new head on it. So tonight’s towel animal was a dog with an elephant base.