April 29, 30 and May 1, 2023 Sea Days #5 to 7
There was another time change this morning at 2 a.m. Officially the International Dateline has been crossed. All passengers received in their hall mailboxes this morning, a personal certificate acknowledging that they had crossed the International Dateline.
We still could feel the motion of the ship and hear the ship creaking throughout the night. So not a great sleep and we were a bit tired today. Temperature at 8 a.m. was +4° C, mostly cloudy, humidity 85% and windy NNW 47 km per hour. Course NE 55.6° at 20 knots.
The line for the Kodiak, Alaska, immigration passport inspection group numbers formed before 6 a.m. Since the last port was in Japan, the ship is officially entering the United States on May 2. Everyone – passengers and crew – need to go through face-to-face passport inspection then. The group numbers control the number of people flowing through the process at half hour intervals. We have the 9:30 to 10 a.m. slot giving us time for breakfast before leaving the ship.
We had breakfast in the dining room with Janet and Kevin from the Lake District of England and Karen form Hawaii. We tried to walk on the Promenade Deck, but the wind was whipping the whitecap froth up to the deck making it wet and slippery. Instead we walked in the corridors of Decks 4 to 8 and then again in the afternoon. However walking was amore of a challenge as the ship entered rougher seas.
We attended Andy Fletcher’s lecture about Chaos Theory and COVID-19 at 10 a.m. Rachel the cruise director presented Ancestral Memories about the indigenous people of Alaska. The captain’s noon announcement warned that tomorrow Westerdam might experience seven meter high waves. After lunch Andy Fletcher’s lecture about Chaos Theory and Fractals followed by a questions and answers half hour just as interesting as the presentation.
We went for lattes in the Crow’s Nest on Deck 10 where the navigation junior officers were adding today’s position at noon to the map. The location was 46°36.623 North and 176°28.841 West. You could feel the roll of the ship from up that high.
Westerdam was travelling south of Alaska’s Rat Islands and Andreanof Islands, part of Aleutian Islands. An interesting fact that I found on the Internet - “Alaska’s Aleutian Islands arc right up to the edge of the Western Hemisphere at the 180th Meridian making Amatignak Island (179o West), Alaska the westernmost point in the U.S. Longitudinally, Alaska also has the easternmost point Semisopochnoi Island (179o East), as the Aleutian Islands cross the 180º Meridian, into the Eastern Hemisphere. That makes Alaska the most northern, western and eastern state, longitudinally, in the U.S.”
We had our later afternoon Five Crowns games with Pat and Pete. At dinner we sat with friends Judith and Terry and Terry’s husband, Johnny. The ladies worked as flight attendants together for many years.
Tonight’s entertainment was the quartet, Cantaré’s show Stage and Screen. Westerdam’s Casino has not seemed as busy when compared to other ships’ casinos.
Today steps 11,117 and 31 floors
April 30
The sky was partly cloudy, but the temperature was only 3° C and the wind was quite strong, WSW 64 km per hour. and the humidity was 80%. The course today was NE 60.9° at a speed of 19 knots (about 35 km/hr).
We ate breakfast in the dining room sharing a table with Eve and Gordon from California - Palm Springs, in the winter and Huntington Beach in the summer.
We walked on the Promenade Deck, seeing some blue sky at the start, until clouds brought some rain. By then, it was time for Andy Fletcher’s Complexity Theory Part 1 lecture.
At noon the ship’s coordinates were 50°01.124 N & 166°32.046 W. Westerdam was cruising south of Alaska’s Fox Islands chain directly south of Uminak Island. This is the second last Sea Day before arriving at Kodiak, Alaska which the captain told us at noon is 713 nautical miles away. He warned that this afternoon waves could be six meters high. He mentioned that the stabilizers are keeping the roll of the ship to 3 degrees. The roll could be as much as 15 degrees, if the ship was not equipped with the extendable five meter long “wings” attached on the hull below the waterline in the forward section of the ship.
We skipped lunch and decided to use the complimentary Mariner Cocktail vouchers. The cocktail was sparkling wine, tonic water, a dash of elderberries on ice with slim orange rind curl garnish.
The afternoon started with Part 2 of Andy Fletcher’s Complexity Theory lecture. One of the points of the presentation is that bacteria are getting resistant to drugs in shorter and shorter periods of time, weeks instead of years.
The port talk followed. Rachel gave a summary of things to see and how to get to them in the three Alaska ports. We went to Lido and got ice cream cones and we could see that fog had rolled in but the visibility was about two kilometres. The ship was being bounced around and one roll sent dishes sliding off surfaces in the Lido and probably other places on the ship.
We met Pat and Pete for a game of Five Crowns. Then we joined Judy and Doug for dinner. Tonight’s dress code was dressy, the second of three on this cruise. There was no ballroom dance event tonight nor is one scheduled for tomorrow evening. The show this evening was mind reader Brent Webb.
Steps today were 12,427. Flights of stairs 46. We found that the pitching of the ship while we were walking outside was distorting the count, the correct number was around 30.
Today was the seventh day in a row that the clocks were advanced one hour early in the morning. For the Alaska ports, there are no time changes. It was May Day is Europe that saw protests in France still about their pension reform. Also a news item was that the American government will remove all COVID vaccine restrictions for visitors and citizens on May 11.
As the ship neared mainland Alaska we were cruising out of sight of land not far south of Shumagin Island.
It was a rainy morning, just 4° C with SW winds at 55 km per hour and humidity 92%. The ship is moving at 16 knots on a course NE 48.6°.
We had breakfast in the dining room at a table for two closer to the centre of the dining room and less noisy than at the back windows.
We peaked at the Promenade Deck, which was soaked from the rain. We walked in the corridors of Decks 4 to 8 which accumulated over 3,400 steps. That led us to Lido deck where we saw Pat and Pete as they gathered a quick breakfast before going to their Bridge class. We continued to Deck 10 to the Crow’s Nest for an Americano and Latte to watch the rain clouds and waves.
Back to walking the Decks 8 to 5 corridors down to catch the first 25 minutes of Andy Fletcher’s lecture about A Brief History of the Universe at 11 a.m. The second Mariners’ Lunch was held at 11:30 a.m. Doug and Judy attended the one yesterday. We sat with Phyllis and Vance from California, Donny from Washington D.C. and George from Brisbane, Australia.
Rachel, the cruise director, introduced the captain and some other officers. The captain gave a brief speech, before Rachel led the toast.
The captain’s noon announcement said Westerdam was facing just three meter waves and was 304 nautical miles from Kodiak.
After lunch, in the theatre, Rachel presented a talk on Alaska’s annual sled dog race, the Iditarod. Then we climbed back to the Crow’s Nest on Deck 10 for lattes. The large map showed today’s noon ship’s position had been added. The location was 54°17.395 North and 157°55.937 West. The ship was rolling slightly during the day. It will be interesting to see what kind of gait we will walk on land tomorrow after seven days at sea.
Pat and Pete joined us for games of Five Crowns after their afternoon Duplicate Bridge.
No ballroom dance was scheduled for this evening. There was a medical emergency announcement while we were playing cards. Alerting the Medical response team to go to a stateroom on Deck 5.
While walking to dinner the captain made an announcement asking that anyone with Type O+ blood with their donor card willing to make a donation, please go to the Rolling Stone lounge. There was a good response, but I do not carry with my blood donor card in my wallet if travelling.
Larry reserved a table in the Pinnacle Grill for our anniversary dinner. We ordered wine with the seafood meal. Appetizers were Forest Mushroom Soup with crème fraîche and Panko fried stuffed large mushroom caps including Beyond Meat mince. We chose Seared Jumbo Scallops accompanied with parsnip chips and cauliflower risotto plus baked potato and roasted baby beets. As an anniversary surprise from the ship, we received 9 cm by 9 cm mini chocolate cake, that we had sent to the room and some custom candies. For dessert ,we ordered crème brûlée and chocolate soufflé. We put the cake in the mini-fridge until tomorrow for a snack when we return to the ship after wandering around Kodiak.
The evening entertainment was changed from the instrumentalist/pianist Dennis Daye to the comedian Scott Cotter. The sea was to rough to secure the piano on stage tonight.
After the show we climbed up to Lido for tea.
Tomorrow the destination is Kodiak, Alaska
Steps 12,742 Flight of stairs showed 20, but it was actually more like 34 flights today. We will have to pay more attention to how many flights of stairs that we climb. One flight is supposed to equal an elevation of three meters.
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