Stunningly Sunny Skies in Sitka

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After a slightly lazy start for the day, with Sharon and her mom not needing to rush off to mass in the morning or to catch an early tour, we made our way to the Lido. French toast seemed to be the preferred choice; but, I added some fried eggs over medium and sausage to that. There were no hash browns, but they did have cut-up breakfast spuds. Sharon was one step behind trying to get a chocolate croissant, other people seemed to have them, and many were leaving them half eaten or hardly touched and Sharon’s blood pressure was beginning to rise. She never did wrangle one of her favorite morning treats.



We made our way to the Vista Lounge where HAL tours were assembling for their group tenders to the pier. For our tour, the boat would be pulling up alongside the Oosterdam, and we would board directly onto the catamaran. Mother realized that she didn’t have her picture ID, so I hurried back to her room to fetch her driver’s license. I couldn’t locate her wallet in her purse, and decided just to bring her passport which I had in my room safe. So I retrieved that, and hustled back to the Vista Lounge. They still hadn’t called our group for departure. They finally did, and we made our way to the A-Deck and boarded easily on the calm seas.



We had mostly clear blue skies, and visibility was incredible. It had poured the previous night, and rained all day yesterday, so we were truly fortunate. In the distance we could see a volcano, that had last erupted about 8,000 years ago, and its cloud shrouded top gave the appearance of a smoky mountain. One of the first birds spotted in the water was a black cormorant in the water with its long S-like neck. As we approached this lean lanky bird took to flight. I wonder if this is the same cormorant I spotted two years ago when we took a walking tour on a remote beach near Sitka. We spotted some solitary otters swimming in the water. We also spotted a single sea lion in the water, and several harbor seals swimming near our craft. On a rocky outcrop of an island we spotted two adult bald eagles surveying their hunting grounds. This is early in the whale watching season, but some humpbacks have completed the 6 week journey from Hawaii. A female and a calf may take up to eight weeks to make the trip. Hawaii is the mating grounds for the humpbacks, and it takes about one year before the female humpback will give birth. Alaska is the feeding grounds, where the female will gorge reaching about 35 tons, much heavier than males that will top the scales at about 25 tons. After leaving the Alaskan waters, these whales will not eat again until they return the following summer. Females need the extra weight to support their calves born in Hawaii, who will gain about 150 pounds a day from the mother’s milk that is about 50% fat (as compared to human milk which is about 2% fat). The cub presses its mouth against the mother’s teat and the mother injects the milk into her calf’s mouth to avoid the calf also ingesting sea water. We spotted several spouts of water, and saw a couple of flukes flair as the whale dived. Reports by our crafts sister-ship of a mother and calf in the area caused us to move closer to an island to see if we could also spot them. In fact, we did, spotting the two spouts on several occasions and seeing on impressive fluke that Sharon caught on her camera.



We also spotted several rafts of otters, first some males in open water. They are about 5 feet long and will typically weigh about 80 pounds, but some larger ones may be nearly twice this big. This time of year the males will be together, and the females will be together with their young. The females tend to occupy the kelp rich waters with plenty of food and kelp to attach to so they stay put rather than drifting away. The otters can be seen floating on their backs with their feet out of the water to keep their hairless feet out of the water conserving heat.



After about three hours on the catamaran, we returned to the dock to catch our bus out to the Fortress of the Bear to see some brown bears. This facilitby runs completely on donations and from their ticket sales. The endeavor seeks to rescue bears orphaned for various reasons. Alaska’s policy to deal with troublesome bears, and cubs raised by a troublesome bear, is simply to kill them, believing that the cubs have been taught bad human-unfriendly habits. Alaska prevents bears that they do manage to rescue to be returned to the wild. Also, in order for them to rescue a bear, there needs to be a plan in place of what the final disposition of the bear is to be, such as a zoo that will be its ultimate home. The fortress currently has two large circular enclosures with high concrete walls. A viewing platform, with a handicapped access ramp, offers views of both enclosures which contain pools of water many tree stumps, fresh water and make shift shelters. The bears are entertained with “bear toys” such as a tractor tire which we observed one bear in the pond completely demolish and shred while we were there. In the enclosure with three young bears that had been rescued as sibling triplets there had originally been twenty three trees, and now all that remained was a tangled menagerie of trunks and roots. Those running the shelter, work with the bears, training them in appropriate behavior.



As the guide cut up a salmon the three stood up, reached their arms out, clapped and appeared to be praying for food. They kept up this routine while salmon was being offered. But some of the salmon were reserved for local eagles, many which could be spotted in the local trees. The guide would whistle to catch their attention, and eventually one would take to flight towards the enclosure. As the eagle approached the guide would toss a salmon piece up into the air. The eagle would adjust slightly and easily grab the salmon with its claws. For one eagle a piece was set on the top of the concrete wall of one of the enclosures. We had to give the salmon about seven feet of clearance on either side, about the wing span of the golden eagle. One eagle swooped down and grabbed for the salmon, but failed to snag it, knocking it into the bear enclosure of the two older bears, but unnoticed by them. Still, the eagle didn’t see the need to try and retrieve it amid the pile of tree roots it had fallen into. Earlier when an eagle had dropped a piece salmon on the flat sandy beach, he did make a fly-by and retrieve his meal before a bear could claim it as his own. Sharon and Shirley were walking up the ramp when the guide started to feed the eagles. Shirley got a bit anxious since she has a fear of birds after having one land on her head when she was young. So having several eagles fly over her was not pleasant. Sharon was a bit concerned too after her seagull experience in Valparaiso earlier this year.



We only had forty minutes at the bear fortress before we needed to catch our bus back to the ship in time for its late afternoon departure. Sitka experiences two full tides each day.



Back on board, we stopped by the cabins to drop off our tour bag, water and jackets before we headed to the Lido. When we knocked on the mother’s cabin door to head down to eat (I’m still getting used to going down to Deck 2 for food and entertainment onboard), I noticed one pillow on top of the TV, and another crushing the towel frog on the table the room steward had left the night before, and surmised that the mothers must have had a pillow fight. I’m just saying, how else does a pillow wind up on top of the TV? My mother and I decided to try the Taco Bar buffet with the make your own fixings. While I had loved this on the Veendam in Antarctica, which was very well tended, today they were out of cheese, and really, what is a taco without cheese. The cheese remained empty for over thirty minutes while we ate. When we departed, I noticed that someone had left a piece of cheese off of their cheeseburger in the cheese container, and I guess that about sums it up. Another issue, the plates were stacked and contained in three cylindrical containers, that would have been impossible for my mother to lift, and which hid them from her view, so that she was wondering where the plates were. Even I would not have thought that they would have hidden the plates like this. And the warm flour tortillas wrapped in aluminum foil actually disintegrated when you got the foil off, to be basically worthless, except to plop them on a plate and eat the whole mess with a knife and fork. Again, I must wonder, what’s the point? Sharon and her mom had a burger and fries, plain of course, and they seemed quite satisfied.



I rushed ahead to the Crow’s Nest to stake out a place for us to play Team Trivia. The questions were pretty easy and mostly obvious. We got 13 out of 15. But we butchered the bonus again, which I’m embarrassed to say is my fault for making it too hard. The question is how many playing squares are there on a Monopoly Board. I know, just go with the obvious answer that my mom was pushing. First I don’t listen to my wife, now I don’t listen to my mother. She of course was flashing ten fingers four times at me, so nearby teams couldn’t hear. But I figured it was ten squares on a side (it is of course eleven squares on a side). If it is ten on a side, then you have twenty squares counting opposing sides, and eight additional unique squares on the other two sides each, giving 36. This logic is perfectly valid, except it needs to be done for 11 on a side… 22 + 18 = 40! We got beat by one point.



We rushed off to $60,000 jackpot bingo. It was my turn to buy tickets, and this time we sat on the left side of the Vista Showroom. Maybe to change our luck, but mostly so Alex Bling the Bingo King doesn’t block the view of the bingo board as he did when we sat on the right side. There were big prizes again, though not as large as the first day. They were offering $770 for the final blackout (if you didn’t win the jackpot in 46 calls or less). Our cards were pathetic. Shirley got to stand on the third game, a small plus sign. As for me, on that game four of the “I’s” that I needed for the plus sign were “17”. No this is normally my lucky number, and I’d have been thrilled. I was born on the 17^th day of the month. But, it’s really bad if they don’t call that number, and they did not call that number! Shirley was also standing on the final number called on the blackout game, only to hear someone call bingo.





Mom and I then headed to mass where we teased the “wedding” couple to see if they were still married. The priest then told some wedding stories he’d had happen. One bride, with a sleeveless dress stepped down and onto the front of her dress pulling down the top for quite a view. Another was about a couple who got a new bible as a gift and decided to use it for the readings. So it had bookmarks in it and the first 2 readers were fine but apparently they got removed before the third reader went up. So she tried to look thru it to find it and then decided since she knew it was in the New Testament she’d just open it to some page and read it. She picked “well” but not sure I should post the starting sentence here. So we had a few good laughs and then headed back to our cabins.





My mom and I rested, okay; I started on the blog, while Sharon and Shirley attended mass. When they returned, we went up to dinner. I had checked earlier, and tonight is the International Evening, and I was concerned about finding something for the mothers (and Sharon). We sat at large table for ten. We were the first to be seated, and the mums sat between Sharon and me. My mom didn’t bring her glasses, and Sharon didn’t bring hers, so reading the special menu with details in italics (and small) was problematic. Dishes were organized by continents, so there were quite a variety of choices. I chose the goat cheese pastry appetizer for myself. “My three daughters” weren’t planning on having any appetizers or soups; but, I convinced my mom to try the Vietnamese spring roll. And I kind of winked at Sharon to suggest that she should order the spring roll too (for me). I thought both were delicious, and it was a nice touch to put the spicy sauce in an Asian soup spoon on the side. My mother seemed a little perplexed by the rice paper exterior wrapping, and wasn’t sure that she wanted to eat it; although, I assured her that it was perfectly fine. Others at our table who ordered this seemed to have the same dilemma, and one gentlemen carefully unwrapped his spring roll to eat the inside. My mother did eat half her spring roll, but I think she was expecting a fried egg roll, and would have been fine with that. One of our tablemates mentioned that she had a pen pal who lived in Portland, and was asked if she planned on visiting on her trip to the West Coast from Pennsylvania. “Oh, no,” she said. “We’ve never met; and besides, I don’t like her that much!” They’ve been corresponding for years now, she claimed. She said that they used to talk about boyfriends; but, nowadays the letters tend to cover such topics as health care. Sharon and my mom had the same idea for an entrée, the lamb shank. Sharon’s mom was a bit less adventurous and ordered a grilled chicken. I went vegetarian and ordered the fried tofu with cauliflower dinner, and I was right thinking that it would be made with curry. It was one of the best dinner entrées that I’ve had on board this trip. I had a similar dish in Antarctica that also had some chilis in it, and I enjoyed that dish even more. For dessert, the moms and Sharon ordered the Gold Rush Baked Alaska; but, I chose the chocolate cake. Our table was pretty evenly divided about the desserts, with about half opting for the Baked Alaska, and half choosing the short cylindrical chocolate layered cake. Both were delicious, and Sharon lucked out with a chocolate ice cream interior. My mother got strawberry, which she didn’t seem to mind. The pen pal lady was joking with our server, whose name tag proclaimed him to be “John Wayne”. She wanted to know if that was really his name. Another at our table asked “You mean as in…” and followed with his best impersonation and deep voice “Well, Pilgrim!” Everyone laughed. I then asked the lady, who came to the table commenting about the day’s Team Trivia, and another bit of trivia that had been bothering her, “Do you know who the ‘Pilgrim’ was that John Wayne said that to, and in what movie?” She instantly blurted out, “Was it Jimmy Stewart?” I smiled and said it was, but she couldn’t come up with the movie. It’s one of my favorites: “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence”. She thought that Jack Palance had played the villain Liberty in the movie, but I had to correct her saying it was Lee Marvin.



After dinner we made our way to the Vista Lounge (Showroom) to see tonight’s entertainment, Mike Robinson, who Sharon said was a comedian. When we took our seats, Sharon observed, “Oh, he must be a ventriloquist.” She noted the puppet sized suitcase on the stage by a single stool. Indeed, he was a ventriloquist. He began by introducing himself, and telling of the first time he performed comedy in front of an audience. In the background you start hearing a faint voice “Let me out of here!” We were all greatly amused, and both mothers were heard to squeal with delight during the show.





Sharon and the moms decided to call it a night, as there was nothing happening in the Piano Bar until much later. As they were heading to the elevator, my mother was saying how wonderful the ventriloquist was, and she wondered how he was able to talk so fast. A hand tapped her on the shoulder and said, “Practice. Hours of practice on lonely nights when nobody’s around.” It was Mike Robinson and he was smiling broadly after hearing his praises. I had just headed off to the blackjack table after the show, and things started out badly for me. I wasn’t able to win two hands in a row, I wasn’t able to get blackjacks, while the dealer kept turning them over, and doubling down was a lost cause. I tried to briefly recoup my losses, but realized that it just wasn’t happening tonight, and left about $250 lighter from the table.

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Photos

Whale Tail
a bit blurry but I got the whole thing