Wednesday, August 16
At Sea
Today we were at sea and we would spend half of the next day at sea, sailing towards Juneau.
I get very restless, so a day at sea is not a day at the beach for me. I want to be DOING something! There were a few activities during the day that interested us, but not many. There were even fewer things to amuse the boys.
We woke around 6 am to fairly rocking seas. We weren’t sea sick, but we all took a Bonine (non-drowsy Dramamine) just in case.
Our choices for breakfast were room service, the buffet on the Lido deck or Brunch at Sea in the dining room.
We chose brunch.
I ordered the Eggs Benedict with Bacon, Mark had the Heurvos Rancheros and Hash, Nate had Blueberry Pancakes and Cheese Grits and Ben had the Eggs Benedict with Hash.
Food was good, but the room was shaking. We could hear rumbling and felt vibrations through the whole meal. Engine? Stabilizers?
At 9:15, after breakfast, we went to the theatre for a lecture on Alaska’s Glaciers, Volcanoes and Wildlife by Steve the ships naturalist. The lectures are videotaped and shown on the ships tv channel and we ended up watching it a bunch of times, mostly at night as we were going to sleep.
As we were passing by, on the way to the lecture, there was trivia in the Red Frog Pub. Trivia is in my blood- my brother owns a pub trivia company, my cousins and I write questions and content, we have won a few local trivia competitions. The few questions that I heard were super easy:
What city does Batman live in? Rocky Balboa? The Flintstones?
We couldn’t stop to play, but I knew I would be back to try another time.
After the lecture, we went back to the room, grabbed some stuff- books, binoculars, playing cards and we headed to the Lido deck to get a table so we could sit and watch the water.
At 11, Mark and I went down to the lobby area to watch a demonstration on making sushi. The chairs were all taken up, and I am short so I couldn’t see from the couches on that level, so we went up the stairs and we watched from there.
After that we met the boys for lunch. This was one of the few times we ate at the buffet. Pizza was excellent. The food from Chopsticks was very good. I did not like how all the different stations for food were spread out, even in different rooms. I like to sample small amounts of everything offered, so I prefer a set-up where everything is at the same station.
After lunch, we found some seating on Deck 2 near a big window. We got some drinks: Mark and I split a mojito, the boys got a virgin pina colada and a strawberry daiquiri. We played a few rounds of Yahtzee- I had packed die and some score cards.
Then we headed up to Deck 10- the boys found deck chairs for reading, Mark and I walked a few laps around the deck in the sun. There were whales in the area, I believe they were announced.
Back in the cabin, while we were getting ready for formal night dinner, my husband saw what he believes was an ocean sunfish (mola mola) but it was gone by the time I got out to the balcony.
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Mola Mola- The ocean sunfish is the heaviest known bony fish in the world. Last summer, this fish was the subject of a profanity-laced, hilarious viral video when a couple of fishermen with very strong New England accents and very foul mouths were trying to figure out what they were seeing
“Jay, It’s a %@#$ baby wheel” “Or a tuner”
No picture from the cruise, but here is a photo of the one my son Nate saw on a whale watch he went on the week before our cruise- As part of his summer internship at a local Audubon center he got to do cool things like tidepooling at the beach and go on whale watches.
Hey, I think I saw part of an ocean sunfish (or a shark) this week. I live about 15 minutes from a beach where there have been reports of whales- humpbacks, minke and possibly a finback, feeding just offshore. I went to check it out yesterday. Within 5 minutes, I saw a whale breach, and I took about a dozen pictures of a whale on the surface. Then I noticed I didn’t have a memory card in my camera. AGAIN! The rest of the pictures I took of the whale were crap. I did get a couple of pictures of seals and then I saw a fin in the water. This was either a shark or more likely an ocean sunfish which is often mistaken for a shark.
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It was formal night in the dining room. We arrived a few minutes after the doors had opened. There was a line to get in and they were handing out pagers. After about 5 minutes, our pager started speaking, so we went up to the check-in station. Along with everyone else, because all of the pagers were going off at once. The hostess told us that we were not being called, we needed to wait until the red lights started flashing.
Same thing happened on the last evening as well. This time, we knew that our table was not ready when the pager started talking, but others had the same reaction as before- heading up to the hostess desk and being told (rather brusquely) that they needed to wait until they got red lights. Perhaps they should be mentioning this when they hand them out!
The food we had tonight was very good.
But they label the "Appetizers" "Entrees" which screwed us up for most of the week because we normally consider entrees to be our main meal.
A selection of Food Porn:
Look! There’s Maine Lobster!
Seared Striped Bass, I believe
Ben ordered the lamb chop from the Steakhouse menu for an additional $20 charge
Nate selected the fruit and cheese plate for dessert
This melting chocolate cake was OUT OF THIS WORLD!!!
The hazelnut chocolate cake was meh.
Throughout the meal we heard crashing dishes a number of times. Like seriously, we heard plates or glasses breaking 6 or 7 times while we were eating. On subsequent evenings we hear occasional breakage, but nothing like this first night.
After dinner, we went back to our cabin and called it a night.
Next Up: Juneau What the Rainiest City in North America Is?
(Or: A Port In Any Storm)