July 15 -- Anchorage to Seward

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One last look out our Anchorage hotel window. You can see how close we were to the train station.

Anchorage is the largest city in Alaska, at about 150,000 (more or less the same population as Ann Arbor). (I wonder -- when they report the population of Alaska to be around 500,000, is that the population in December, or in July when all those thousands of outlanders come in to work the busy season?)






We had to get up pretty early to be ready for the 8:00 am tour-bus ride to Seward, where we would embark on the next part of our adventure.

You may wonder why we couldn't just get on the boat in Anchorage, given the harbor and all.

Many places in Alaska have tides that vary (low tide to high tide) a LOT. We were told "this place has the third greatest variance (low tide to high tide) in the world" (and I really wish I could remember exactly where we heard that, but you take my point). The reason the big cruise ships can't use Anchorage harbor is that it's not deep enough at low tide.






Luckily for us, cloudy mornings nearly always cleared up to leave us with beautiful days.






All of these mountain shots were taken from the tour bus. (I have spared you the worst of the infernal windowglare.)






At some points along the way, there was stony mountain right by the road. Our guide told us that we might see some Dall sheep. She kept an eye out for us, and told us "sheep on the left!" I was lucky enough to be seated on the left, and I saw the sheep! With my bare eyes! Close enough to really see them! And then they flashed by and were gone, way too soon for me to get a pic.


I kinda like the way the foreground trees show the motion of the bus in this next shot.







Fireweed in lower left corner. (click on pic to see larger version)






I had to show you this one, despite the glare in the middle.

Wow, eh?






We were delivered to the cruise ship embarkation point in Seward at about 11:30 am.






We stood in line to check in. They wanted our "cruise documents" and our passports (as we would go home from Vancouver). They took our pictures, and gave us our ship id cards (and our dining room table assignments).

The ship id system is pretty slick -- your pic is in the database, not on your card. When they scan the bar code on your card, your pic comes up on their screen. They scanned our cards every time we got on or off the ship, so they had a very good idea who was (or was not) aboard. Your card was also your room door key, and, of course, was your id when you purchased something in one of the on-board shops. They won't take cash in the shops; you have to have your 50-cent postcard added to your final bill rather than handing them the four bits.........

(I've been reminded that the casino takes cash, but I think it is the only place on board that will........)


The next line was for security. Same as airport security -- your stuff goes through xrays and you go through the magnetic gate.

The line for security was not moving.

Cruise ships don't take breaks. They unload one boatload of people in the morning, and load up a new set of people in the afternoon. It takes a while to clean all those rooms..........

Let us take a moment to appreciate the hard work of the ship's crew. The men who are cabin stewards and food workers have incredibly long hours. They work every day, with no days off as far as I know, for months on end. (They work for 11 months in a row, then have some time off with their families.)

Uniformly they were friendly (all made eye contact every time you encountered them, and all asked how you were, with a response of "excellent!" or "great!" when you asked them, in turn, how they were). I know how I would feel, working those hours, required to be "excellent!" all the time............ Yet they truly seemed to be cheerful. I only heard one say that the months were long and he missed his family.

When you saw them chatting with each other, they always seemed happy. I hope they are.

I also hope that management is treating the workers as well as they deserve...... I have heard that, as cruise ships are selling "happy," it is crucial that the crew *be* happy, and that the cruise lines take pains to take good care of their workers. I hope this is true, and I hope their apparent content was genuine.



They weren't ready for us to board until 12:15, so we hung around on benches until the security line started to move......

(This was the only time we saw a line this long, until we got to the airport in Vancouver.....)





In order to facilitate chronological traverse of these posts, a link to the next one is here.

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