Aloha to my friends and family,
As many of you know Joyce and I took another cruise together recently. It was a BIG one!! Six weeks long and so many wonderful destinations. I've been home three weeks and am leaving again in three more so you'll be hearing a lot from me in the very near future as my window of opportunity in getting the commentary and photos done is rapidly closing. My computer gave up the ghost and had to get a new hard drive so getting my 5,000 photos loaded and organized for use was greatly delayed. As I've said many times, I do these for me....so I'll know what the heck I did on my travels. And I'm also doing this for Joyce in order to, in some small way, thank her for taking me along on yet another fun adventure. And so she will also remember what the heck she did...lol. So....here's hoping I haven't forgotten everything already.
We left Vancouver, British Columbia, on the afternoon of August 21st on the beautiful Oceania Cruise ship "Regatta". She's considered a smaller ship with only 680 passengers. She's a little beauty with wonderful cuisine and excellent service from a great crew. The decor is French I'd say, and quite charming. Our little Russian cabin girl, Olga, was dressed in a little black and white maid uniform. So cute.
The first thing we did was have lunch and discovered that they had Tiger Beer. Well, that's a good omen. We discovered Tiger Beer and loved it on our trip to Singapore last year. And even though we were in the casual dining cafe the food was pretty darn good. And they had an ice cream bar complete with milkshakes. Yes!!
Our first destination was to be Ketchikan, Alaska, after one day at sea. During the first night we traveled up the inside passage between Vancouver Island and the Canada mainland. The narrowest section is at Seymour Rapids and Passage and is quite narrow. The change of the ships motion woke me up and I could see the shoreline quite close by though I think we'd already gone through the worst of it. My prevous sailing experience always has me interested in where I am and what challenges may be occuring for the ship and the captain. He had no idea that I had his back!!
So, it was sunny in Ketchikan. How about that? Joyce had arranged a trip up to George Inlet Lodge for a Dungeness crab feed. We traveled about 15 miles South of the city to a beautiful lodge on a beautiful inlet. Busy place with buses, vans, seaplanes and boats all coming to enjoy the feast. What can I say? It was super good. Nothing better than Dungeness crab. I'd never been out of town before in a vehicle so the ride out was interesting as well.
Back in town we made our way down to the Artic Bar, tradition. Not much going on there but it's a great location and check out the mural....very nice. And the happy bears are hard to miss!
Juneau was our next stop and the first stop in Juneau is always the Red Dog Saloon. It's such a crazy place. Sawdust on the floor, a silly piano player, very interesting relics hanging off the walls, etc. We ran into our friends from Honolulu there of course. They were a fun bunch. I met them on the flight over and we'd had dinner with them on the ship. And of course I bought Mike a saloon shirt in the saloon store that they funnel you through when you leave.
Lunch was Tracey's Crab Shack. Now I know you're thinking, didn't they eat crab yesterday? Well, yes, but this was King crab. Different animal and super delicious. Loved it. The weather in Juneau wasn't quite as nice but it didn't rain. We spent part of the afternoon at the Hangar where the sea planes come and go. Joyce had been there in the Spring and took a plane to a glacier to get ice for her scotch....a bucket list item ticked off. Fun to watch the planes come and go....and the ships. There were four in town that day.
The next day afternoon was spent at the Hubbard Glacier. It was quite rainy and with very low clouds. We were afraid that we wouldn't see much but we actually did though the photos aren't good. This glacier is very active and did a lot of calving and cracking while we hung out. It's apparently one of the fastest moving glaciers around and I was impressed by the amount of noise it made.
Okay, number one is done. I've no idea how many more it will take for the whole trip but I've narrowed it down to 550 photos!!! Don't worry, I won't post them all.
Aloha,
Gayle
Date: Tue, Nov 1, 2016
My Regatta Cruise #2 Hello again,
Our next and last stop in Alaska was in Sitka, a place I'd never been. It was not a nice day unfortunately. Chilly and rainy but still beautiful. We'd signed up for a shore excursion to various places including the Alaska Raptor Center. Their mission is to save injured animals and hopefully release them back into the wild if they're able. The ones that they believe will be released are kept in an environment that doesn't include humans. It was an amazing place. The star of the show was this beautiful American Bald Eagle. We were in the front row so I got quite a few really good shots of her up close. The owl is only a few inches tall. We went to the Na onal Historical Park and viewed totem poles and salmon trying to get up the river to spawn, went to a Russian Dancers show and ended up in town at St. Michael's Cathedral which dates back to the early 16th Century. There was a fire so not the en re place is original but it's super impressive. Walking around town we discovered a tavern that was showing the Seahawks game from the day before so we stopped in to watch. Love our Hawks. When we sailed away in the afternoon there were a great number of humpback whales that were very close to our ship. We actually heard them as our balcony door was open and they were blowing. We got a great view and the captain did an announcement and changed course to give the whales some space. Aft er another day at sea we arrived in Victoria, Bri sh Columbia. Now we've been here many many times and it's a lovely city....but not so much in the pouring down rain. Everyone kept saying how warm and sunny it was yesterday. Well, I'm here to tell you that it was cold.....and we went on a horse and open trolley tour. The hot bu ered rum I had at a pub in town later was just the cket. We ran into our Hawaiian friends there as well. Great minds and all that. Next day was sunny Astoria, Oregon. We took a tour that goes up to the Astoria Column with views that go forever. In all the dozens of mes I've been to Astoria this was the first me up there. The Astor family built this tower in 1926 but originally the town of Astoria was established in 1811 by the John Astor fur trading party and became the first permanent U.S. se lement west of the Rocky Mountains. I didn't know that!! Later we lunched and walked the boardwalk near the Columbia River and back to our pre y ship.
fTwo days later we woke up in San Francisco on a warm and sunny day. I had an appointment to get my eyelashes refilled (don't ask!) that took us to an area of the city that we could walk down to the Wharf area later....which we did. Our first stop was the Buena Vista Cafe for an Irish Coffee. "Everyone" does this I'm told. I'd never done it but now I'm someone...lol. It was good! Next I spotted an In and Out Burger. Well, Joyce had never been there so in we went. We shared a burger and fries. I love those burgers and am looking forward to several more in the next few months as we travel to Mexico.
Back in San Francisco we made our way to Alliotos for chowder and views of Fisherman's Wharf and the Golden Gate. We actually walked all the way back to the pier where our ship had a bunch of new faces. We were so happy we didn't have to unpack. This cruise was one big long one for Joyce and I but was actually three shorter cruises. San Francisco was the end of one and the start of another. Our Honolulu friends le for Vegas and most of the other passengers as well. Our ship had an excited bunch of new folks and we were just happy we didn't have to unpack like they did. Since this is a new cruise as we leave...I'll do that in my next email. Under the Golden Gate and on to Mexico. Again soon, Gayle
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