Alaska Day 8: Sitka to Safari Explorer

Day 8: Sitka to Safari Explorer (Saturday)

Weather Report: Even better than yesterday

Quote of the Day: You’re so negative we’re going to put you out to sea for 7 days

It’s a Covid world: Masks are required in the Uncruise waiting area because the passenger assembly room is in a public building. When the same people gather with the crew on the Safari Explorer, because we’ve all been vax’d and all have had recent negative tests, nobody has to wear a mask aboard ship the entire week. To THB this is at first bizarre and later seems almost normal.

What a day: absolutely blue skies, and beautiful scenery. Sitka is sort of like a rundown Mendocino with more people and a fishing industry. Maybe Mendocino is like that now, it’s been a long time since THB has been to Mendocino.

Finally a day where we don’t need to rush out the door before the sun comes up…ooops, the sun never sets (it is near the summer soltstice). Two decaf au laits and 3 just okay pastries, $22 with tip, at Highliner Coffee, a scant 100 yards from the Westmark. The three young women working the place are moving at warp speed, and the drive-up window has a line as long as the one inside. Very impressive. Not much  competition for a pastry / coffee place?

Back to the hotel, pack up and check out (THB does one more post) and then we await the 11am pick-up of our bags. That’s the last we see of them until we get to our cabin (A1) late that afternoon (if it can be late afternoon if the sun never sets). After pick-up we walk over to the Uncruise gathering spot to make sure all our paperwork is in order. Phew, it is: all we have to do is show our vax cards and the e-mails saying how negative we are.

Hey, it is early, we stroll onto a bridge with a great view of Mt Edgecombe, a (dormant?) volcano. 

It’s nearing noon and we can see Beak from the bridge, so today we have lunch outside on the porch. It’s really lovely and the food is even better than yesterday: sauteed black cod tips on sushi rice with bok choy and a spicy topping and salmon on potatoes, finally cooked the way we like it (rare). Fabulous, $65, and another generous tip.

Our waitperson asks if we have a specific charity we’d like to suggest and we say their team is far better at making that decision. She also says that Beak, with its no tipping policy, is the best place she’s worked: more congenial and more fair to all the employees (these are obviously related reasons).

Nori drying?

What is this? We see two of them attached to houses in a rundown area

Bike rack

We walk a little over a mile along the coastline to the Sitka Historical National Park to look at the totems and exhibits and watch a short film on the local history.

WHOA!! That was yesterday, about 26 hours ago!

Ludvig's pop-up

Still a few hours to kill so DB suggests we go back to the Mean Queen and share a dozen oysters and a brewski. It’s before 5pm so the oysters are $2 each instead of $3.50 (no discount on the beer), total is $40 with tip. The Queen is around 60% full mid-afternoon.

On to the Uncruise meet-up, a quick overview and we’re bused over to the boat/ship/vessel. 11 couples and 4 singles (all women). It will take THB a while to sort out. By day 2 of the cruise nobody is wearing name tags. Everyone’s pic is up on a wall near the lounge, so THB has to resort to studying the pics to see if he has the names right. The crew’s pics are also on the wall as well and by Day 2 they seem to know all the passengers by name (and some of them by drink choice). The wait staff definitely does because they are addressing passengers by name as the passengers shift tables (constantly).  THB and DB are on the older side of the average and at the same time part of the large middle (aged) group. Three are around 50, several are around 80 or older. Most people do not know anyone else; there is a foursome of sister/brother and their spouses celebrating an anniversary. Most people have never taken a cruise with Uncruise. Only one other couple from the Bay Area; several from the Northeast and Colorado. Many of the crew now live in the South.

Hey, we’re in the front row. It is a bit convoluted on how we got here. Yep, postponed last year, carried over to this year, assigned a different boat, didn’t like our placement on that boat, switched boats (and itinerary start/finish locations) and to stay comparable to 2019 choice ended up on the top deck just outside the bridge, with only one other stateroom on this level. We even have a balcony (slim, with one chair sideways). The room is very nice, roomier than the Antarctica cruise room, with a heated floor in the bathroom. Stow our gear and put away our suitcases. The “fitness” center is just down the hall. THB has not visited a fitness center yet due to the leaning left incident and not enough time. Ed Note: How can there not be enough time for a 7-minute workout. Really?

Bathroom has heated floor, a great touch

Most of the rest of the passenger cabins are one deck down, and two decks down are the lounge and dining room with two more cabins. The lounge/dining room  is really one big room with tables on one side and the bar and chairs/sofas on the other and a lane for traffic and credenzas in the middle.

 

The “expedition” leader, D (EL in the blog), also does Uncruise in Hawaii and he and family live part-time in Vermont. He’s the one that works with the captain to determine next day’s location and then decides on the activities. He does a brief briefing, we have a nice dinner (and all the alcohol you can drink, which several passengers are attempting to achieve), and another briefing.

We meet one couple from Baltimore area and realize they may have tips for us when we travel to see Dr M at Johns Hopkins for THB’s entry into the Necrotizing Myositis study. Turns out they have a daughter who works at Johns Hopkins and both of them work for Habitat for Humanity; much bonding.

Book Reviw: My Brilliant Friend, Elena Ferrante (novel, translated): remarkably similar to the streaming season 1 version, and in a good way. Does THB need to recount the plot line…no. THB is reading books on the kindle while traveling and DB had already downloaded the 4 books of this set and since THB loved the streaming version he went on to read them. In tandem with the streaming version, Highly Recommended.

No matter how you turn the pc, it  just doesn't look right