Alaskan Cruise - day 2 — Captain Father John

The seas are calm as the sun rises over the Inland Pasage. All night we continued to cruise past Vancouver Island. Life is good onboard Radiance of the Seas. Orlando our room concierge is very attentive and brings ice when asked. Our dining staff are also quite nice. Everdina is from the Philippines and is our waitress for our 8:30 pm seating at table 405. Paul from India assists Everdina. Rachel is big fan of the Hunger Games trilogy and the heroine is named Katniss Everdine. However Everdina has never heard of the Hunger Games.

This ship is 980 feet long and has twin gas turbines generating 70,000 horse power. It has pod drive that can rotate 360*. In addition there is a 14,000 horse power diesel engine to run the generators and other systems. With three bow thrusters this ship can be easily docked sideways. At 980 feet she cannot transit the Panama Canal. We are cruising at 16.6 kts.

The cost for WIFI on the ship is 75 cents per minute. If you purchase 200 minutes it is only 50 cents per minute. To their credit the WIFI is very slow so you burn a lot of minutes just waiting for downloads.

As suite passengers we were invited to the meet the Captain and crew for a private breakfast function. This is our first time upgrading to a suite but the extra amenities plus the extra space in the cabin make it a good value. The captains name is Malcolm Rodger. I wonder if there is ever any confusion during radio transmissions when someone says “roger that” and he wonders if they they are calling him. We sat with the Chief Engineer, Ante Mjehovic from Croatia. He provided all the factoids about the ship.

Today is a full day cruise with no ports of call. The ship will arrive in Ketchikan at 6:00 am on Sunday. We will go on a DUCK boat tour. We are contemplating possibly doing a helicopter ride to the glacier when we are in Juneau on Tuesday. The seas have picked up to 2 – 3 feet so there is finally some slight movement in the ship. I am sure the gyro stabilizers will kick in if needed.

I had previously mentioned that the Chinese were notorious smugglers but we have a few members of our group that did a good job of bringing something onboard that is forbidden. The cruise line allows each person to bring one bottle of wine. However our group decided they all wanted rum instead of wine. In one instance the rum was cleverly concealed in plain sight by adding a small amount of red food coloring and putting it in a red wine bottle with a cork. That bottle was spotted at the security check in. A cursory inspection revealed a red liquid in a red wine bottle and was allowed to pass. The other concealment was putting white rum in a white wine bottle. When spotted at the security X-ray they were told to bring their bag to the inspection table. Given the crowds and the chaos they just walked right past the inspection table. All of our contraband made it safely onto the ship. Then we went to the ship’s store and found that they are selling liquor at very low prices so our antics were for naught.Tonight is formal night in the restaurant. It is a gala hosted by Captain Rodger that. Because we are in a suite we could send out out finest threads to be pressed at no charge. JP and I are sitting on our balcony drinking the illicit red rum ( murder ) playing reggae songs on the ukulele and enjoying the view. Soon it will be time to go to our favorite bar, the Schooner, and punish our unlimited drink package cards.

Tomorrow Ketchikan.

JP reflecting on the view.

A beautiful night on the Inland Passage.

This is the pilot boat that picked up our pilot at the north end of Vancouver Island. With radar and GPS I wonder if these pilots are still required for safe passage?