Day 2, a day of unusually nice weather

Day 2

Our bedroom has two skylights, and the nice thing about that is that on a clear blue morning like today they let in all sorts of wonderful light. So I was up a little before 7, which isn’t really that early but it is on vacation. The tides aren’t completely favorable this week – low tide was about 4 this morning – but they’re good enough that I got up and headed down to see if I could make it to the carriage road. My phone said it was 58 degrees, but it felt much warmer.

Here’s the plant and sand report: last summer they really went to town on the trail down to the beach and hacked everything back about a foot and a half on either side. This year the trail is still wide open, but many plants are moving in, and there are a few sticking up between the stairs and around the railings. I would say by next summer it will be jungly again.

The sand is generally high. The loose rocky places in the cave to the south and the protected inlet to the north are completely covered with sand, and you can easily walk between the monolith and the inlet to the north. The stalk of the big mushroom rock by the waterfall is completely covered with sand, and the floor of the Joel Marble burping cave is also completely sand covered. There’s one exception to the high sand which I’ll get too shortly.

In honor of Iron Man Ben, I ran all the way from the start of the hug point beach to the carriage road. Well, it wasn’t entirely in honor of Ben, because it was also partly due to wanting to get there as fast as possible – with the tide coming in every minute counts. I resisted the urge to stop and look at things and take pictures. When I got to the carriage road it was just accessible – only a little hop was required to get over a tongue of water. I went up onto it, but the tide was in far enough that waves were breaking over the low section in the middle. I am sure I will get my boots and pantlegs soaked at some point this week, but I wasn’t quite ready for it yet, so I turned around.

Now that I’d been to the carriage road and knew the state of the sand, I could take my time and have a leisurely stroll back, and also investigate the two things that needed looking at. First was the dog photo spot, which is a place where the water is digging into a soft part of the cliff face just south of the carriage road. When we used to bring the guide dog puppies here that was a great photo spot, and I took a picture of it this year because it’s getting more interesting. Although the sand is generally high, it’s low just there, exposing a series of pools that I think I’ve not seen before – very cool looking.

Also, faithful readers might remember that when we were here in November the waterfall was the fullest we’d ever seen, and the stream that came off of it turned and went north, pretty much cutting off access to the carriage road. After the dry July and August we’ve had, and even with the rain yesterday, the waterfall is back to being a watertrickle, and the stream fans out across the sand directly to the ocean. It’s so spread out that I could probably walk across it in my mesh sneakers and still have dry socks. It’s endlessly fascinating to see how things change every year.

The walk back was uneventful and absolutely beautiful, with the sun lighting up the waves out over the ocean, but the beach still in the shadow of the cliffs. I took a lot of pictures that are pretty much exactly the same pictures that I take every year because every year I am blown away by the beauty and grandeur of this place. Right now I’m sitting in the “leather” chair looking out, and the sun is lighting up the tree just past the deck, but the deck is still in shadow. We are so blessed to be able to come here. Meanwhile Dave had gotten up when I did, and when I got back he and Josh were having a financial chat over facebook. I was pleased to see a post there from the Iron Man, so at least he’s still able to move his fingers. Here’s hoping he’ll be able to climb the stairs in Giants stadium a week from Saturday.

Next up on my agenda (after a bowl of cacklin’, of course) was a little exercise, so I went into the bedroom and did the first day of boot camp. It was killer as always, but not as killer as it would have been if I’d done it on the ship. I think I’ve figured out why. When I’m doing it by myself, part of my mind is counting reps (ok, most of my mind) and sometimes I’ll do 3 or 4 reps without paying attention to form, kind of half-heartedly. So I’m not actually bending down all the way to the floor or whatever. That’s the place where you want the trainer to point it out and correct it, and that’s what I’m missing when I do it on my own. So my focus for the rest of the sessions will be trying to be more mindful of form.

 

Tim had gotten up and taken a shower before I started my workout which was good, because the part where I’m crab hopping makes the house shake. I took my shower and did a little writing, and then Rhonda (aka evil piano teacher) andher husband Tracy got here and it was time to go to Bill’s for lunch. We had the usual nervousness about getting to Bill’s at the right time, and it was a little more nervous having 5, but it all worked out. We got to town a little early and walked around a bit, then got to Bills and had our choice of tables. It was cheeseburgers, bacon burger, fish burger, fish and chips and onion rings for the table. Tracy especially enjoyed the beer – he had the dunkelweizen first, but then tried my foggy notion and had one of those also – good beer and good times at Bills. Especially when you get to say dunkelweizen.

Tim drove Dave’s car back to the house while the Rhonda and I walked around and looked in the shops. Dave and Tracy walked around and sat on the benches outside of the shops. Rhonda was especially fond of the various leopard print shoes at Purple Moon, while I was entranced by the sheer amount of fascinating stuff at Ter Hars. Tim, meanwhile, was hanging out in Dave’s car at the house, because we’d forgotten to give him a key. He said he had the windows rolled down and it was very nice, and actually what’s the difference between sitting on the couch and sitting in the car?

Eventually we gave him a call to come get us. The Ringerings went off to walk on the beach – it was nearly low tide and one of the most beautiful days I’ve ever seen here. We hopped in the car and headed to the house, at which point the need to nap became irresistible for me. Kids, unless you’re an advanced napper, don’t even try to do what I did, which is to say “I’m going to take a nap” and then go lie down on the bed. This is why most people say they can’t nap – it takes real skill to be able to do that. Since I’m a pro (like my mother before me), I was asleep in moments and slept for about an hour. I just love napping on the bed here on a sunny afternoon – the sun comes in the skylight and warms the bed, the cool breeze blows on your head from the window, and the ocean roars contentedly from down below.

Meanwhile Dave and Tim went for a run down on the beach. Yes, Tim went for a run voluntarily. The thing is that when he’s not swimming, he loses his appetite. Well, he doesn’t lose it, exactly, it just shrinks to more like a normal person’s, meaning he’s full after one hamburger and chips at Bill’s. Tonight we have reservations at Newman’s at 988, and he wants to be able to eat his meal as well as finish off what Dave and I are too full to eat. So he ran for almost an hour and was feeling pretty good about it until Dave compared it to Iron Man Ben. When I woke up I thought they were dead or at least hospitalized, of course, because they’d been gone for a long time and I didn’t hear them and they weren’t in the living room. But then when I looked on the deck they were there in the lounge chairs chatting in the sun. They’d had some iced tea and were looking very pleased with themselves.

In the afternoon the sun shines right on the deck, so I sat out there and blogged for a while. Dave went in and took a nap in the swivel chair, and Tim played games and texted. After a while the sun was shining right in my face so I came in and read on the couch. Eventually it was time to get up and put on nice clothes for Newman’s. Newman’s was its usual yummy self, although the service was slower than we’re used to. As always they had super foie gras, and everything was seasoned and cooked perfectly. Sadly, they have changed their gigondas, and while it was a very nice wine, it was not as spectacular as the Chateau St Comte they’ve had in previous years.

Tim drove us home and made a nice fire, which did not fill the house with smoke because it’s not windy tonight. It was cloudy in town, but completely clear at the house – weather is so local here. Then it was game time, and tonight it was time for trouble. Dave won the first game, and Tim won the second. You will notice that my name is conspicuously absent from the winners’ list. In both games I could not get any sixes until very late in the game, although both games were very close for second and third place. Even though I didn’t win I still love trouble – the honking is so fast and furious, and there’s the pounding on the pop-o-matic and the yelling and pointing and saying “I’ll get you Chauncy!” Tim tried saying nuk several times, but that is not what you say when you play trouble.

Dave has Glen Gould playing Bach on the jambox, the fire is crackling, and I’m comfortably full from a delicious dinner.  Things are good. If it stays clear we’re going to try to stay awake for moonset.

Other things we wish we had: colorful socks for R to wear with her Jambus, sweat pants for D to put on in the evenings when a loose waistband is required, hairbrush or haircut for Tim.

Day 1, in which we do not run a marathon.

The big excitement today is my brother Ben running his first full ironman triathlon in Penticton BC. When I woke up at 8, he was already swimming, and I’ve spent much of my day checking facebook and the ironman webpage to see how he’s doing. His wife, my terrific sister-in-law Joan, is up there representing all of us as she drives from place to place and posts updates when she sees him. He was smiling at both the swim-to-bike and bike-to-run transitions, but his grin had faded by mile 4 of the race and we’re all anxiously awaiting the update that tells us he’s done. I’m trying to imagine doing 13 plus hours of Nia, and I think it’s not a possibility even at level one.

Meanwhile the packing and driving were both very easy. I started my day with a trip to the gym for my shoulder workout, then off to Safeway to buy the important items – oreos (buy one get one free – Tim says that’s one bag for him, one for me and Dave), peanuts, cacklin’ oat bran for breakfast. When I got home Tim and Dave were containerizing the pile of things that we’d gathered yesterday, and they’d both already gotten their clothes together. I bagged the last of the dried peaches and put away the fruit dryer, then took care of my stuff. It was all so relaxed and painless that we were completely packed at 2 without even using our polite (read: annoyed) voices.

I left about 2:40, and Dave and Tim left about half an hour later with Tim driving Dave’s car. We waffled about taking two cars, but convenience won out. That way Dave and I can stay in town after lunch for shopping, or we can do one way hikes or whatever. Also it makes packing easier because we can completely fill the passenger compartment of the van, which is, after all, the largest van of its size. Traffic wasn’t bad, so I got to ACPS about 4, and spent some time chatting with Debbie the owner, who will not be selling the business after all. This is very good news, because she makes the property owners keep their properties in nice shape and is very responsive to suggestions – hence the new dresser in the big bedroom. This is the first time we’ve ever had all our clothes in drawers, and it’s very exciting. Dave has the new dresser, and my stuff is all in Josh’s room.

Dave and Tim got to the house shortly after I did, and were just as amazed at the long-awaited new front door as I was. It is covered with a swirly blue-green colored formica, and is just as odd looking as it sounds from that description. Inside almost nothing has changed – two of the kitchen chairs have been replaced with padded chairs (nice!) and the ancient TV has been replaced with a 32” flat screen TV, which makes very little difference because we don’t use it much.

It had started raining about halfway here and was coming down pretty good, so we used our foul weather routine – Dave transporting from car to door, Tim distributing inside, and me unpacking. It took less than 20 minutes for us to get completely settled in, and then another 20 minutes to type the wireless key into all the new devices. Does it really have to alternate numbers and letters like that?

Then it was off to Mo’s for dinner, where I had the steamed clams and half of Dave’s Neptune plate, and Tim had the clam strip dinner.  They have a new menu (although it’s pretty much the same food as the old menu) and that’s about it. We all think that maybe we should substitute the Irish Table for Sunday night, which would be an awesome way to start the week. After dinner we drove through town to see what was what. At least two galleries have closed, but it was the restaurant scene that was shocking – Doogers has gone out of business, and the Bistro was completely gutted by a fire in July! We stopped at the Mariner to pick up firestarters, and also some cheese for fruit salad night and some Hogwash for Tim. Tonight’s flavor was Piggleberry Punch. Tim may have crossed some sort of taste line since we were last here though. He almost couldn’t get through it. Dave and I each had a sip and spent the rest of the drive home gagging.

Ben update: smile had returned at mile 23 and he completed the triathlon in 13:15.28. Woo hoo! Joan says he ran across the finish line.

After some blogging and relaxing, and Tim lighting a fire with the sissy firestarter, it was time for the first round of games. Dave chose pepper, possibly one of the simplest games ever.  We played 3 or 4 rounds, it’s all a blur. I lost all of them by doing something stupid, except for the last one which I lost from sheer bad luck (Dave beat my blue 4 with the blue 1). The only thing that made losing so much bearable was how hard Tim laughed when I said that pigs say “Nuk”.  We were reminded tonight that the fireplace is a bad idea when it’s windy out. If we had any pigs saying nuk, they’d be bacon by now. Also for some reason Tim and Dave’s helicopters couldn’t be flown at the same time, which is weird because they can fly at the same time at home. Now it is reading and relaxing time. The forecast says the rain should be over by tomorrow.

Things we forgot: watch and bedside clock for Rachel, bathrobe and slippers for Dave, firestarters at Safeway. The green plaid blanket has disappeared, so we should bring two throw blankets.

Gilligan's Extra

Day 7 extra – A 3 hour tour. And the weather was even a little rough.

A fun thing about going to the bridge is that they seem to deliberately leave one of the doors to an officer’s cabin open so you can look in. They are big and very nice. The bridge itself in some ways gets less and less interesting as things get more and more automated – fewer buttons and switches and dials, more keyboards and screens. One thing that stood out to me  is that they still plot the course on paper, by hand – even though all the computers have backup systems (and some of those systems have backup systems), this one piece of information is available even if everything electronic goes down. Another thing I liked was that the ship still has a steering wheel, but it is tiny – like some little sports car. Also we found out that the ship’s call sign is PBKH, which explains why all the tenders have those letters stenciled on them. The bridge tour was given by the 3^rd officer, Liam, who looked about 15 years old.

Next stop, backstage. Two of the singers sat in the women’s dressing room with us and talked about putting on the big productions. Two things I learned: the productions are very expensive to develop and stage (with costumes by Bob Mackie), so each one run for 3-4 years, and may run on more than one ship. So if you cruise often, and especially if you do it on the same ship, you will see the same shows. Also, we already knew the singer/dancer contracts are for 8 months, but what I didn’t know is that when they are looking for replacements they aren’t just looking for talent, they’re also looking for a particular size and shape of person, to limit alterations. What a bummer if you were just what they were looking for, only too short? Mark, the singer who gave this part of the tour, had the unnerving intensity that you sometimes see in professional actors, but his female counterpart was unusually quiet.

Once we’d finished with the bridge and backstage, we headed down to the bowels of the ship (deck C) to see the less glamorous parts of the ship. Our next stop was the laundry, where hundreds of sheets and towels and pillowcases were going through the giant washers, dryers, and irons. Highlights from the laundry, aside from the sheer volume, were that the linens for the pinnacle grill are laundered separately with banana oil to make them feel softer and smoother. And the demonstration of the the pants steamer. You attach the waistband to a stretcher which opens them out, and put the bottom cuffs into clamps. They you push a button, the pants are drawn tight and whoosh, filled with steam, then hot air. It’s quite fun to watch. I especially liked the parallel between the action of the pants steamer and the cruise on the pants – they started out hanging loosely, but as time went on got fuller and tighter.

After the laundry we stopped at the tailor shop, where 3 guys make all the uniforms for all crew members.  3-4 uniforms per crew member. When you realize that they’ll sometimes get 60-80 new crew at a time, it’s a mind boggling task. They even make the beanies that the bellboys wear. It kind of changed how we looked at the clothes the crew was wearing when we got back out on the ship. Oh, and they also do the monogramming on the HAL bathrobes if you order one on the ship, so now we’ve seen where that happened to Dave’s. Also in this section of the tour we went through the crew dining area and the petty officer dining area, but I don’t remember exactly when. Officers and staff eat in the Lido.

Next stop, possibly the best on the tour: garbage room. Industrial sized disposer (with a vacuum so powerful we thought the crew members operating it might be sucked in). Glass shredders. Compactor. Here’s what we learned that was interesting – HAL doesn’t dump anything overboard – garbage is containerized on the ship. But they also have contracts at different ports to get rid of different garbage, and apparently Victoria is a big garbage offloading port. If you think about it, the ship has limited storage space, so baggage is held for loading & unloading where the garbage is also held (safely containerized) for unloading. So if we don’t stop at Victoria and get rid of the garbage, where will the baggage go? Norman, the health and safety and something else officer who gave us the tour (he was Scottish and one of the best guides) was a little preoccupied with moving things around.

Onward through the storage areas, including the place where huge replacement parts for the azipods are kept (the azipods are the giant propellers in the back that can swivel 360 degrees and actually pull, rather than push, the ship through the water) to the food area, the largest section of the tour. Here we were picked up by the assistant culinary manager, Jurgen.  First stop with Jurgen was the bakery, where they had fresh cookies for us and were making rolls with one of the roll shaker machines that they have at grand central bakery.

Next, off to the food storage areas, where we came to understand why the tour is at the end of the trip – there wouldn’t have been anywhere for us to stand. Here we learned so many interesting things it’s almost too much to write about. Let’s start with when they get food. Apparently frozen food and staples are picked up every 2 weeks, even on the one week cruises. Fruits, vegetables, and dairy (including eggs) come in weekly. This stop in Seattle was a big shopping week – the full 2 weeks of staples plus the weekly allowance. Combine that with having to offload all of the garbage from the same holes in the ship where the food would be coming in, and Jurgen was also somewhat preoccupied. Another thing you wouldn’t think of is that the beef comes in frozen and uncut. It’s thawed in a giant refrigerator, and takes about 3 days to thaw. So you can imagine that they have to be very systematic about remembering to get it out in time to have it ready to cut and cook – a problem we sometimes have at home, only they can’t just order pizza.

We stopped in the alcohol cooler, where all the beer and wine and spirits live. They gave us each a glass of champagne and here we learned more about demographics. We’d learned at the meat freezers that the average age of cruisers changes based on the length of the cruise – the 7 day cruises skew much younger. From a meat perspective, that means more beef, less chicken and fish. In the alcohol cooler we found that it means more beer. Also we learned that you can call ship services and have them stock your favorite local brew – this made Dave pay attention. Then it was on to the nearly empty dairy locker, with one lone wheel of Gouda sitting on a shelf and just a few of the 23,000 dozen eggs that they’d use in a week. Jurgen said that sometimes at Christmas they would decorate that particular freezer so they could have a cold place to celebrate.

Now we’d been where the raw materials were stored, so it was up the garbage elevator to the food prep areas, which we’d seen already on the standard kitchen tour. Jurgen pointed out the soup kettles (at home you’d use them for hot tubs, he said). The sheer size and amount of work is amazing. For example, for dinner there’s one kitchen for the open seating for about 600-800 people, which is mostly like a regular restaurant except the menu changes every night. Then there’s another kitchen for the two fixed seatings, in which 400 people per seating need to be fed more or less simultaneously. The Lido, Pinnacle, and Cannaletto restaurants have their own kitchens. All the food is prepared as ‘a la minute’ as possible, with line cooks doing the final cooking. Each entrée is prepared at its own station, and the waiters have to stop at each station and pick up however many they need. It’s controlled chaos. Maenwhile the executive chef is sitting in his office watching all of it through multiple remote-control cameras that let him zoom in even on a particular plate to make sure the “product” is all up to standard. One thing we have been frustrated with on this trip is that (with the exception of the fish), the meats (including shellfish) have generally been overcooked; we wonder if this has to do with the kitchen crew all being new, and if the open seating dining would be better since it’s not quite as mass-prepared? (Dave points out that breakfast and lunch in the main dining room are also open seating and the cooking wasn’t any better, so maybe not.

Also in this area on the wall they have the plating charts, which come from headquarters and have all the menus with pictures of how everything is supposed to look, which is how I found out that night’s dinner included my beloved espresso-date pudding for dessert. Yay! We finished our walk through the kitchen and came out in the dining room. This is one of these “well, duh” moments where you realize that of course the kitchen comes out in the dining room, but you’re completely disoriented anyway.

Last stop was back to the piano bar, where we got Holland America bags filled with goodies – our group picture with the Captain, a signed menu, one of the HAL cookbooks and a set of HAL shot glasses (about which my first thought was oh, crap, our suitcases were already almost at 50 lbs – where are we going to put those?). They also had drinks and appetizers for us (not in the bags), and soon we were joined by James Deering, the hotel manager, who knew absolutely everything and was happy to talk about it. James had just returned to the Oosterdam after a stint with Princess cruise lines (also owned by Carnival, but he had to actually resign from his job before he could talk to the other cruise line – they discourage inter-line transfers). He told us about everything from having to remove passengers from the ship for stealing or fighting or throwing furniture overboard, to how to choose the best cabins (not near the bow thrusters, or over or under where the music is, or near the cleaning supply closet, or…) to the difference in demographics between the shorter and longer cruises, and how there’s even a difference between Alaska cruises that leave from Seattle vs Vancouver (Vancouver has a higher percentage of international passengers). We learned about the training facilities in Indonesia and the Phillipines – the one in Indonesia, he said, is “a building on the outside and a ship on the inside” – basically it has replicas of everything on the ship, since the crew has to hit the ground running. No time to learn to make towel animals or clean a cabin once you’re on board. The Filipinos are primarily in the dining room and bars, so their training facility is smaller and more specialized. He also told us that many of the cruises are sold as charters, including the nude charter, which is an interesting idea given how cold they keep the ship. James was very forthcoming and engaging (Edith and Stacy Ann had been delighted to have him back on board, since he throws very good crew parties) and we would have asked him questions all day, but his cell phone rang again and he excused himself, saying that it was the captain and he had to go deal with something.

And that was the end of the 3 hour tour. It exceeded both of our expectations by quite a bit – we learned so much and felt like we’d gotten to talk to all sorts of people and had a better idea of how the ship worked. Plus we got to walk around in all sorts of back passages that passengers don’t usually get to see, and also we had been fed – always a concern on the ship, since you get used to eating every 30 minutes. The only place we didn’t get to go that I’d like to have gone was the engine room, but since you have to go down a ladder to get there they don’t let people do it. If you’re ever on a HAL or Princess ship, I would definitely recommend this tour.

Big Finish

Day 7 – Heading to Victoria

Dancing until 11 and then up for stretch class made for a short night last night with the time change. But once again I woke up before my alarm, got dressed and headed out. Since I woke up a little early I took the laptop up to the crows’ nest to get caught up. The wind had died down somewhat – it was down to 45 knots or so – but they still had the netting on the pool and the outside doors closed. There were 5 of us for stretch & abs, but Steve was about 10 minutes late.  After class I came back to the cabin where Dave had just woken up. He wasn’t in the mood for breakfast so I went by myself and shared a table with a couple from Pendleton and single lady from Oxnard. I had the yogurt parfait and waffles, which was very enjoyable.

Back to the cabin for some relaxing, and off to boot camp. Neil didn’t show up, so it was just Angie and me. It was fortunate that it was Angie, because she doesn’t push as hard as Steve and I didn’t have a lot left. She was asking me how many kids we had and how old, and made me very happy by saying that I must have been very young when I had them and acting surprised when I told her my age. Then she asked if the man I was with on the cruise was their father, and was stunned when I told her how long we’ve been together. It was kind of sad. While I was at boot camp Dave went to the debarkation talk, where they pretty much told the same jokes as they always do and said the same things they always do. We had a little while before lunch, so we took our customer satisfaction surveys and sat in the ocean bar to fill them out.

We wanted to get to the ice carving demo at 1, so we decided to get a table just for the two of us at lunch. Sometimes when you share a table you end up with people who eat multiple appetizers or entrees (not that there’s anything wrong with that) which can slow you down. It was kind of fun being just the two of us.  But after we’d finished lunch they made a couple of announcements – first, that the heavy seas had slowed us down so much that we wouldn’t get to Victoria in time to have the shore excursions there, and second, that it was too rough for ice carving.  So that was a little disappointing, but it would be bad to have a block of ice fall on a crew member. An interesting thing about Victoria is that the ship still has to stop there and send a tender ashore to clear customs, to comply with the Jones Act. The Jones Act is also why we had to stop in Mexico on the way back from Hawaii.

At 1:30 it was time for the best shore excursion ever, and we didn’t even have to leave this ship! On some of our early cruises we were able to sign up for the bridge tour, where they’d take 30 or so folks up to the bridge and point at all the screens and controls. So in 2009 when we went to Mexico we went to the front desk to sign up for the bridge tour, only to be told that they didn’t do it anymore. On the Hawaii cruise we tried again, and this time they said that they didn’t do it anymore but they now had a full-ship tour that you could pay for that lasted about 3 hours. The price seemed kind of steep and what would you look at for 3 hours anyway, so we didn’t do it. But this trip we’d decided to consider it a shore excursion, so we took 2 of the 12 available spots. At 1:30 we met up in the piano lounge with Sheri, the ship’s marketing manager, and headed up to the bridge. I have made the tour into its own blog entry because it’s very long and detailed.

Once we were back from the tour it was already time to head to the Queen’s lounge for the NeptuneCats. Each cruise you need to find your favorite entertainers, and these were our favorites for sure on this cruise. They played until 5:30, at which point I had an appointment with Steve for my free body composition analysis and sales pitch, and Dave went to walk around the ship. Steve was late as usual, but eventually came by and attached me to the little machine that tells you your hydration level (fine), your base metabolic rate (what’s that? Mine’s a little low) and your fat and lean body mass. Then he drew little circles and x’s and diagrams on a piece of paper all the while talking very fast about lymph nodes and fat cells and your liver and alkalinity, and then he took one magic number and multiplied it by another magic number to tell me how much weight I would lose if I would buy the 3 month supply of super-algae detoxification pills for $308. Since my magic number was just under 4 pounds, it seemed a little steep, so we just looked at each other and said how much we’d enjoyed working out together, and I left the gym without any algae.

Dave got back to the cabin about the same time I did, and we decided that rather than go to the crows’ nest for one last time with Matt (who was very good, but with whom we had not bonded) we’d do our packing. Which we did, carefully filling the big suitcase with the bulky lightweight items to avoid an overweight fee. The packing went quickly and was surprisingly relaxed, partly because we’re getting better at low-stress packing and partly because the room was so big that there was room to lay everything out, and also room for us to get past each other without having to squeeze to one side. It will be hard to go back to the smaller room with only one sink and one shower.

We finished packing just in time to catch a little more music in the ocean bar, then off to dinner. It was only Earl and Olympia at dinner, and she apologized for being crabby the first night. Dinner was really good – delicious lamb chops for me, a double order of chile rellonos for Dave, and a double order of dessert for me. We also drank the second bottle of wine we’d brought, and it was very good. But we’ve decided we probably won’t bring wine again – while our wine from home was better than all but their wildly expensive wines, we think it’s more fun to try new things.

After dinner we went back to the ocean bar and danced a little (we even were the only couple out on the floor during one of the slow dances – how brave we’re getting!), but it was clearing up outside and Dave really, really wanted to go for a walk. I really, really wanted to keep dancing, so we split up. Just at that moment the older lady who’d been my willing “let’s get up and dance” partner last night showed up, so she and I went out on the floor and got the two girls who also love to dance out on the floor, and then a group of Australian women showed up, and the party really got started. More and more people came out on the floor and we danced for about an hour straight. Dave showed up near the end and was there for the 3 encores – as one of the people there pointed out, the band was in a corner, and if we didn’t let them out they couldn’t leave. The last one was Mustang Sally with everybody singing and dancing like crazy, and the band taking turns doing solos, and everybody pretty much giving it everything they had – it was the best. As we were leaving cruise director John wanted to know where we’d all been for the whole cruise, but it just all came together for a really magical end to the evening.

After that we walked around the ship for a while, looking at the stars and cooling off, and then it was bedtime. We were in the first group for disembarkation, so it would be an early breakfast in the Lido (best place for eggs benedict, anyway) and then off for a long wait at the airport. We’re sad that the cruise is over, but it’s not as hard as leaving the Hawaii cruise was.

Tonight’s towel animal: hanging monkey. One of our favorites. Well done, Joe and Olih!

Fresh Ketch

Day 6 – Ketchikan

So far I have set my alarm every night to wake me up for stretch class, and today it almost went off. As usual I got up and did stretch and abs (with Angie, so not as much fun as it could have been), then had some breakfast in the Lido. I should have skipped it, because our shore excursion started at 9, and it was all about food. We met on the pier and walk a block or so to the Fish House restaurant, where they put us in the back dining room and stuffed us with tasty fresh seafood. My favorites were the crab and the halibut Olympia, and of course the blueberry-rhubarb bread pudding was a treat. The chef was a young guy named Brandon who reminded us of someone we’ve seen on Chopped at one time or another.

After the meal, we wandered around Ketchikan for a while. It has gotten way more touristy since we were last here, but it’s almost all the same stuff. We went into the Tanzanite International store, and once again Dave didn’t buy me any tanzanite. Also we want to know what tanzanite has to do with Alaska.

We got back to the ship around lunchtime, but neither of us wanted any lunch. We went back to the cabin until it was time to cast off, then we went up on deck to watch. For the first time this cruise there were passengers who didn’t get back in time, and the last two were really running as they got on. Once they were off the gangplank the forklift took it away and we were off.

The Captain’s daily meteorological and navigational briefing indicated some rough weather ahead, which made us very happy. It had been warmish and not raining in Ketchikan, but as we were pulling out it started to sprinkle, and the winds and seas steadily increased. Right after departure we hung out in the crows’ nest where Matt was playing, and you could see it start to rain harder and harder. Then it was workout time – me off to boot camp and Dave onto the treadmill. It was very exciting because there was actually another person doing boot camp with me – Neil, an African American dressed in purple shorts and t-shirt. He went well with my purple nails, and it was nice to have someone to roll my eyes at.

After exercise we once again made use of the two showers, then went and checked out the tanzanite in the gift shop and over to the Ocean Bar to listen to the Neptune Cats. Like everyone else on the ship they’ve not been on the ship or together very long, but they are really good. Also they have 3 giant thick fake books that they’re constantly picking up and dropping and looking through.  We hung out there for their whole set and enjoyed a free appetizer. They finished with “Sweet Caroline”, which seems to be required by each musical act once per set. We like singing the whoa-whoa-whoas, but don’t they know the Red Sox are at the bottom of the standings?

During the dead time of no music we went back to the cabin for some blogging and reading and sleeping, but I woke up after not very long because the ship was hitting whales – that’s what Chris the guitarist from last cruse called it when the ship would hit a big wave and shudder. I put on my evening clothes and headed up to the crows’ nest (they were just finishing up team trivia) where you could see that we were really in some weather. We were plowing straight into fantastic waves (hard to tell, maybe 20 feet tall?)(no, we found out later, only about 4-5 meters), the rain was coming in sheets, and when Dave came up he said the apparent headwind was 96 knots. If it’s not going to be warm and sunny, this is what we like. They put up closed signs on all the outside doors and netted the pools – no sloshing this time, although they don’t seem any rougher than when I was in them on the way back from Hawaii.

We stayed in the crows’ nest watching the waves until it was almost dinnertime, then checked out the Neptune Cats for a couple of songs. At dinner it was just John and Dave for a while, then Olympia and Earl came. It was baked Alaska parade night, which was fun. After dinner we went back to the Neptune Cats and danced our feet off. There was a big crowd and everybody was having a blast. They even did two encores (or anchors, as the lead guitarist called them), which is simply not done, but nobody wanted to stop. We finished up the night in the queen’s lounge where they were having something like karaoke – people were getting up and singing with the HALcats backing them, but there were no words on a screen and Lynn was there to help out. It was the usual mixed bag, but the highlight was two very nerdy guys getting up to sing the B-52s Love Shack. They may have been off key, but then again that’s how the song was written. They were awesome, and we decided that would end our evening.

The clocks get turned back tonight, and tomorrow is our last day. It’s been a good cruise, once we started trying new things. As Dave says, you can’t do the same cruise twice.

Today’s towel animal: cow, or dog. We’ve had it before on other cruises and weren’t sure then either.