Scenic Sailing by Any Glacier Will Do: Endicott Glacier

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Sharon started off the day by going to mass. I think she may have gone to pray for a break in the weather because the clear skies that we’d enjoyed in Ketchikan are nowhere to be found as we approach the entrance to Tracy Arm. The priest asked those present to pray for those affected by the senseless shooting in a South Carolina church. Even in this remote part of the world details from around the planet do filter in and get discussed.

We tried the Dining Room once again for breakfast. We were seated at a table for two by ourselves, about the same time as a couple next to us. Despite ordering directly after them, they were brought their fruit plate first; while, we waited. Then we waited some more as they slowly finished their fruit plate. Then we all waited while the staff milled around, finally clearing their now empty fruit plate dishes. Then we waited some more while hot plate after hot plate were brought from the galley. Then their omelets appeared, and they began to eat; and, you guessed it, we waited some more. They finished their omelets, or at least she finished her Denver omelet while he picked at his, and I guess they figured we liked watching them eat; because, we waited some more before Sharon’s scrambled eggs and turkey bacon with potato cake showed up, and my Eggs Benedict came with a side of two link sausages, but missing my potato cake. I’m thinking if you’re going to bring an order late, you should at least get it right… I’m just saying. Our food was hot.

We stopped by the Explorer’s Lounge and did our daily Sudoku Challenge. I easily finished the Easy puzzle first; but, had some trouble with the hard one, and Sharon actually finished first. She went up to the Crow’s Nest to save us a spot; while, I struggled on to finish the puzzle. As I’d suspected, I’d missed something obvious.

We had Team Trivia at 11am. We showed up early because we expected the Crow’s Nest to be crowded with sightseers. We were right, but we did find a couple of free tables and chairs and sat down to establish our beachhead. Our cruise ship lingered around the entrance to Tracy Arm in fairly heavy and dense fog; but, turned around and came back out. The captain and pilot had agreed that conditions were too poor to proceed further into the narrow gorge because of the fog and ice. They added a few more activities for the summer but it was now time for Trivia.

All of our teammates did show up in time, and we had to fend off some who were eyeing the empty chairs that we were saving. We did give up one; but, got it back when the girl didn’t want to use it. Ross the cruise director set the tone for this challenge when he asked “Which of the human senses, on the average, is the last to go?” We chose “Smell” (Sharon’s choice was Touch); but, just before Ross called for “Pencils Up” at the end of the challenge, I had a flash of insight and changed the answer to “Touch”. Do I have to tell you that I was wrong? Well, Sharon was wrong too! The answer was in fact “Taste”. Sharon was pretty sure that she knew what structure on earth took sixteen hundred years to build. We walked on top of it last year in China. Ross, who is from Zimbabwe, asked “Alphabetically, where does ‘Zimbabwe’ appear in the list of countries?” I think that everyone got this one right: Last. And most people knew that glass is made from “Sand”; although, “Silicon” was acceptable as well. And Sharon blurted out the name of the country where the ruins of “Macho Pichu”. Everyone guessed “Peru” as well. We had trouble with what sport was featured on the cover of “Sport’s Illustrated”. We wrote down “Boxing” first. Katrina proposed “Football”, and having nothing better, we went with that. John pointed to her and said :This one's on you kid". It was unfortunately “Baseball”. How will Sharon ever be able to look her brother Paul in the eye again? Or her nephew Kyle? We only missed two of the one-point questions; so, it looked like it might come down to the bonus: “What two colors would an observer from outer space see when viewing earth.” Just think back of that first lunar earth-rise that took everyone’s breath away during that memorable Apollo mission. The answer of course is blue and white. From the Get-go John was urging "Write down Blue and White" and luckily we did. We were tied with one other team when all the answers had been checked, with a score of fifteen points. The tie-breaker was, “On average, how many people jump each year from the Golden Gate Bridge?” I was leaning towards a low number, like 3; although, that would be a poor choice strategically in a challenge like this where the closest to the number wins. Sharon was leaning towards one leaper per week, or the other end of the spectrum with 52. Our teammates proposed 25. In the end I decided to go with one every other week, an approximate average of our three answers, and arrived at 26. The other team chose 12; so, if my original hunch wasn’t right, we should be in pretty good shape. The correct answer was in fact “27”. So we won the Panama Canal pins for today, and took over the lead in the overall cruise challenge.

We popped into the Lido for lunch and Sharon had the meatloaf, while I had a leg and thigh of the roasted chicken, with some vegies. A carnival ship came to the same conclusion our captain had earlier and came out and proceeded to Endicott Arm. Our captain and pilot decided that was probably a good decision. Conditions here were much better. We were on the lower promenade deck for a while looking at the steep cliffs and cascading waters down the sides. There was some brash ice, and a growler or two (chunks of ice rising one meter out of the water), and even a couple of bergie bits (mini-icebergs rising up to 5 meters out of the water). Harbor seals were swimming in the waters and resting with their pups along the shore and on the occasional island. Sharon was doing some scenic viewing while I decided to warm up watching the presentation on what it’s like to live and work on the Statendam. In addition to seeing the cramped crew spaces, and what B-Deck looks like, the highway that extends the full length of the ship. Most crew members share a cabin with bunk beds. Officers and select key staff members (such as cruise director) enjoy a private cabin. Crew members with a private cabin may have a spouse with them on the cruise. The previous cruise director was a woman who had both her husband and two-year old baby. I did find out why there is no longer a roughly two-day waiting period for people serving themselves in the Lido (to avoid spread of sickness). Holland America pioneered the use of serving pieces that have a blue-plastic handle that actively fights germs each time it is touched. This technology has been found to be more effective than the “hands-off” policy, and other cruise ships have been adopting it as well.

Dawes Glacier finally came into view, and we went up to the promenade deck, and the forward hatches to the bow deck were open. We went there and took some pictures. We had our parkas on, and I had some light gloves; still, the wind was quite chilly. We saw some deeply blue and iridescent aqua blue colored ice, but not a lot. Once we heard a significant calving from the glacier; but, I didn’t see any of the falling ice wall.

Then it was time for Bingo. On the first regular bingo game I was the first to rise, this time after just eight calls. And that’s where I was standing when ten numbers later someone else called bingo, only this time it wasn’t Sharon. Sharon and I both came within one call on the second game, a horizontal line, but the bingo was not to be ours. I got to stand on the “X” game; but, someone else called bingo on the next call. On the coverall, where the jackout is paid if someone hits bingo during the first 46 calls, there was a stander on the 46^th call. In seven weeks of calling bingo on the Statendam, the caller had never seen someone stand that early. By the time bingo was called, that first riser was left standing along with most of the room, including me. In fact, I think everyone was standing except Sharon! Okay, she would have been standing after that final call, but someone called “Bingo” before she stood up (so I claim that doesn’t count). So even having an extra 7 bonus cards between us didn’t help. The bonus cards today were for the # of mariner stars you have.



We had some time to kill after 4 PM bingo, so Sharon suggested the casino. I watched as one person played blackjack, waiting until the end of the shoe. He was up maybe $100, and seemed to be enjoying his luck, and two of his friends stood close by watching his action and rooting for him. He was playing two hands and playing between $10 and $20 per hand. With $10 bet on two hands he got a pair of 10’s on the first hand, and a jack-king on the second hand; while, the dealer showed a five. He turned to his friends to impress them saying, “Since, nobody else is playing, I can split these.” And he proceeded to get a four for fourteen and a three for thirteen on the first hand that he’d split. That was followed with a two for twelve and his friends cheered the ace on the final split ten for twenty-one. I didn’t have to look to know what was going to happen next. The dealer turned over the hidden six, and followed that with a queen for twenty-one, winning three of the hands and pushing with the fourth. I guess that he figured that worked out so well for him, that when he got a jack-queen on his next bet, this time with a $20 bet, he felt compelled to do the same thing just to prove that he’d been right!. This time he got a face card, so he split the hand again. This was followed by another face card, and he split the hand giving him the maximum allowed four hands. This time playing against the dealer’s six card, he paired the first ten with a six, and the second face card with a three; but, he then got two face cards for twenty on the third and fourth hands so it looked like he might salvage something. On his second hand he had eleven, and he doubled down getting a nine for twenty. The dealer turned over a five to go with the six for eleven. The third card was an ace so the player began to breathe easier. That was followed by a three for fifteen. Then came the five for twenty. The shoe was over and I started to play. I played for some time, and couldn’t make much headway. The dealer turned around several of his hands, making twenty-one on a few hands that I’d expected to win. I then managed a seven hand winning streak and parlayed that into a modest profit. When I lost a hand I decided that things weren’t going as well as I would like, so I met up with Sharon who was just cashing out of her slot and we moved on to $10,000 jackpot bingo.

We arrived just after 5 PM for dinner. The dinner line wound halfway up to the Upper Promenade, and wasn’t moving. What is going on with dinners this week on the Statendam. We were given a pager one evening, and we had to wait for ten minutes to be seated and another time we had to wait for a table to free up. Dinner for the Open Seating starts at 5 PM and it seems that everyone in Open Seating is showing up expecting to get seated at 5 PM. We’ve been showing up about thirty minutes later most evenings; but, we risk having to wait for a table to free up from those eating ahead of us. This has evidently also stressed the staff, and sometimes the wait time between courses can be quite long on this cruise. I ordered the goat cheese and onion jelly on crostini and it was excellent. The lady one table over was raving to everyone just how good this was. And she was right. It’s definitely one of Holland America’s “keeper” appetizers. Sharon ordered the antipasti plate for me; because, I’ve often wanted to try it but there’s always been something else that caught my eye. I’m glad I did, and I’ll definitely be keeping my out for this assortment of prosciutto, Italian sausage, pate, tiny gherkin pickles, cheese and olives. I had the creamy artichoke and carrot soup and that was superb. Sharon had the everyday steak and baked potato; while, I had the grilled sole. Sharon finished off her meal with the chocolate torte, and I had the hazelnut mousse cake which was delicately light and tasty. We had wound up with a table for two, and despite waiting a long time to be seated, found ourselves with over an hour before the show.

We stopped by the casino to gamble some more. I was having trouble once again even winning two hands in a row, so when I found myself just slightly ahead, somehow, after about twenty minutes of play, I decided just to cash in. Sharon joined me and we went to sit in the piano/guitar bar for a bit. She ordered a Sprite, her new drink of choice replacing Coca-Cola; while, I ordered a Sambuca on the rocks. Evidently there’s not much call for this in the guitar bar because I saw the drink server bring a bottle of Sambuca from a nearby bar and use it to pour my drink. The guitarist is quite good and we listened to several songs before departing to get seats in the Main Showroom.

The performer this evening was Jim Curry doing a tribute to John Denver exclusive to Holland America. A film background accompanied the performance showing many of the national treasures that John Denver wrote and sang about and immortalized in his music as America’s troubadour. The set started with Rocky Mountain High. He did one song about Alaska, one of John Denver’s favorite retreats, that Sharon and I had never hea

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