So I've been on the ship for a month now and it feels like no time at all. I've been busy playing music, seeing the ports, and all of the social activities on board. Every sea day (or any day where most of us are on the ship) at 2pm most of the entertainment department goes to Mingles (our staff bar) and we have coffee. This is a great social hour or two. I've taken to bringing my computer to edit photos. Our trombone player Jim is a great photographer and has helped me learn a new program to edit and store my photos in. Alaska is an amazing place for a camera, so I have a lot of work cut out for me there. Jim is also really great at planning activities for us on the ship. We have game nights a lot playing cards and such. Then he, Robyn, and John have all gotten together and put on a few jeprody style trivia nights complete with "ship life" categories and prizes. These nights have been particularly fun. Other than that you can always find some people hanging out and doing something fun.
One of the main differences between this contract and my last one is that I'm repeating the same ports the whole time. Since they're seven day cruises this gives us a bit of routine. The first day of the cruise is embarkation day in Seattle, Washington on Friday. After my first cruise the other new sign on's and I had to go through immigration in Seattle. Some people think it's ridiculous that the American crew members have to go through this. It makes sence to me because it's for the US Immigration office to have a list of everybody working on board and whatever other information they might need. So, It didn't bother me that I had to do it, or that we had to meet at 5 am to do it. It did bother me when I woke up at 4:45 am, went and waited inside with everybody for 45 minutes, then was led to the open deck outside and waited in the cold morning air and drizzling rain for one hour and fifteen minutes, and finally was told to come back at 10 am! Since then I haven't had any duties on embarkation day, so other than that one fluke I generally am off the ship by 10:30am in Seattle. It is also the best port we have to stock up on things. I got a good pair of hiking boots and a compact rain jacket there for all of the hiking I plan on doing through out this contract. I always make sure to have a few coffees there.
The second day of the cruise is always a sea day. Depending on if I have any trainings or set to play, this tends to be a sleep in day for me...wether I want it to be or not. One of the hardest things about life on a ship is waking up, mostly because in my cabin it always feels like the middle of the night. So even when my alarms go off, it's hard to stay awake because there's no light. When I do finally get up I go to the crew mess...which is almost always horrible. As a musician I have the privilege to go to guest areas to eat so long as it's not too busy and not day time on a sea day. So on these days I have no choice. After I finish eating I'll go to mingles for our coffee break. I'll generally stay there until I have sound check for the show or a ballroom set depending on the schedule. The rest of the night I'll spend playing, going to the gym, and then to Mingles or do something else fun with my friends on board.
The third day of the cruise is in Ketchikan, Alaska. It's a small town and I haven't done too much interesting stuff here yet because scheduling has never given me very much time ashore. I generally play a show in the theater these nights. The past few weeks has been the guest entertainer David Meyer. He plays the xylosynth which is an electronic xylophone. His show is a lot of fun to play, especially the drum part.
The fourth day for the cruise we spend the morning cruising the Tracy Arm Fjord and the afternoon in Juneau, Alaska. The first week I missed out on both due to training and work. The second week we were there I slept through the Fjord because I had an amazing hike planned for that day in Juneau and needed ample rest. A group of us had signed up to hike with the naturalist on board, Brent Nixon, to the Mendenhall Glacier. Brent puts on shows about Alaska on the ship, and it's just amazing how much knowledge he has about Alaska. He knows everything about the wildlife, history, weather patterns, even the walmarts in the ports. We hopped in a couple cabs and went to the start of the hike. I felt lucky to be in his cab because on the way he told us all kinds of cool facts about Juneau. The other cab had his girlfriend, Mary Amanda, so I'm sure they got the same type of thing.
The hike wasn't that strenuous, but there were a few steep parts and some gravelie parts we had to be careful in. It started very green with trees and bushes but the closer we got to the glacier the less green and younger the plant life became until eventually we were on only rock. Brent explained that this was because not that long ago (only about 3-4 years ago) the glacier had actually been on the rocky parts. Even though it moves downhill, which was toward the start of the hike, it has been melting much faster than moving, so it has receded quite a bit in a short amount of time. At one point we got to the top of a rock and saw the glacier right in front of us. It was an amazing sight. I had been hiking in a t-shirt, but when we got to the top of that Rock Brent had told us to be ready to put on some kind of wind jacket. I could feel immediately the very cold breeze coming off the ice. At first it felt really nice, but I'm happy I took Brent's advice otherwise I would have gotten very cold very quickly. We made our way up to the glacier. Brent went ahead to see if there were any ice caves safe enough to peek into. We found one and took turns going in and taking pictures. I put my hands on the ice inside, it was incredibly cold and a gorgeous blue color. We even walked around on the ice a little bit, but had to be very carefull because the surface was really jagged and sharp. It would have been fun to stay longer and explore further, but time made us turn around and make our way back to the ship.
At the beginning of the hike
View of the Mendenhall Galcier
View of Mendenhall Glacier
At Mendenhall Glacier
Ice Cave
Ice Cave
View of Mendenhall Glacier
Bottom:Emma, Tori, Unsure, Matt, Carl, Carl's daughter
Waterfall on hike
End of hike
The next week I did wake up on Juneau day to see the Tracy Arm Fjord. A Fjord is a inlet of ocean created by a glacier. Because it is created by a glacier it has mountains and cliffs on both sides, but gets very deep very fast. I took my camera up to the open deck and had a blast taking photos of the amazing views of the Fjord. Brent was on the bridge and through out time time in the Fjord made announcements about all sorts of facts and information about what ever we passed. The further up we got the more loose pieces off ice we saw from the glacier at the top. Brent said that the captain and pilot (a person from the area who has very detailed knowledge about the waters in the area and boards the ship to drive it) would watch these ice burgs and make predictions to where they would be when we turn around and go back so that we don't find our ship blocked in. We weren't able to make it all the way to the glacier this time due to the ice, hopefully later in the season we can make it closer.
Another time in Juneau I went with a group to the Alaskan Brewery and had a bunch of samples of their beers. I had a great time doing that of course. This last time we were there some friends and I took a cable car up the mountain by the port called Mt. Roberts. It took us to a great view point where there's a restaurant and coffee stand and such. We got to see a bald eagle there that they had rescued. They said it had been shot in the wild and lost it's beak. The beak has since grown back but due to it's other injuries it will never be released back to the wild. It was pretty amazing to see a bald eagle that close up. After we looked around that area for a while we went on a little hike that led off from there. It was an easy hike, but took us about an hour because every 10 steps was an amazing view of something. There was a mountain across the small valley with waterfalls that we could actually see the water moving. It was a nice rainy day with lost of clouds too that looked beautiful around the mountains.
Hike on Mt. Roberts in Juneau, Alaska
The fifth day of a cruise we are in Skagway, Alaska. Skagway seems to be one of the smallest towns we go to, but filled with fun things to do and little shops. One of the times we went I went on a hike with Jim (trombone player), G Brian and Charlyn (both glass blowers). Jim had done the hike before but hadn't made it to the upper lake at the top. He warned us that it was very strenuous, steep, and far. He wasn't kidding, it was steep and got our heart rates up right away. We set a turn around time for 3pm no matter where we were in the hike to make it back to the ship by 5 pm. Jim was keeping up the pace, he was set on getting to the top. Eventually he and G Brian got a bit ahead of Charlyn and me. We still kept a good pace, but didn't want to go too fas because it was pretty rough. It was a pretty rainy and overcast day and had quite a long downpour. Again I had started with a t shirt but eventually got the rain jacket on. Not too far into the hike we were all literally steaming. Charlyn said we looked like we had just gotten out of a hot tub in winter. She and I started to feel like we were very close to the top and at 2:45 passed a guy on his way down, he said we were maybe 15 minutes from the top. We started to pick up the pace because that meant we would get there right when we had to turn around and would really be cutting it close to get back to the ship. We walked maybe two minutes before we found G Brian. He said they talked to the same guy a few minutes up and he said the same thing. Jim went for it, but G Brian thought it would be too much time. So then we decided to start heading down. Jim caught up with us eventually and told us he had made it to the top, but basically had to run down to catch us. It was a great hike that all of us were feeling for days to come. Don't worry, we made it back to the ship on time.
River on the hike
This past time in Skagway I did a crew tour which put a bunch of us on a train that goes through the Yukon all the way into Canada. I was with a lot of friends on. The train, so it was a lot of fun and we saw some beautiful scenery. We were allowed to go outside on the ends of the car for photos, but was pretty hard to get any good ones with the train moving and so many people on the platform.
The sixth day of the cruise is another Sea day, so my schedule is pretty much the same as the first one.
And the seventh and last day if the cruise we go to Victoria, but don't arrive until 6pm. So, we generally have a sound check for the farewell show at around 12 noon, then perform the show around 4pm and I can get off once crew is cleared to go. Victoria is one of my favorite places so I look forward to it every week. One time I took a crew tour with a bunch if my friends to Buchart Gardens one time. I had been there a few times before, but it's always gorgeous. This past week I took a group to one of my favorite burger places I've ever been to called the Pink Bicycle. Then we always seem to end up at the Irish Bar called Irish Times. The ship leaves at midnight, so we have until 11:30 to hang in the city.
So that's what these runs in Alaska are like for me. I'm half way done with this short contract now, but I'm sure to have some more amazing experiences here. This next Skagway I'm going zip lining with a group that Brent Nixon put together and there will be more hikes, glaciers, and photos to come!
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