First Sea Day

               


They are going to keep us busy for sure. The first lecture was at 10. They introduced the expedition leaders and future speakers. They also held an expedition logo sale in the atrium at 10:30 so I missed some of the lecture. The sale was a feeding frenzy, as usual. They did have some nice merchandise. The first lecture at 11 was about the early Coast Guard in Alaska, like in the early 1800's. It was interesting. After lunch I hoped to walk on the deck but it was closed due to high winds. I went outside anyway to see how bad it was. I have walked in a LOT higher winds. Crystal cruisers must be wimps. There were 2 people walking anyway. If they keep closing it I will join them. Instead I walked around our inside corridor. It wasn't too bad. Twelve laps around was 2 miles. 

The afternoon lecture was done by a woman who has climbed to the top of many of the highest mountains, mainly Everest. All the lectures are broadcast in our cabins live also so I opted to watch it there. I think I dozed thru a lot of it. 

It was the first of 2 formal nights on this voyage. A couple we met on the bus from Anchorage had invited us to eat in the Japanese speciality restaurant. We accepted without knowing it was formal night. The menu in the dining room is usually special on formal nights. Sure enough, they were serving caviar. Our reservation was at 7 so we went to our usual table at 6 just to have caviar. They served a heaping teaspoon of it in top of a chive potato base, so delicious. Our waiter kept it coming, I think I ate 4 (just the caviar, not the potatoes)! Next time they will have it is our second and last formal night toward the end of the cruise. 

The couple who invited us have been to Silk Road many times so did the ordering. We had a sushi/sashimi sampler plate for the table, excellent. Next we had an appetizer sampler plate, also excellent. It included lobster egg rolls. By then we were totally full but ordered a main dish to share. Mel and I shared stir fry lobster. Dessert was tapioca soup with green tea ice cream. We walked around the ship for over 30 minutes after to let the food settle. I had not eaten that much in a long time. We invited our table mates to join us to go again next week. Excellent!

It was a very nice day. I always enjoy sea days although this cruise has 17 of them. Once we pass Nome, day after tomorrow, the ports are very far apart. We have 4 sea days before reaching the next one. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

(Backup) New York, New York!

Image
Sail in was at 6:30 and I was actually up to see it! They played our Northwest Passage theme song as we passed the Statue of Liberty, it was very emotional. There is nothing like sailing into NY harbor! We were off the ship at about 9:30. We called an Uber since the subway was quite far from the pier. It was my first, it was pretty efficient! We had him drop us at St Patrick's Cathedral. It has just been renovated so I wanted to see it. Last year it was covered with scaffolding. This year it was beautiful. We then walked up 5th Avenue toward the park. We stopped at the Cartier store. We both have Cartier glasses so wanted to check out the new models. Of course we looked at everything else also. The diamonds had an amazing sparkle. I found an emerald cut one that was what I had thought I wanted when we got married. This one was a bit larger though, at 4 kts. The gal asked if I wanted to try it on, why not. It was $375,000!!! She asked if we had been in since the renovation. I had fo...
Read more

Nome, AK

Image
    This was on the Main Street of Nome! We arrived in Nome around 9 am. We had a complimentary community visit at 10:30 so did not have to rush to get off the ship. It was a beautiful day, full sunshine. Apparently it had been pouring rain in this port during last year's cruise. We took the tender ashore and boarded a school bus, the only means of transportation they had to offer us. Our first stop was to pan for gold. They had gravel, water buckets and pans set up on tables for us. One pan had dried gravel in it so I put it in the sun and there was a fleck of gold shining back at me. I found 2 more tiny pieces then headed to the beach across the street. The guide has said they find a lot of sea glass there. We had 2 guides, one was a student home for the summer. She went with me. She was much better at spotting the glass but we both collected a fair amount. She told me that it is more plentiful further down the beach and that she has found pieces of floral porcelain and even...
Read more

Kodiak, AK

Image
                               We spent 3 days in Kodiak when we drove up to Alaska several years ago so did not plan to do much more than walk around. We arrived into town via tender at around 10. It was raining so not ideal weather for walking. First stop was a craft market at their very small convention center. There was not much that was very interesting. We headed to the center of town where we found a yarn shop. It had a better variety of yarn than I had ever seen! The woman working there said they have nothing else to do in Kodiak for 9 months out of the year so do very well. They also sell online.  By now it was raining harder so we hoped to just find a coffee shop to sit in to use our phones. Verizon still works! We ended up at the Alutiiq Museum, the native people of Kodiak. We sat and watched videos of elders talking about different foods they prepare, while looking at emails. We visited the ...
Read more