We arrived in port with the sun shining down on us with beautiful views along the inland sea of Mountains and more trees than you could ever count.
Following breakfast we had a slightly easy morning as Jennifer was joining several other hikers on a trip to Rainbow Falls hike which included a multitude of wooden steps which would not suite Noel. But before Jennifer left we sat at the back of the ship in the sunshine with another couple until it was time for Jennifer to leave on her trip whilst the boss stayed talking to an interesting couple from Florida who had met in Washington some years ago whilst he was travelling from South Africa .
At lunchtime Noel went for a Hot Dog and talked to another couple who had a slightly deformed face due to cancer surgery but he was quite interesting as he used to work for Rockwell and they did a lot of secret US Government business and he had travelled quite a bit and so he was good fun. In the afternoon Noel watched a programme on photography and also read up about Wrangel which is quite a small town of perhaps 2000 residents and this has been owned in the past by the Russians, The Brits and the Americans , so quite a history. It is totally unlike Ketchikan which is tourist driven and as the access is a bit tight its only the smaller cruise liners that can tie up here.
Jennifer arrived back from here hike across the hills and she much enjoyed both the exercise and tour through the pine forest which was of course extremely silent with very few birds. As it was a lovely sunny day and warm Jennifer went for a swim and was serenaded by the Ships singing group[p who were have a practise for an event later in the day. After her swim we sat in the patio area around the pool where the crew were busy setting up tables and moving chairs for the main event which was as much caviar and vodka you could possible have before falling over. We stayed with the wine as caviar is nice but not a must for us.The choral group were from the UK and were really excellent and they sang mostly classical songs end with a good rendition on Barcelona, the Freddy mercury song, and a few songs from The Phantom of the opera and it was most enjoyable except for the ex Chicago cop, mentioned earlier on this trip, kept intervening with additional stories of his UK visit.
Whilst they cleared away after the event we went back and sat on our balcony watching the beautiful scenery go by with a glass of Chardonnay and some Costco Crisps and nuts, what could be nicer.
For dinner we went back to the main restaurant and decided to be sociable and were sat with a couples of widows from Auckland who were on there first cruise and were loving every minute of it and we spent a good couple of hours with them whilst enjoying the excellent food, Jennifer had a veal chop the size of Surrey and Noel had a New York steak and both were really very good.
And so back to the room to listen to music and read as neither of us were bothered about any further entertainment for the evening.
Its a small world, I am writing this Blog in Sitka on 5th September and parked alongside us is the Holland America ship the EURODAM which is the ship we did our Caribbean cruise on in February this year.
