31 August 2013: At Sea.

Today we crossed the Gulf of Alaska and it was really gloomy. Drizzle all day, rain showers and low hanging clouds everywhere. But…..very little wind and that meant apart from some residual swell from yesterdays strong winds, the sea was nice and calm. That was all I asked for. A nice calm day to finish a very nice cruise. The weather on a last day is not so omni important as most guests are more concerned with packing, or with going through the daily program, to see what the ship has to offer. So if I can provide a smooth ride with the ship then 99 out of a 100 guests are already happy campers. With the low swell and our sedate speed of 12 knots I could do that and thus all was well in the world.

That did not mean that it was a quiet day as such. This is the only real sea day that I have on a 7 day cruise. The one after Vancouver is almost half over by the time I get out of bed, after the nightly standbys and that means that most things have to happen today. So it is buzzing from one inspection to the other, from meeting to meeting and then by 11 am I have the Mariners Brunch thrown in as well. Followed by yet another inspection and then I have it all topped off with the Voice from the Bridge.

There are not that many Voice of the Bridge’s this cruise, due to the port days and also my daily announcements are much sparser as we are having this issue with announcements in ports. Especially in Juneau some people are very quick in complaining when there is another announcement made on board the ships. In one way it is understandable as the constant ding-dong or Ping-Pong of the PA systems can be intrusive; on the other hand if you want to make money from the cruise ships, you have to take the operational side of it in your stride. Still we get the occasional complaints so I try to be a good boy and remain silent as much as possible.
Then there is the issue of late departures, such as in Juneau and Skagway, which reduces the options even more as it does not have much use to tell the world what is going on, if half the world is still ashore. Then there is Glacier Bay, where the Rangers are making announcements all day about the birds and the bee’s (and the ice and the whales of course) and they know more than me about the bay, so again time to keep quiet. Southbound is a little easier as we leave from Juneau at 18.00 and arrive in Ketchikan at 11.00 so I can get a few more daily updates in.

One thing that I still have a hard time understanding is that the whale sightings get less when it rains. Not because there is less visibility, but if you have 6 mile visibility in rain or dry weather, there are simply less whales spotted when it rains. I suppose it cannot be because they are afraid to get wet but maybe they do not like the water splashing on their backs? I do not know but it is a fact that they show themselves less. I discussed it once with a ranger who specialized in whale behavior and he had not seen it in Glacier Bay but noticed it in Hawaii. Whales and downpours do not go well together it seems.

It can get very nasty in the Gulf of Alaska by the end of September.

Tomorrow we will have our one but final call at Seward. The weather forecast calls for 4 seasons in one day again, minus the snow, but no wind of concern and that will make it a good day. If the weather can hold for another 14 days then we will have had a very good cruise season. We are doing one Seward call less than last year. The schedule has been amended due to the fact that planners realized that going through the Gulf of Alaska in late September might not be so pleasant for the guests on board and by that time also the first hotels in the interior get snowed in already and therefore close beforehand.
Tomorrow at 04.00 hrs. we will embark the pilot and then glide towards the dock at Seward to put everybody, minus 60 guests who go back with us, on the train and the busses on the trips to the interior.