Trip Report Oosterdam Alaska Cruise – July 24-31, 2004 Day 4 of 8

[bryanwal]

Tuesday, 27 July 2004 – Cruising Yakutat Bay & Hubbard Glacier

 

The seas are rough today – the ship’s been rocking for hours but fortunately I’ve got my sea legs. I was up at around 8:30 – I have to get up to put laundry out before 9am. The gray and foggy weather this morning is bad for wildlife viewing and the verandah is wet near the edges because it’s been raining.

We decided to eat in the Vista dining room for breakfast – I ordered corned beef hash with a poached egg and tomato sauce and also eggs benedict but didn’t eat the English muffins. I nibbled just a little on the forbidden pastries (muffins and a donut). We headed back to the room to take our vitamins and brush our teeth before going topsides to look at the scenery. Too bad it’s both foggy and raining, because it’s almost impossible to see anything. We passed an RCI ship going the other way.

 

We went up to Lido Pool but too much rain and fog to see much. The viewing windows are all fogged over and we stole a blue napkin from one of the tables to wipe the window. There were so many water droplets on the other side of the window, though, that visibility was still poor. They were serving pea soup here, but no one offered me any. I tried to get the eye of a waiter but the ones coming by only had empty bowls. As I saw we were now approaching the glacier, I went back down to the room to get the umbrella, binoculars and camera and went out on the bow. Lots of people were there but fewer and fewer stayed over time, perhaps due to the rain. Big umbrellas were often blocking the blocking view, even borne by people wearing hats or hoods, who technically didn’t need their umbrellas in the light rain. We saw a little calving at first, then more and more bigger ones, including ones as large as great buildings. One particular one we wanted to fall was just huge, perhaps 30 or 40 stories, from top to bottom with a great crevasse behind it. Finally ice shot out of the crevasse a couple of times and then the whole thing, hundreds of feet wide and high fell outward and down into the water and created such a wave that it rocked the ship. The videographer was there and took my picture once again, as did the ship’s photographer. Right about now, the pea soup would be pretty good. This was the highlight of the cruise for me – so wild and remote, with the 5-mile-wide, 300-500 ft tall glacier before, creaking and groaning, the occasional gunshot ringing out and small to enormous pieces of ice falling into the sea.

 

I ran into an old friend, Brad Christensen from Novell, while glacier watching on the bow. I recognized his voice but didn’t ask if it was him until someone called his name. Back at the Neptune lounge I asked the concierge to look him up and connect us. I talked to him and he said he and his wife Kim would meet us for lunch around the Lido pool. We caught up to to date and then invited them down to our suite, of which they were extremely jealous After they left I did my push ups and sit ups and was going to go out and run but when we got down to the promenade deck there was pouring down rain and wind that knocked over all the art when I tried to open the outside doors. So we went to the gym instead and did 50 minutes on the treadmill, visiting with a woman from Florida, Judy, who works for Remax and does Disney timeshare resales. So does her husband, and their kids are in real estate, too. It’s hard to stay on the treadmill when the ships moving and I had to have my hands out to steady myself and grab the handles when the ships motion was trying to throw me off. Then I worked out on all the cybex machines, returned to the cabin, showered, read and dressed for dinner. Our laundry hadn’t returned so I called the concierge, Darma came by and then checked the laundry and came back and told us it wasn’t ready. I told him I needed the pants for informal night, so he went back and brought back what was ready. They can’t find some underwear but everything else was ready.

 

On and off during the cruise, Pete, the Bingo Dingo (one of the assistant cruise directors) made ship-wide bingo announcements. I found this very annoying.

 

E & I went to the captains’ reception for suites in the Northern Lights Disco, visited with the head of housekeeping and some folks from Bothell, WA (close to where we live), one of which is an 83 year old man who’s going to do the India to Africa section of the Prinsendam around-the-world-cruise. We headed for dinner via the Photo shop where we saw my bow glacier watching picture, which was pretty good. At dinner our tablemates were again no shows. I had carpaccio of beef, Ketchikan smoked salmon chowder (quite good), sweet tomato, red onion and basil chiffonade salad, and a little osso bucco and Indian spiced lamb loin chops. I tasted Kevin’s watermelon sorbet (yummy) and the Yukon sourdough bread pudding. I’m doing some cheating on this cruise, but I take CarbBlockers when I do. The net result is that I lost two pounds on the cruise.

 

After dinner we stopped at the Yum Yum guy. Earlier, Elizabeth had to stop exercising because the rocking of the ship was making her sick, so she went down an took some Bonine. After dinner the Ym Yum guy’s candied ginger made her feel a lot better. The boys, who met us at the Vista Dining Room, were present at its opening tonight and told us they like the chimes that call you to dinner.

 

We returned to the suite to update this report and then went to see male a cappella group “The Mikes”. They were great and have been performing on the O for several months now. They are all from New Brunswick and the lead, “Tony” proposed to his girlfriend during last week’s performance. Jeffrey bought their CD for sale in the lobby. We kept on running into them, especially Brett, throughout the cruise, where they explained they’re going to renew their contract. They love this cruise life, are treated as passengers (they have regular cabins and the run of the ship) and only have to perform once or twice a week. Sweet!

 

- Bryan Walton