Tuesday, August 23, 2016
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We were early to bed last night as nothing going on interested
us. Overnight we made a bit of a right turn and the seas are dramatically
calmer. The temperature dropped to 34F and with a still stiff Northerly breeze
it feels very cold out. We expect to pass Point Barrow around 7pm tonight. We
had breakfast back upstairs in Lido today. Clay made a sandwich. I had muesli
and yogurt with a mocha latte. I have been eating Dannon Oikos but today there
was none. There was no non-fat yogurt at all except for one foreign looking
plain carton. I wound up eating a Dannon Light & Fit. They don’t like you
picking up and putting back yogurts, but that is the only way you can study the
labels! Clay had his tablet and showed me the lunch and dinner menus for today.
I didn’t see anything I wanted at all. I sent him to make Tastes reservations.
So it might be cold up there but we’ll be eating there at 7:30pm. No plans yet
for lunch.
The mandatory briefing ran about an hour. We are going to be
guinea pigs on Saturday. I have a bad feeling. The ship is not suited for this,
there are too many people and too many people who are too physically unsuited
or frail or disable for this. The instructions were basically the same as the
Antarctic and Svalbard, with the exception of vacuuming your gear as in the
Antarctic. I don’t think anything but experience can prepare you for zodiac
transportation and too few aboard have experience. We’ll see. Hopefully our
inaugural voyage will be the learning experience they are hoping for and
they’ll be better prepared when they do this again next year. Captain Birger
had produced an instructional video so at least so of the ship’s staff and crew
had tried to walk through the process. They will have us go through the crew
and luggage staging areas to load and unload zodiacs. The will have a boot wash
walkthrough before we come up to the passenger decks. But both ships we were on
before for expeditions had a place to put on and take off boots so you aren’t
tromping through the ship in them. The same for the last outer layers being put
on and taken off right as you get on or off a zodiac. We are instructed to go
our waiting area of Galaxy or Stardust or wherever instructed all geared up and
ready to go and back to our cabins in full gear after. If we sit in the theater
or lounge waiting more than 10 minutes we’ll be drenched in sweat under all
that before we even get to the lower decks!
Again, we’ll see. They also say they planned to load zodiacs with 10
passengers each run. They did not have any photos of a 10-person zodiac. We’ve
never had 10 in a zodiac before 8 for transport and 6 for sightseeing. I don’t
know how they’ll do 10 but since they kept repeating it, it must be the
logistical number of people they need to move with each load given the
passenger count and the zodiac count. Wish us luck!
I went to a 30 minute chair yoga class in Stardust Lounge
after. I was OK. They don’t really have the right kind of chairs except maybe
in a restaurant but it was probably better than Palm Court where they had been
doing it. There are no exercise classes in the fitness center until 4pm. After
lunch sometime as long as it stays calm, I plan to go up and do my own yoga.
They have floor space and mats up there and I already asked and they said the
same was for the passengers unless they were teaching. We’ll see. They also teach
private lessons when none are scheduled so the space could still be unavailable
even when the schedule shows it unused.
We went up to Lido for lunch. Clay went to the buffet while
I held our table. He came back and said he didn’t see anything I’d eat. He was
right. I had a salad while I waited for Tastes to open. We were sitting inside
right before Tastes door outside. I had overheard a man in a uniform telling
the table behind me that since it was so cold they were allowing us to order
Tastes and eat it in Lido. Clay asked our waiter and he said yeah, go out there
and order then go back out and retrieve it to bring back. I got a pizza with
salami and ham (evidently the only meat toppings they have) in 7 minutes. I
shared with Clay but he didn’t have much. It was very thin crust and alright.
Clay asked me to surprise him with dessert. He ate a tiny crème brulee and we
each had a Godiva chocolate mousse. Clay had a cookie and we shared a
strawberry roulade.
After lunch I went up to do yoga. I got a little more than
half way through the 47-minute routine. The captain excitedly broke his no ship
wide announcements rule with the ship wide announcement that he could see sea
ice ahead and port side. There was too much commotion in the fitness center
between ice viewers and private lessons and consultations and sales pitches for
me to stay. Also the view there is only starboard and I came back to our port
cabin for the better views. Clay had to go out and wash the dried sea spray off
our windows so we could see. They are not big on window washing on Crystal as
far as we can tell. I was a bit surprised we hit sea ice so soon. We are half
way between Icy Point and Point Barrow. It was about 2pm and we were past it
more or less by 3pm. The temperature is 32F. We are at 70 degrees 45 N. The
captain said in his noon announcement that he didn’t expect to be off Point
Barrow now until 10pm or so vs the earlier 7pm estimate. He said he had
telephoned the mayor and promised to stay at least 20 km offshore so as not to
scare off the whales they were planning to launch a hunt for tonight.
We finally got around to comparing our own binoculars that
we brought from home with the massive heavy ones Crystal provided in the cabin.
Theirs are Bushnell, same as ours and theirs are 8x42 and weigh about 2 pounds.
My old ones are Bushnell and as nearly as big as theirs but about ½ pound and
they are 7x35. Clay’s are very compact and light and are 8x32. We both compared
ours with their and thought they were clearer and sharper as well as less
unwieldy. I guess you’d be happy to have the cabin binoculars if you hadn’t
bought any but we’ve put theirs away now. Clay has been out in the parka they
provided. He unzipped the fur ruff and adjusted the hood’s snorkel factor so he
could see. They should have held an educational briefing on how to use those
parkas. The women’s parka’s don’t have the same adjustable hood strap on top. I
haven’t worn mine yet. I guess I need to make a point of doing that before I
need it on Saturday at 8:30am when we get our turn ashore.
I did needlepoint by the window and ice watched most of the
afternoon. Clay laid on the bed and mostly slept. We have our 1st
scheduled expedition recap & briefing at 5pm in Galaxy Lounge this evening.
I plan to go to see what I’ve missed today. We have been without Internet all
afternoon. I don’t know if it is because of how far north we are or something
else. If it is just northerliness, then we are going to be out of touch for a
long while. Unfortunate since we learned late last night that our home’s alarm
had gone off days ago and we were waiting to hear back from our neighbor who
had offered to go look into the house’s condition. Oh well.
Checking the navigation map on TV, I don’t think it will be
10pm to reach Point Barrow. I think it’ll be closer to the original 7pm
estimate. Just back from the expedition recap and they’re still estimating
10pm. They reported bowhead whale blows between us and the port side ice this
afternoon which jibes with the one blow without a whale that I thought I saw. I
also thought I saw a gray colored seal on a slab of blue ice but they didn’t
report that so maybe it was just a dirty spot, or maybe the experts missed it.
We learned from a 6-hour old satellite view of sea ice that the company
requested that that strong North wind we’ve been fighting for the past 2 days
was what pushed the sea ice we saw so far south so quickly.
I will post this now if I can. We have already reported on
Tastes and we have no plans out this evening. BTW, Clay got a very weak
Internet signal for about 15 minutes and our neighbor had emailed that checking
the house she had found nothing amiss. So that was obviously a false alarm and
we’ll figure out what happened when we get home if we ever figure it out. No
can’t post yet. Due to our location, we have no Internet. I’ll try again before
bed and if not then I’ll try again in the morning.
We spent over an hour this evening in Palm Court watching the
Chukchi Sea. We saw a lot more sea ice. We saw 2 other ships. One looked like a
tanker and the other like a large fishing boat. I saw a dolphin jump out of the
water. I think that is what it was. It was just one and it was a slick gray with
a fin atop a curved back. I just happened to be looking there at the time. Clay
drank 2 pastises and carped about how nasty it is compared to Pernod and how
Regent served Pernod and knew how to serve it and he can’t get a bad drink
served properly here. We had an even better meal in Tastes than the first visit
per Clay. He said it was because he got the Alaskan Halibut steamed in a grape
leave instead of salmon sliders. Also we ordered 2 duo of tacos and Clay ate the
2 chicken and I ate the 2 vegetarian this time. Both of our desserts which
should have been served warm (mine was last time) were served cold. It was ok
because Clay made us go to Bistro so he could get some cookies. There was a chocolate
fountain there and some pink macarons so I soon had a plate with his cookies, 2
macarons, 2 homemade marshmallows and a strawberry for the chocolate dipping.
It is quarter to 10pm and according to the TV navigation map
we have just passed Point Barrow. We are at 71 degrees 37 N. As we make this
turn past the point we should enter the Beaufort Sea. They are gathering in
Palm Court with the expedition team for the passing of Point Barrow but since
they have said repeatedly that we are more than 20 miles offshore that it would
not be visible, I don’t know why. We aren’t going back up there. Fingers
crossed for continued smooth sailing! Tonight they delivered a passenger
directory to our cabins. Tomorrow night we lose another hour. Clay slept all
afternoon and has been asleep since we got in from dinner.
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