After two days of nothing but reading, walking the beach and the occasional swim, today I decided I should “do” something. One of the daily offered activities at the Beach House (where I’m staying) is to go on a Jungle Trek with Juta, a man who lives in the village just down the road. I met Juta the first day I arrived here and every day he’s been asking “Canada, are you going to come today?” He was pleased that this morning rather than lounging in one of the beach side hammocks, I had my walking shoes on and was ready to go. There was one other couple on the trek with me - Molly and Jerry live on a small island off of Puerto Rico. The four of us set off, walking first up the ... read more

What an incredible summer I’ve had! To those of you who subscribe to my blog, I apologize that in the last day you have been swarmed with email alerts that I’ve been updating. I got tremendously behind on my blog while in Hawaii and then Alaska, then had a very busy summer (which you’ll discover in this entry). Now I’m travelling again so I needed to get caught up. Caught up I’ve done, but your inboxes had to be filled up in the process. Apologies for that. I have been busy busy busy since I came home from the Spirit. After getting home, I had a couple days in Dunnville before I rushed to Toronto for a couple days of visits, then back again. I tour guided for a week, took a group of students to ... read more

Last week I was able to take one of my favourite types of tours but the Alaskan version when I went snorkeling. I’ve had one other favourite on my must-do list while up here in the north - zip lining. I did some research and found a company that was willing to take a group of crew members and offered us a great deal. I got a group of friends together and today we were off. Today was another wet and cold day. Definitely not ideal zip lining weather. But we sucked it up - and ultimately lucked out because the rain stopped just in time for our tour. The ship is docked in Juneau today. We took a small motorboat across the channel to Douglas Island. We were suited up, then driven up the mountain ... read more

After eight and half months onboard - it is officially my final cruise! Every cruise we have a scenic cruising day where we’re still on the ship but we sail into an Alaskan fjord and up to a glacier. Though our itinerary has said all along that we’d be sailing in Tracy Arm, each week we’ve been in Ellicott Arm. Ellicott is wider and there’s been less ice there so our captain has felt it’s been safer going there. Every week the scenic cruising has been beautiful, but all of the crew have been very curious to see the neighbouring fjord that has been alluding us. Well this week, I lucked out because today we cruised Tracy Arm - just in time seeing as it’s my last scenic cruising day. Wow. Again, Ellicott Arm is beautiful. ... read more

In Ketchikan, right near where the ship docks, is the Great Alaskan Lumberjack Show. I’d read before that it is totally kitchy and tourist-tacky but great fun. Add in the fact that we could get treated with crew passes and my friends and I were sold. We’ve been packing our days with tours up until this point - in fact today I’d thought I was going to go on another tour but I didn’t get space at the last minute - so today we decided to go see the show. And it was goofy and it was kitchy and it was tourist-tacky but wow was it a fun show! Four guys competed in teams of two in various lumberjack events. One represented Team Canada (Dawson Creek) and one Team USA (Spruce Mills) and the audience was ... read more