Sitka, Day 4-Part 2

(Playing catch-up on our trip. This is from July 23.) Allen Marine Tours (here) took us out for almost 3 hours of whale, seal, otter and bird watching. 

Living close to the ocean, we’ve been on numerous boat excursions 

 

and I can safely say this was one of the best.  

  Rafts of sea otters

We saw a bunch of animals and Connor, the naturalist, was a great speaker who obviously knew his stuff and enjoyed his job.

 

The tour boats are custom-built in the company's own Sitka shipyard. 

 

The bios for the employees on our tour made it sound like this was a fun summer job for most of them - their 'real' jobs were Dr this and professor that. Very knowledgeable, professional group.  

 

It was rainy, gray and foggy so most of my pics look like this ⬆️. Thank goodness Rachel had a 'real' camera and got some great shots. 

  Seals on the beach, using my iPhone camera Seals on the beach, with Rachel's "real" camera. Just a little bit of difference...

  Humpback whale

 Bald eagle is so not impressed with you. And also? Keep away from his babies ⬇️

Truly some of the most gorgeous scenery I've ever seen.

  Almost home again

 So glad we signed up for this tour!

Cake Designer Boy

Me: hey Donovan, want to make a cake for your dad’s birthday?

Him: yes!

Me: ok, his favorite cake is…

Him: we’ll make chocolate cake with vanilla icing, then chocolate chips on the icing and strawberries like a cap!

Me: …

Him: and cupcakes instead of cake. 

So that’s what we did. I measured, he poured and stirred. I mixed, he held his ears (electric hand mixer is noisy.) He put cupcake papers in the pan, I poured in the batter. I washed strawberries, he did all the decorating. 

And they were very delicious (and he was very pleased with himself). The end. 

There’s a lot of icing left, so tomorrow I’m going to try melting chocolate chips and combining them with the icing to make a sauce for angel food cake. Wish me luck!

Chocolate cupcake recipe: add a pinch, Best Chocolate Cupcake Recipe

Old-fashioned no-dairy (delicious!) vanilla icing: Food.com, Grammie Bea’s Special Vanilla Frosting 

Formal Night, Day 3

The ship’s internet flat refused to cooperate with blogging so I decided to give in and wait til we got home to post. Hoping to get the backlog posted this week. 

We had pictures taken on the first formal night. Turned out to be a good decision since Pop was sick on the last formal night and I’d have been very sad not to have these. (Pictures from dinner are here.)

Sitka, Day 4-Part 1

We lost internet service for most of last night, putting me a day behind on posting, so this is going to be big pics, short words again. 

(Apparently Starlink works better in the open ocean than it does closer to land or in crowded areas. Who knew?)

Making new friends

Day 4 was rainy and cold. Our “Otters, Raptors and Bears” tour started about 1:30 pm and got us back to the ship just before 7, cold, wet, hungry and very happy. 

 On the tour bus, ready for adventure  

First stop was the Alaska Raptor Center (here) where the rehabilitate birds for (hopefully) release back to the wild. 

Some that can’t be released they use for teaching ambassadors. 

 Main compound

Beautiful birds, 

 Bald eagle nest, she’s as big as a fledgling!

gorgeous location, 

 Photographer in action

great gift shop that the girls took full advantage of. 

 Large photo is 2 releasable bald, the 3 birds are permanent residents due to injurieseagles

(Addy wants to study raptors so she was especially thrilled with this stop.)

 Ambassador bird

Fortress of the Bear (here) was started 

 One of two bear compounds 

by a father-daughter team to rescue bear cubs 

who had been abandoned or whose mothers had died.

 Feeeeeed meeeeeeeee

The State of Alaska doesn’t have a cub rehabilitation program (??!?) 

 Enjoying his salmon

so before this the cubs were left to fend for themselves or were euthanized. 

They have 8 bears permanently in residence 

and have placed many others in zoos and other facilities.

Sad story: they warned us before we went out to the viewing area that ”nature is taking its course”. 

A duck had nested in the bear enclosure and currently was trying to protect her chicks from the resident bear. You can imagine how that is going. 

Mama duck kept swimming and squawking at the bear, who seemed more amused than anything. 

He’d swim right up to mom, then turn away. 

But apparently there are fewer nestlings everyday. ☹️

 The good photos are by Rachel

Trying to post this before we lose the internet again. Captions and corrections tomorrow…

At Sea, Day 3

So enjoyable, being on the ocean, miles from land, with nothing to do but relax (and eat).

Leia and Addy took part in their second trivia contest (topic: titles and singers of music from the 50’s, 60’s and 70’s. “We need you, Grandma!” 😂)

while Pop and I hung out in the Commodore Room, reading.

It was also our first (and probably only) formal dinner night. 

Don’t we clean up good?

The girls seemed to enjoy it but weren’t all that crazy about the food, so we’ll probably eat at the buffet for the rest of the trip. There’s something for everyone and a more relaxed atmosphere. Tomorrow we’re in Sitka and have our first shore excursion - ‘Otters, Raptors and Bears’.

Shipping Out, Day 2

Getting onboard Queen Elizabeth was (almost) smooth sailing (see what I did there??) until a conscientious gate agent discovered Leia didn’t have a “parent” accompanying her. I’d talked to Cunard people multiple times while booking this trip and not one mentioned “notarized forms” and “parental id’s” required for her to board. 🙄 

Fortunately, the gate guy passed us up the chain to a Cunard officer who quickly resolved the issue. But was I steamed to find this out at the last minute? Maybeeee…

Fueling barge outside our cabin

Even with that delay, we were on board and eating lunch within an hour of drop off*. 

All our suitcases made it to the rooms quickly - nobody went to purser jail this trip. (Pop had a clothes steamer confiscated once before; he had to personally go claim his offending luggage from security. 😂)

After giving the girls a walking tour of the ship, we hung out in the Commodore Room, one of our favorite spots,

until QE was ready to pull away from the dock around 5 pm. 

Deck 9 aft (that’s the back end…) 

had some great views of Seattle as we went by. 

Tomorrow is a sea day - 

We are very close to being the last cabin on Deck 6

and our first ‘formal night’ dinner - 

before we dock in Sitka on Wednesday. 

Planning to eat, sleep, read and relax until then. 

Night all!

* Our ‘limo’ ride to the dock turned out to be a large black SUV but the driver saved us some hassle when he casually asked, “so would you like me to drive you to the airport when you get back?” Why yes, yes we would. Thanks for asking, limo guy.