Perhaps it was prophetic – meant to me. We slept thru alarm. When I finally surfaced it was too late to exercise, but a bit too early to be worried about the schedule so we lingered for a bit – had what the Brits call a ‘lie in’.
Eventually we rousted ourselves, performed necessary abulations, and climbed the stairs (feeling guilty about not exercising) to Mamsen’s for waffles (Cheryl) and a bowl of their oatmeal (Randy). (Who cares about not exercising!?) The oatmeal was pretty good, especially when garnished with raisins, walnuts, and drizzled with chocolate. If they only had bacon bits it would have been perfect!
Breakfast completed and appropriate lingering haveing been, well, lingered; we headed back to the stateroom to put things together for our excursion.
We reported to the theatre at the appointed hour and waited for our group to be called to the tender.
A note about Skagway. We’re tied up at the dock. However we aren’t able to use a gangway because of our docking position adjacent to a rock wall that had a rock-slide a couple of years back – so of the 4 ships in port we were the one that had to use tenders for the five minute ride around the front of the ship where we disembark. Weird.
Eventually they called our group (There were 5 of us in this excursion.) and we trundled down to the loading area – where we waited for a couple of minutes until they came by and informed us that due to the sea conditions they needed to pause tender operations. We were told to hang out in the Living Room and they would make an announcement when conditions had improved enough that they could resume operations.
So we moved up to the Living Room and took out our books. We were reading away when Johannes (the Chief Financial Officer) stopped by to say Hi. He was the CFO on the Neptune and I used his office in the middle of the night several times for Zoom meetings. He has killer-fast internet. I continue to be amazed that he remembered us. Family.
Johannes suggested that we could be anywhere we felt comfortable so we headed up to level 8 (upstairs in the Explorer’s Lounge) were we found Billie and heard the announcement that tender operations would not resume, all excursions were cancelled, we were stuck on the ship, and they were working on plans to get the passengers currently on land back to the ship. Interesting.
They also announced a 12:15 trivia contest. So we headed down to the theatre where we again scored 14/15. The topic today was “logos” – the TM (Trivia Master) flashed logos on the screen and we had to identify the company. We did very well except for:
Four other teams scored 14 so there was a playoff – and one other team was the first to identify SnapChat’s logo.
So then it was time for lunch.
After lunch Steve took a nap and Cheryl, Billie and I found a table in the atrium and played a round of Shut Up Orville.
Then it was up to the pool deck (Cheryl) and the Explorer’s Lounge (Randy). Cheryl to back a bit in the warmth, Randy to work on yesterday’s blog post. Shortly after we settled in they announced that they would be serving complementary cocktails on the pool deck at 2:30. So as people bagan to gather Cheryl returned to the stateroom for a nap. I dropped down to take a photo or two and though the band was playing and the nightclub singers were making an heroic effort it didn’t look like much of a party. This is a very different crowd from the World Tour gang.
On our way to the Juneau port talk we chatted with another couple who had made it to shore. They reported that the ride was a bit choppy but the real problem was getting on and off the tender boat. The waves were making it impossible to establish a safe connection between the tender and the ship.
Eventually all passengers were able to be returned to the ship and we prepared to cast off. Rather the crew prepared to cast off. The rest of us attended the Port Talk for Juneau and the evening lecture…
…recounting the factors and facts about the gold rush. It’s interesting, the lecturer is a screen writer. He started by explaining how he would tell the story as though it were a play or a movie.
It was a great way to frame and tell the story.
Then we had dinner.
We lingered a bit chatting before we dropped by the Chef’s Table specialty restaurant to make reservations for Sunday evening and returned to our stateroom to finish writing this up and prepare for the ‘morrow.
More then.
Tah, R