Day Three of the journal I kept on an Alaskan cruise I took in 2003.
Other Days: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11
12:45 AM ADT
Okay, now that was a humbling experience. No, not the 'dance party', as that didn't seem to exist. What I'm talking about is what is outside and around the ship right now... I decided it would be a good idea to see what it's like outside right now, and to also take a closer look at the ship that we were passing. Well, the first thing I noticed when I got outside was the wind. At a couple points it was so strong that it made me stagger, even with the front of the ship having a glass wall that (generally) directs the wind up and over the top. It was like if you rolled down your car window in December while driving at 45 Mph and stuck your whole body out. While up on the upper front part of the ship, if I stuck my hand through the holes or over the protective glass wall, the wind tore at my gloves. All around was the thousand shrill siren sounds of wind howling over wires, rope, support columns, anything round that would make a sound. It was truly amazing. And, on top of all of that, was the black ocean and mountains silhouetted against the midnight blue sky. I truly wish I could capture some pictures of it, but it's just not possible, at least not with my equipment and skill.
Looking out into the ocean and at the mountains a short, but deceiving distance away, I truly understood why one should fear the ocean. These waters at night would likely kill a person in minutes, or if it didn't, it would slowly torture them with the hope that someone might come by.
Well, I think I've about had it for the night... I'm starting to get tired again, so I think I'm going to attempt to fall asleep.
9:15 AM ADT
Ahh, morning. I woke this morning at 8:00 AM ADT, once again, to Adult's Lost Love coming from my alarmish clock. Seeing as I'm a bit tired and we haven't reached any glaciers yet, I decided to turn it off and lay in bed for a while. Well, perhaps 45 minutes later I woke up, showered, and here I am now. I'm not sure what today will hold, although if I understand everything correctly, we'll be going past glaciers off of which huge chunks of ice are constantly falling into the water. We'll have to see about that...
I plan on getting some breakfast as soon as I get dressed, then I think I'll spend a good part of my day doing some more reading and just watching Alaska go by. So, yeah, with that, it's breakfast time.
11:15 AM ADT
Well, that was pretty damn impressive. Our ship is currently parked right in the middle of a rather small bay, which has two large glaciers forming two sides of the bay. There weren't really very many bits of ice falling, but the couple times that small pieces fell, they still seemed to be car sized, making a sound like a dump truck hitting a pile of cars as it broke, then crashing into the water with what can only be described as a loud roar. Needless to say, it's pretty damn impressive.
Lunch should be served soon, and although I had a decent breakfast, I'm starting to feel a bit hungry again. Hopefully they'll have something really good, but kinda light, on the menu...
7:58 PM ADT
Wow, it's already getting later in the day than I had imagined. Let's see... What have I done so far today... Eaten a bit finished the first part of The Illuminatus! Trilogy, entitled 'The Eye In The Pyramid', hung out with those two girls, who's names I still don't know, looked at a few glaciers, and made plans for 22:30 to meet up in one of the bars on the ship.
I'm also sitting here in my cabin listening to some MC Hawking. This stuff is really, really funny... Okay, now it's some MC Frontalot. Anyway... I'm really glad I brought some music along, as this standard soft rock that is played over the PA system on the ship just gets to me after a while. I need to come back to my room and mentally rebel with some underground nerd core hip hop. Ahaha...
Anyway... Since tonight is another one of those formal nights, I'll be eating in the buffet area. I'm not sure what they are having to eat, but I've got until 11:00 PM ADT to get it. Tomorrow night is the last night I'll be staying on the ship and because we depart so early, it has been requested that we place our luggage outside our doors before going to sleep. That means that at some point tomorrow night I'll be packing everything up except for the clothes I'll be wearing that next day and putting everything outside the door. I think this might be a problem as I'd typically pack my personal cleaning items in my normal luggage. Ah well, I'm sure I'll deal. I just hope that the transfer over to the hotel goes well. According to the documentation I've received, I'll be able to get my luggage from the Princess Hospitality Center in Anchorage, and I'll have to somehow make it over to the hotel. Right now I'm sitting on hold with, well, the cruise ship equivalent of a front desk, waiting for them to get me the address of the Hospitality Center. Hopefully MapPoint will steer me true and let me know if I'll be needing a cab, or if I can just walk.
Well, it seems that it's going to be at a Captain Cook hotel, but they are having a difficult time locating the address. I'm back on hold, waiting for this information. Well, they were able to give the location of the Eagen Center, which is supposedly right near the Captain Cook hotel. This seems to be about half a mile from where I need to be, so we'll have to see if I'm going to walk or not. Half a mile isn't much, and a taxi wouldn't cost much, but if it's raining I don't really want to walk that. Ah well, we'll have to see... For now, though, I think I'm going to go grab some food.
11:04 PM ADT
Ahh, evening time. Along with evening around here comes a drastic increase in the ship's speed. I'm not sure why we only travel this fast at night, but it's probably because we only seem to travel on open ocean when this time rolls around. I guess I should clarify. We're not in completely open ocean because it's still possible to see the mountains, but they appear to be about 25 or 30 miles away. I don't know what distance the US observes in relation to the distance to international waters, but this sure seems far enough away to be considered open ocean. Anyway... At night the ship also tends to sway a bit more, which it's doing right now. While I don't feel like I'm going to throw up or anything, I do have the slight floaty head feeling that I get from either playing first person shooters for too long, or doing anything which would typically induce motion sickness, like riding in the back of a car with someone who drives erratically. But anyway... I don't know where I'm going with that.
In a few minutes here I'm supposed to head down to the lobby area and meet up with those two girls for some champagne. I'm not really in the mood for what is essentially bubbly wine right now, but I'll give it a go. Maybe we can swing by one of the more normal bars after this and grab something tasty. From there, who knows, but from talking to them I imagine that they'll end up heading back to their room to sleep sometime before midnight.
Tomorrow should be another day somewhat like today; just sitting on the boat doing stuff, which for me should be reading, packing, and (hopefully) being up early enough to take some pictures of College Fjord. Fnord? Wait, no. Fjord. I just made an effort to find some information about College Fjord on one of the internal TV stations, but nothing became of that. I think that now it's about time for me to head down to the lobby area... Hopefully I won't stand out too much, being the guy in a t-shirt and such.