Live from my Slow Boat to China -- the Amsterdam

[RuthC]

For those who want to know ... Debbie Bacon is in the Piano bar, we have guitar soloist Larry in the Crow's nest with the Neptunes in the Ocean Bar, and Adagio in the Explorer's Lounge.

From one of your readers who wants to know, thank you for that info.

 

I've never had the pleasure of meeting up with Debbie Bacon, but have heard great things about her. She must have replaced Diane Fast (another excellent Piano Bar musician) who was there when I was on the Amsterdam a few weeks ago. I know there has been a lot of staff turnover in a very short time.

[Lizzie68]

Thanks for another great report. Interesting, the bit about Barbara and the librarian - who knew washing chairs would be a part of their job? Especially on formal night.:D

[cruisin'teach]

So glad to have found your posts. My brother and SIL are sailing with you and it will be fun to follow their adventures through you!

[ScottishMaid]

Thanks for your detailed report. We feel like we are traveling with you and we are very interested as we were on the ship last fall. Our tote bags were a pink/ rose color. Is Cathy the Tai Chi lady on board ? I really liked her classes. Captain Fred Everson's girlfriend is Brooke, who was working in Shore Excursions last year. They are both very nice.

[serendipity1499]

Once again, I'm enjoying your live-from report on your slow-boat to china.. Thank you for sharing your trip with us.

 

Hope you & your DH have a wonderful cruise & land tour..

[arzz]

Slow Boat to China - Day 4 - September 24

 

So - today is another sea day - we are beginning to close in on Kodiak, maintaining the 14 and a half knots (or so) of speed that we have been cruising at all along. It is sunny and clear yet we are experiencing head winds of about 18 knots so the apparent wind on deck is about 33 knots. The air is brisk, in the low 50's, but invigorating.

 

All the sea day stuff is going on to do (or not do) as we wish. Personally I am more relaxed than I have been in months. I find it so pleasant to be at sea and I never tire of the view.

 

Our cabin has worked out rather well for us - nice quiet ride here and a good view (main deck, mid-ships). Only noise has been the sounds of some far off maintenance work - a bit of tapping here and there and sounds like folks threading pipes or conduit through the walls or ceilings at times.

 

Not a problem. At least not for us. During the night I discovered the water off for a few hours. Then I heard what could be the sound of a valve turning in the recesses of the mechanical spaces, followed by the gurgling of fast running water. Our water was back on - but it turns out there were a few cabins that did have a bit of flooding in their washrooms overnight. So far a bit disturbing but not a big deal as the wet was confined to the bathrooms. Whether the flooding is the reason for the maintenance work, or whether it is the result ... hard to tell but we are dry and the affected folks I spoke with were not too concerned. Ship happens.

 

The devious part of me hid the room service breakfast menu last night so that I could type it out for you today. I know some of you will ask.

 

Juices include orange, grapefruit, pineapple, cranberry, tomato, V-8, prune, fresh squeezed orange and fresh squeezed grapefruit. The dining room is also serving the fresh squeezed juices.

 

Fruit and yogurt include grapefruit, banana, orange, mixed fruit, papaya, mango, seasonal berries, melon, stewed prunes, pineapple -- plain, fruit or greek yogurt and cottage cheese.

 

Bakery choices: english muffin, white, wheat, or rye toast, danish, croissant, blueberry muffin, bran muffin, bagel, doughnut, raisin bun, dutch rusk and pumpernickel.

 

Cold cereals include corn flakes, Special K, Cheerios, Raisin Bran, Granola, Frosted Flakes, Rice Crispies, Shredded wheat, all bran and homemade muesli.

 

Hot cereals: oat meal, grits and cream of wheat

 

Pancakes, belgian waffles, blueberry pancakes, and french toast

 

Eggs are served scrambled, sunnyside up or over, soft medium and hard boiled, poached or eggs benedict

 

Omelettes: cheese, ham and cheese, vegetable and cheese, plain and spanish

 

The same choices as for omelettes can be done with egg whites or egg substitute.

 

The meat sides include ham, sausage links, bacon, veggie links, turkey links, turkey bacon and lox slices.

 

Milk choices: regular, chocolate, lactose-free, 2%, soy, skim, and rice milk.

 

Hot beverages: coffee, decaf coffee, hot chocolate, earl grey tea, ginger tea, english breakfast tea, mint tea, chamomile tea,lemon leaf tea, orange spice tea,darjeeling tea, apple cinnamon tea, green tea, decaf tea, decaf green tea, and hot milk.

 

Condiments in addition to the normal jams, butter, cream cheese, half and half, milk, 2% milk, skim milk, sliced lemon and margarine include also peanut butter, ketchup, tabasco, Nutella, and sugar free jams.

 

The impressive thing about this menu is that is is not limited to dining room hours to get the extra items - it only requests a fifteen minute time slot for delivery which is so wonderful on those early mornings with long port tours ahead!

 

Yes it is a bit Grand on a Grand tour.

 

Today we had a Rosh Hashanah service with Rabbi Appel, and Mass with Father Bill.

 

At dinner this evening we were once again a table for six but all was a little more organized this evening. The captain either did not eat or ate elsewhere even though his table was set for two. A good time was had by all.

 

For Scottish Maid - both Tai Chi and Qi Gong are with Master Ping-Wing

[1of4]

Yumm! Now I am hungry and looking at the breakfast I brought with me to work...rice cakes, soft cheese and greek yogurt with granola. Something seems to be missing...oh yeah...I got up at 4:00 and I am sitting at my desk at work 80 km away from home....

 

DAM I wish I was on your Grand Voyage!!! :)

[Krazy Kruizers]

Are there any special activities on the sea days?

[ScottishMaid]

Slow Boat to China - Day 4 - September 24

For Scottish Maid - both Tai Chi and Qi Gong are with Master Ping-Wing

 

Thank you for answering. Master Cathy was talking about trying to go to another cruise line, like Silversea, so maybe she did.

[hpf]

Thanks for your great reporting of the Grand Voyage. Wish I was there. After reading what all there is to do each day I would think you would need to do 2 or 3 of these Voyages to do everything offered. That would suit me, LOL, now just to convince DH of even one.

 

Enjoy Kodiak and the rest of your cruise.

 

Helen

[SilvertoGold]

Captain Fred was in the DR often on our 42 day South America cruise a few years ago. When he attended, he joined the table of the Hotel Manager, his wife and her brother. His is the ultimate "good sport" and you are fortunate to have him on this cruise.

 

We like to see a Captain in the DR, but it seems to be fairly rare.

 

Loving your reports: so interesting and they bring back memories of this cruise. Thanks for taking the time!

[PathfinderEss]

Thanks for the updates, sounds like everything is going well.

[ger_77]

I'm really enjoying your reports - and you should probably count yourself fortunate that the original couple decided to sit in another section. They were likely difficult to please and would not have been much fun to dine with.

 

Smooth Sailing! :) :) :)

[arzz]

Slow Boat to China - Day 5 - September 25

 

Kodiak, Alaska. We pulled up to the dock at 8:00 am and in a few minutes the ship was processed and ready for passengers to go ashore. We ordered room service breakfast so that we could get out early since all aboard was at 2 or 2:30 this afternoon.

 

The day was sunny, clear and crisp with temperatures in the mid fifties with a very warm sun. Holland America provided a shuttle to town (as well as several tours that could be purchased). We chose to walk - about a mile on fairly level sidewalks.

 

As soon we left the ship we could smell Kodiak's major industry - fish. The walk into town was on a road just inland of the waterfront which is lined with fish processing plants on one side and lines of refrigerated containers on the other. There was the constant rumble of the refrigeration units linked to electrical power by a long tangle of fat power cords.

 

After we passed the fish plants there were rocky walls with patches of green and wild flowers that had pretty much passed their season. We found a few with what looked like white feathers for blooms. On the other side of the road now was the harbor - full of fishing boats both real and exact duplicates in their reflections on the mirror still harbor waters.

 

Just short of town was a small coffee shop/cafe - we were advised by the local guides at the port that this shop would have wi-fi. After purchasing some lovely hot beverages we discovered that there was in fact no public wi-fi. So much for that but we did have a nice break.

 

Next stop was the visitor's center where we saw our only Kodiak bear fishing for salmon - unfortunately it was made of plaster and part of a local diorama. After taking in the exhibits we continued our quest for wi-fi. It was on to the local McDonald's which does have public wi-fi and indeed half of the ship's complement made it there before we left. What it did not have was great band width. Bottom line - since was were still in the U.S. I was able to download my personal email (all 175 of them) but I still could not get them on my iPad via wi-fi. I guess I will just have to surrender my ability to communicate freely and stick to my aol account.

 

The downside to all of this is that we are set to receive our ballots for the November election via email - which for Illinois, probably the last state in the union stuck in the last century, we have to print out and mail home by snail mail. It is possible to print stuff out on the ship - but first we have to get the email. Not sure how this will be done, if at all. Is, essentially, HAL standing in the way of our right to vote by having such poor wi-fi service? We never had these issues with the old wi-fi providers.

 

DH was very upset.

 

The only thing that turned his day was when late this afternoon we spotted whales on the port side of the ship that were clearly visible from our cabin window. I am not just talking about one or two whales, but a rather huge number of them. They were mostly located all the way across the landscape of our window rather far from us, not far below the horizon. But they were there in large numbers. It was like looking at a symphony of geysers as they spouted water - and occasionally came up and shared their bodies or tails. We were steaming along at about 15 knots - I do not know how fast whales move - were they swimming parallel to us or were we slowly overtaking a larger group? Eventually a couple ventured close to the ship and showed themselves. Wow!

 

Dinner was fine but anticlimactic to a beautiful day ashore even though we did not succeed with the email thing ...

 

We are back in our cabin now and wondering if there will be any northern lights tonight ...

[pmd98052]

Let me know which way you plan to vote and I'll help you (or not) :) I jest!

 

Its likely that your internet provider's email requires that you be on its "local" network to send/receive. In cases like these they normally have alternative SMTP/POP server addresses for when you travel and are off their local network. If you can find those out (and know your passwords) you might be able to change the settings on the iPad to get them on the ship's wifi.

 

Also some ISP's have a web address to read your email via web mail when travelling? Outlook.com will also let you set it up to receive mail via your other email accounts so you could use that potentially too...

 

Good luck!

 

Love reading your "live froms" :)

[arzz]

Slow Boat to China - Day 6 - September 26

 

Ahhh yes, we are at sea. At about seven this morning I woke up and discovered that the ship had a significant roll. The seas were boiling outside and clearly a storm was imminent. These are the days you know that you are on a ship. Our winds are actually helping the speed of the ship (whether they are pushing us exactly on course or not who knows) but they are coming at an angle from the stern. Watching my favorite channel, it is fun to watch the boat's speed pop up and down ... today I have seen variations between a low of 13.7 knots of speed to a just recently achieved 16.1 knots during the last wind gust. So HAL is getting some free energy fuel from Mother Nature.

 

I forgot to mention yesterday that when we were in the coffee shop that supposedly had free wi-fi but in fact had no wi-fi at all -- they had round sticker signs in the window -- a red circle with a diagonal line across the words "pebble mine". So - we asked four of Alaska's youth (the ones who worked in the coffee shop) "what is a pebble mine?" - we quickly got the unanimous answer that pebble mines were very bad - especially for the fishing industry - and they were all about how bad it is to pebble mine - but no one could tell us what pebble mining is. The future of Alaska?

 

For me today it was a quiet day on the ship -- dulled a bit by bonine but feeling otherwise great. Besides eating and tending to some personal business this morning (HAL has been great as they extended themselves to help us do what we needed to do) -- so, besides eating, all I can lay claim to in my day was time spent at arts and crafts.

 

This is my second visit to the arts and crafts folks and I have to say they are very well organized and produce projects that everyone can do and find success. The first day I went we made calendars for the full 78 day journey that we annotated with stickers that were custom printed to represent all of our port days - and the day that we will soon lose due to the magic of the International Date Line - that day was just crossed out. I skipped yesterday when they made earrings since I do not wear earrings. Today we made crystal pendants that we hung on white cord that we tied with a Chinese knot. Learning how to do the Chinese knot was worth the class time all in itself. I have several pendants at home that hang on sad, old cords and now I know how to redo them myself!

 

Dinner was delicious and ordinary - The internet was down for 30 minutes today for a "reboot", we still do not have ballots to use to vote - clearly this was a day full of not really anything except some fantastic sea watching.

 

On our beds this evening when we returned from dinner we found two Hersey's chocolate kisses instead of the now usual unHolland America chocolate. The card with the chocolates that always has a quote or saying on it and also says "The ship's captain and crew wish you a restful sleep tonight as we look to tomorrow's horizons" -- also included the following note:

 

"Mr. Sandman brought you a different dream chocolate until we can turn on the magic beam with our good ole' classic chocolate dream."

 

Say what? Did they just run out?

 

Tomorrow we are at Dutch Harbor, Unalaska, Alaska.

[Mtn2Sea]

Thanks for your update. Hope the seas calm a bit and you get your email.

Edited September 27, 2014 by Mtn2Sea

[ScottishMaid]

Thanks again for your great reports. This is some information about Pebble Mine:

A mining company wants to gouge one of the world’s largest open-pit gold and copper mines out of Alaska’s incomparable Bristol Bay wilderness. It is proposed to be built where there is a danger of polluting the waters of some of the best salmon.

[Krazy Kruizers]

Wonderful report.

[lazey1]

We're enjoying this, almost like cruising along with you.

[Lizzie68]

Another great report. I think I must be weird - I love rough sea days! Obviously it helps that I am a good sailor, and I feel bad for those who have a rough time with it, but I enjoy watching a broiling sea.:o And I will use the patch or bonine on bad days.

[arzz]

Slow Boat to China - Day 7 - September 27

Dutch Harbor, Unalaska, Alaska

 

First a big thank you to those who enlightened me about Pebble Mining. I now recognize what it is as it was discussed with us by our tour guide last summer as we boated up to the South Sawyer Glacier - but I do not recall that they used the specific term "pebble mining". Kudos to the youth of Kodiak who knew it was bad for the salmon fishing but shame on them for not knowing more. And again a big thank you to my cruise critic friends.

 

Somehow I love the name "Unalaska" ...

 

The Amsterdam docked at 8 am this morning right on schedule. Unalaska is in the same time zone as the rest of the state of Alaska, however, it is along the chain of Aleutian Islands located about halfway between the U.S. and Russia. Quite a ways west from the majority of the land mass of this state - so at 8 am this morning it was still completely dark.

 

On our way from our cabin to the dining room we encountered a couple deck crew members racing down the corridor with large plastic garbage cans full of umbrellas. It was raining, windy and in the 40's outside. Breakfast was a bit of an otherworld experience to be in the dining room having our first meal of the day complete with all of the familiar morning trappings such as the recorded chirping birds - yet it was completely dark outside. We decided to wait until it was light to leave the ship.

 

I am not sure but it is possible that this was the Amsterdam's maiden call at Dutch Harbor - folks on the island said that we are the largest ship that they have had. Shuttle service to the World War 2 visitor's center, Museum of the Aleutions (as well as the ever popular Safeway) and the Russian Orthodox Church was offered by the local Port Authority -- and they provided everything that they had to help move us around their island - both of their school buses (sadly inadequate for 1000 passengers plus lots of crew who want to run out to Safeway). It was a real experience today and a real good experience.

 

So, as able bodied folk we decided it would be easier to walk into town than wait in the cold for the shuttle buses. It was, however, in the forties and windy - but it was also beautiful. The walk into town is along a well paved road - sometimes on sidewalk, sometimes on the road's generous shoulder. We walked through the morning twilight next to craggy green cliffs covered with a thick, low, green vegetation sprinkled with yellow and red-brown flowers or plants. No trees. The water was on our other side and as it got lighter we could see the cliffs and mountains of the land mass that surrounded our protected harbor - eventually spots of sunlight illuminated it all and brought forward our ability to see the mists hanging around the mountains in the layered landscape. Beautiful ... and still very cold and windy.

 

We continued on for about a mile and we reached the World War 2 visitor's center - a small museum designed to remember the roll that Dutch Harbor and the Aleutians played during the war with Japan. Concurrent with the attacks at Midway Island Japan waged an air attack and a landing on Unalaska. A two day battle ensued. When Midway Island was lost the Japanese claimed that the battle of Midway was a diversion to their real aim; the Aleutian Islands. The Japanese, however, withdrew several days after the air attacks.

 

The museum was filled with artifacts and stories from those days.

 

By the time we returned to the ship, however, we and many others were chilled to the bone. Due to our 44 lb baggage limitation I did bring a light weight down jacket, hat, and mittens - but I did not bring a scarf or a sweater. The scarf would have been useful during our walk - the sweater would be useful onboard. The gangway today was on deck one, midships, so that the chilly Unalaskan air entered the ship and climbed the mid ship stairs from 8 am until we left at 2. I really could have used that sweater - after a mid afternoon Chai Latte, however, I am finally warm.

 

Now, time to ponder ... clearly with 9 am sunrise we are truly one or two time zones off from where we should be time wise. We left Seattle on September 21 - it is now September 27 and we have changed our clocks only once. We arrive in Kushiro, Japan on October 3 but we only have four days at sea to get there as September 30 will be totally obliterated from our life experience by the International Date Line which we cross on the 29th ... but my guess is that we have more than four hours that will need to be turned back on our clocks. Rumor has it that in the next four days there will be a time change every day - and one or two days with a two hour time change. Not sure if I feel more sorry for the crew (yes, actually, I do) or us passengers who will surely be awake at 3 am expecting breakfast and ship events. Last time we did this we were ten days at sea between Seattle and Japan - but no ports. I really appreciate the chance to visit the Aleutian Islands -- but now we pay!

 

Note about the internet. Yesterday evening they shut the internet down and rebooted. This process actually seemed to fix many issues as I can now download both of my email accounts - downside was that I had to wait out the downloading of a week's worth of email which took many minutes of internet time. I am relieved that I can now access all my accounts (I made it a point to thank the IT officer who has been working on this - his comment was "maybe I will be able to get some sleep tonight!"). I can still get on and off of cruise critic in just a few minutes time - email, though, even though it downloads still seems to take many more minutes than it used to. Good thing we purchased a generous internet package for this journey.

 

Night time chocolates are still Hersey's kisses - same obscure note with them as last night. Tonight we turn the clocks back TWO hours and our water will be off from midnight until 5 am ... So it will be off for 5 hours or seven hours? Only time will tell ...

 

Still waiting for our ballots. I will not be happy if I find them as hard copies in a big brown envelope in my mail pile when I return home after the election. More and more I fear that is what is going to happen. Well, at least we have tried to be good citizens ...

[Krazy Kruizers]

Love all the information you are providing us via your excursions.

[travelinjones]

Love reading your reports -,thanks for taking us along with you.

[seattlejoe]

Great travel log. Very entertaining and informative. One note on the late sunrise: The time only changes with longitude, not latitude. Every 15 degrees of longitude represents one hour of time change. The the more north you go after the summer solstice the shorter the day gets. So in dutch harbor on the winter solstice there is only around 7 hours of daylight. That's why when you go north or south, the time doesn't change. But then again, the only time you need to worry about is when drinks start being served.