Victoria, BC

9/13/2012 Ship Tour today

White Pass Railroad - Yukon Expedition from Skagway

9/12/2012 More rainy weather! Gotta love the rainy season.... We were on a bus to get to the interior and Yukon Territory. The aspens were golden yellow - and mixed with the newly fallen snows on the summits we were treated to some spectacular sights! As the rain cleared and the colors became brighter our driver stopped for photo ops.

 

 

 

 

 

Sawyer Glacier, Juneau and Mendenhall Glacier

0600 we start up Inside Passage. It is 40 degrees and raining with intermittent squalls of ice pellets. Small ice bergs are floating along side the ship, and as we move up the Inside Passage the bergs get larger and there is a lot more of them! The ice is so blue that it is hard to describe.

 



 

 

The Captain decided to back the ship as close to the Sawyer Glacier as he could, and by moving slowly he was sure the ice that collided with the ship would not cause any damage to the hull. The pictures can't demonstrate how blue this glacier is - especially in the haze from the rainy conditions, but I can assure you that it is magnificent sight!

Sawyer Glacier



Sawyer Glacier

From here, we turned around and headed back to Juneau to take in the Mendenhall Glacier. Juneau continued to present rainy weather for us, but there is some hope of clearing some this afternoon.

 

Juneau dockside

We had about an hour ride on a bus to the National Park where the glacier is located, and then spent a couple of hours taking in the sights, taking lots of photos, and mingling with fellow travelers.

 

Mendenhall Glacier

Mendenhall Glacier

 

 

Just before leaving the park, Rol had an encounter with this bear - and worked with the two rangers to help shoo him away so the other tourists could be evacuated to the bus stop! The trusty rangers pushed him ahead of them to keep the bear back from the walkway. Fortunately, I missed this particular opportunity to commune with the wildlife since I was already at the bus stop. Rol was the "hero" for our fellow travelers who were just taking advanage of a waterfront photo-op!

 



 

 

09/10/2012 Ketchikan

Moderately high seas with high wind advisory - rolling about the decks! We are getting a real drenching in the rain, but that is not going to stop us from exploring Ketchikan.

 

 

We went to the Alaskan rainforest and wildlife sanctuary this morning. Hiking through the forest was amazing - water dripping in the lush green among giant Hemlock, Red Cedar, Alder, Sitka Pine trees. We did come across several Black Bears feeding on the spawning salmon in the stream running through the rain forest. It was a little closer to wildlife than I expected! We went through "bear training" before the hike. Simple rules - if you see a black back you "fight back", if a brown bear, you "play dead unless it actually bites you then you "fight back vigorously". We had to get into a big huddle as we meandered through the three groups of bear that we in and around this stream. The thinking there is that the black bear is so near-sighted that a group in a huddles appears more like a big bear and it'll run off. No answer to "what about the human scent?".

 

 



Mama bear is head first in the water munching on a salmon, but her three cubs were a bit more wary of the humans tramping through their forest - one fella got a better look at us by climbing a tree!

 

 

This Red Cedar burl would generally be coveted by woodworkers for the intricate designs found in burls. This tree is now dead and starting to rot away in the rain forest. If alive, this tree would have sold for $40,000 or more. Since it is no longer living it has no value at all. 

 

 

 

Totems are evident everywhere in Alaska. Wayne, seen below, has been a carver all his life. He is a quiet, humble, and focused worker. He did not speak much at all - responding to questions with few words (if anything at all). He would not look at us, or even raise his head for photos. The totem he is working on was expected to be completed that day. Completed sections were placed around the head component he was working on.

 

 

 

You can see Wayne's carving teeth a little better in the following picture.

 

 

 

These are examples of Wayne's work clustered around the wood working shop.

 



 

 

09/09/2012 At Sea

Posts will be significantly reduced/delayed due to very slow or inaccessible internet. The internet sattelite system will be coming off-line for systems maintenance. Even at the best operation, we are told that connections are very slow. Picture uploads take 50-75 minutes and at the premium cost of $0.79/minute that gets pretty pricey! And that cost is the best deal available!

We went to the bridge viewing room - quite an operation, and the view is fantastic! So far I can't get those pictures to upload, but I'll keep trying!

This is one of the navigational programs that is displayed on a monitor in the viewing room.  It shows the ship's speed, heading, and programmed route information in addition to wind speed and other factors impacting the ship's navigation.

9/8/2012 Leaving port

Seattle skyline as we leave port -

 

 

The Space needle sits at the immediate left of the above photo - 

 

 

 

Here we are on Deck 13, an open deck at the top of the ship. What a great way to watch and see everything!







Captain Hoydal 9/8/2012

Here is a photo of Captain Hoydal  and the planned route -



9/8/2012 TSA and onboarding

TSA lines long but they move you through pretty fast. Once through the TSA check and completing checkin, the NCL crew took a photo -

 

Check out the Seattle skyline:





Seattle Departure 9/8/2012

Exciting day - we are leaving for the ship!  We had fantastic driver for the bus ride to the docks:

Meet Omar! What an amazing personality and totally customer service oriented!  Omar lives in Miami for the southern cruise season, and recently started working the Alaska cruises in the summer months. This is his last trip before moving back to Miami.

 

 

Now, on to TSA lines!

Getting to Seattle

Long day on Friday with travel to Seattle, finally arriving around 11:30 p.m. EST. The arrival in Seattle was especially fun when trying to meet up with our "special transportation to the hotel" - more about that later - we won't dwell on that here! But, we finally made it to our room and are now waiting for our coach to take us to the port and dock for the cruise ship.

Check out our "twin"coming into Minneapolis-St. Paul with us! We landed literally seconds before our partner here! 

 

 

Here is a quick view from 38,000 feet somewhere over the Dakotas...

 



Teasers from NCL

Just to keep us excited, NCL provided daily teasers starting 10 days out...