Day 39 - Thursday - 5/04/17 - At Sea to Alaska - 6

Today was our final day of the crossing of the Pacific, and I have to say it has been quite smooth.  The second officer said in his navigation talk that it has been the smoothest crossing he's experienced.  

After the morning interdenominational service which I led on the topic of generosity, Harry Strong gave an excellent presentation on Curtis Flying boats.  Mr. Strong has been volunteering in the restoration of several of these vintage items and has direct personal experience with them.  

For the noon PA announcement of the position and meteorological update and time zone change, Bruce, the Cruise Director, gave it and the Captain gave the onboard events update.  Both were deadpan serious, and we all enjoyed the switch. Following lunch, the Navigational talk was on the general subject of maritime education and how to get one's license to become a master of the vessel.  We also received a weather update that indicated the rainy weather should hold off until we leave Kodiak.   He also indicated that we have a damaged left or port stabilizer and that we are running solely using the right stabilizer.  

Terry Greenburg then presented his final talk on Asia in which he predicted a flip flop in the importance of the Eastern economies compared to the present dominance of western economies, particularly the USA.  I found the evidence compelling, although it probably won't happen in my lifetime. But the symptoms are all showing up now.

From the end of Mr. Greenburg's talk until dinner we reassumed our whale watching position in the Crow's Nest.  The watching was good; the finding was not.  Later my wife saw some dolphins.

Tonight's entertainment was a variety show featuring Rob Watkins and Electric Strings.

Today we learned the US immigration procedure and it will be a bit unfair for those with early non HAL tours.  The procedure will be for those on the higher decks to be processed first and proceeding down to deck 1 which is scheduled last in 2 hours after the start.  HAL tours will be processed among the preceding groups.  Fortunately my non HAL tour doesn't start until noon.

Stay tuned as we are about to finish the final 5 days of this 44 day cruise with a sailing down the Alaska and British Columbia coastlines.

Day 38 - Wednesday - 5/03/17 - At Sea to Alaska - 5

It was a whale of a day!  But I'm getting ahead of myself.  After the morning interdenominational service, there was the BBC game show with all new questions and then we went to the Crow's Nest to read and watch for wildlife.  After lunch in the Lido (we skipped the Indonesian lunch in our he main dining room), I went to the daily bridge and weather lecture presented by the second officer.  Captain Baijens then presented a PowerPoint virtual tour of the bridge plus photos of the Volendam in its last dry dock.  This was followed by a lecture on Quantum Mechanics which was changing to keep up with.  Afterwards we watched for wild life from a now familiar spot in the Crow's Nest.  We saw a few whale spouts plus we sailed alongside Unalaska (Dutch Harbor).  After a short break for a Lido dinner, we resumed our whale watch.  

And were we rewarded.  For almost 3 hours it was a continual display of spouting whales, breaching orcas, dolphins and the like,  this continued all the way through the Unimak Pass which is an 8 mile wide channel.  It was very busy with shipping traffic and we saw 4 large cargo vessels including one huge log transport ship.  All we're headed towards Japan via the great circle route.  We also had terrific views of Mt. Pogromni at 6568 feet and Mt. Shishaldin at 9372 feet. Both are inactive volcanoes and the whole Aleutian Island chain was formed by volcanic activity.

We watched the 10pm performance of the Alley Cats and then the Phillipino crew member show which was as well attended as any of these crew shows. It was a full house.

Day 37 - Tuesday - 2nd 5/02/17 - At Sea to Alaska - 4

At around 9:15pm last night we crossed the International Date Line which theoretically follows the 180° longitudinal line.  Up in Alaska it curves sharply to the West so as to have all of the Aleutian Island chain of islands on the same day as the rest of the USA.  It's an artificial marking on the map, and there was no 'bump' or sensation of crossing that line.  ;-)  We did receive certificates that we did cross it!

It also worth noting that we are traveling north of the Aleutian Island chain as the great circle route we are following took us there.  It's the shortest distance from our last stop in Japan until we reach Kodiak.  Interestingly, we have to sail at least 16 miles from the nearest land because in a full response emergency requiring us to stop, a response can't be expected for 12-14 hours and it would take us at least that amount of time to drift into shore.  Additionally the seas are much calmer up here north of the Aleutian Islands in the Bering Sea than it would have been sailing in the Pacific Ocean south of the island chain.  We did see a couple cargo ships plying their way towards Japan.

Coming back to the day's activities, it was a really low key sort of day onboard the Volendam.  Following the morning interdenominational service which I led with 20 in attendance, our first lecture was by Terry Greenburg on differences between East and West.  It was really good!  I attended the Navigational lecture which today was focused on the technical description of the ship.  It was really well attended (standing room only).  We were told that we'll be passing back through the Aleutian chain tomorrow with two more sea days before Kodiak.   Harry Strong's lecture was on coral with lots of pictures and movies.

Before our Lido dinner, we spent several hours in the Crow's Nest reading and watching for wildlife.  I finished another mystery novel, 'Signature Wounds' by Scott Morrison.  It's time to start my fifth book which will be another mystery novel.  After dinner I returned to the Crow's Nest to watch for wildlife and update my daily blog.  The evening's entertainment was the BBC Earth production of 'Frozen Planet which we have seen multiple times including once on this voyage.  So we elected to not go again. 

After dinner and a dry but cold day today, a light drizzle formed on the front facing windows in the Crow's Nest  as darkness continued its slow creep upon us.  We ended our evening in the Mix watching and listening Don play Broadway show tunes.  He's pretty good and we've seen him on other cruises.

And so ended our second May second. Fortunately the mats in the elevators didn't change so we knew it was still Tuesday.  For those who don't know, the carpet floor mats in the elevators have the day of the week on them and are changed out daily to help us keep track of what day it is.  It's a clever and simple way to keep us passengers aware of what day of the week it is.  Otherwise, there's very little sense of what day of the week it is.

Day 36 - Tuesday - 5/02/17 - At Sea to Alaska - 3

Oh how nice are the lazy days of sea days.  While I had to be up early to lead the interdenominational service, I was pleased that we had 31 in attendence.  Jeremy gave an interesting presentation on the two upcoming ports of call in Alaska as well as our final destination.  Harry Strong followed that up with his presentation on Sea Turtles.

After a brief lunch I attended the daily lecture on navigation presented by the ship's second officer.  It was interesting, and I learned we would be encountering weather in the upcoming days on our way to Kodiak. The afternoon's lecture by Andy Fletcher on space and time matters was pretty intense and was followed by a good Q&A session.

Up in the Crow's Nest, we spotted 3 whales which entertained us for a few minutes.  Later on at dinner in the Lido, some dolphins or porpoises were spotted.

Kubo and the Two Strings was tonight's movie and we followed that up with watching the cast performance of Droom.

Day 35 - Monday - 5/01/17 - At Sea to Alaska - 2

The fog horn continued to blow overnight and it was still foggy in the morning.  After leading the Interdenominational service (quite well attended) with a topic of 'Mystery' we ate a later breakfast than normal.  There was another Mariner awards ceremony and Bruce noted there were over 1,000 Mariners on the crossing.  It was followed by a Mariner's lunch.  There we enjoyed table conversation with a Dutch couple, single ladies from Perth and Alabama.  Before the 3pm lecture on Issac Newton, we did a bit of reading.  Andy Fletcher was a bit difficult to keep up with his presentation on Newton and Einstein and their positions about science, particularly time and space.  Afterwards we assumed our position in the Crow's Nest, read and watched for wildlife as the skies had cleared.  We spotted some fish rising and ocean debris, but that was all.

While tonight was Gala Night, we elected to eat once again in the Lido and had simple meals.

The evening's entertainment was Elliott Finkle, a simply outstanding pianist.  We've seen him before and in my opinion he's the best entertainer we've seen on a ship!  We even came back to watch his 10pm show.  I hope he plays an afternoon classical concert  like we had on another ship.

Day 34 - Sunday - 4/30/17 - At Sea to Alaska - 1

Overnight there was a little motion to the ocean but nothing too severe. However it was extremely foggy.  There was even fog inside the covered LiDO pool area which made quite an eerie view.  

As a volunteer for the interdenominational service it went okay.  Leading songs is not my strong suit, and someone volunteered to help with that at our next service.  Today's ventriloquist entertainer volunteered to read the Scripture, and he volunteered to help in the interdenominational devotional times for the next 6 sea days.

Mr. Greenburg gave an excellent presentation on differences between Japan and the West.  His 4 key points were:

1. Hierarchy vs Equality
2. Individualism vs Collectivism 
3. Certainty vs Ambiguity
4. Acceptance of contradiction vs logic

At noon the Captain came on the PA system and announced that the ship's time was now 1pm.  So in less than 24 hours we've lost 2 hours!

I finished reading 'The Greatest Generation' and started a rereading a novel titled 'Terms of Use' by Scott Alan Morrison.  It's a mystery novel about cyber attacks. I also started a new action thriller 'Field of Fire' by one of my favorite authors in this genre: Marc Cameron.  They are high intensity action packed spy thrillers with a central character of Joshua Quinn who rides a BMW motorcycle.

Harry Strong began his lecture series on One Ocean this afternoon.  It was just an introduction, but he appears to be a good speaker.  Following his lecture we resumed our customary spot in the Crow's Nest watching flat sea and thick fog pass by accompanied by the long blasts of the ship's horn every two minutes in accordance with international maritime law.  Those tones continued throughout the day and into the night.  I wonder how much longer we'll be sailing through fog which makes wildlife spotting nearly impossible.  It was also about 39°f outside which made walking the deck a bit challenging.

The evening's entertainment was a ventriloquist, Rob Watkins.  He was quite good with a number of different routines.

Day 33 - Saturday - 4/29/17 - Kushiro

Finally, we reached our last Japanese port on this cruise at Kushiro on Hokkaido.  We arrived at 8am and were quickly off the ship and found our guide for the day.  We quickly headed out of the port area for an observatory which turned out to be locked as we were too early.  So we reboarded the bus and drove a short distance up the road to a observation point for a brief stop.  It was a bit overcast so there wasn't much to see.  We reboarded the bus and drove back to the observatory and found it to be open.  The guide seemed insistent that we needed a lavatory and this was the place.  What she didn't realize was that there was really good WIFI there and that for me was more important as I couldn't get my portable WIFI device to connect.  

One surprising thing about Kushiro was how cold it was.  It's located at 43º north latitude which is 4º south of Seattle's latitude.  But it's so much colder here and very few spring plants have started to turn green for the the year and there was still snow banks in many places.

It was a short drive up to the AKAN International Crane Center Tancho Observation Center where there was a little crane museum and I paid the 340¥ to be able to see 3 cranes which are in the rehabilitation pens.  One even had an egg that it was caring for.  It was a very large egg.  They are beautiful large white cranes.  After leaving the Crane Center, we headed for AKAN village and spotted a crane in a field.  At the Akan village we watched a cultural show and had a chance to walk around the village.  What was surprising was the number of Alaskan like totems and wood carvings.  We also visited a museum to see the green algae balls and had an opportunity to get some snacks for lunch.  My choice was dried squid, and I found it delectable!  As we were leaving the museum, a fox made its way along the embankment next to the bus.  Later on on the drive back to the ship, we spotted another fox in a field as well as a pair of cranes.  The male crane was doing what our guide said was his 'happy dance.'

We arrived back at the ship 15 minutes before the posted deadline and there were a few local merchants selling their wares plus some students lingering around.  We reboarded and went through the very fast exit of Japan immigration process on the ship in the Franz Hals lounge.  

There was a 1/2 hour delay in the departure due to 3 buses of HAL shore excursions which came back late.  Later we met a couple who were on one of the excursions and the guide, upon hearing of the 3pm on board time, simply shrugged their shoulders and said the tour would occur as scheduled.  

We watched the sail away from the Crow's Nest as the ship backed away from the dock, backed into the turning basin and rotated clockwise 180º, sailed out of the harbor and headed for Alaska with a projected 6 days at sea.  

The captain announced that we would be losing an hour tonight and then an hour every day at noon.  The entertainment was the Cast show of 'Variations' which we watched twice and I worked on my sermon presentation and the order of service for the Interdenominational  service for tomorrow morning that I'm leading.