September 17, 2007

Ok, so I didn’t make it on the Wilderness Crab Feed Excursion – hopefully this week. Apparently something happened in the Shore Excursion Dept and I ended up on the Misty Fjord Wilderness explorer tour. It was nothing near what the crab feed would have been, but it was really pretty. Not the best tour I’ve been on – a bit boring. We took a 2 hour boat ride out to the fjords (a glacially carved waterway) and tooled around there for about 20 minutes and then a 2 hour boat ride back. Definitely expected more, but again it’s one more thing I got to see, right? We did see orcas which are very rare to see in Ketchikan (and really anywhere), but there was about 6 of them around the catamaran. One of them literally came up right next to the boat, so close I could have reached out to touch him if I would have expected him.

It’s our last week in Alaska though!!!!!! We are in Juneau tomorrow morning and I’m looking forward to enjoying the last week and an afternoon off. On Sunday, we’re off to Vancouver to drop off these passengers then onto Victoria for dry dock! We are all excited about dry dock because we still get paid our daily rate, we get to wear comfortable clothes, and work for approx. 2 hours every day doing “grunt” type work (cleaning up garbage, polishing, etc). I’m ok with that – can’t complain! When we get to Victoria, we won’t be able to get off the ship for the first day and a half to two days because it takes approx 14 hours for the water to drain out of the ship (I think that’s how they explained it), and the ship to be pulled completely out of the water. I’m so excited to see the actual process and all the changes that are going to take place in a matter of 2 short weeks. I’m going to attempt to get some before and after pictures. I anticipate quite a bit of fun over the next two weeks.

I am now coming home October 31st instead of November 20th. I’ve been told there is a really good prospective contract in the works so they might end this contract early to get me onto the other contract by mid-end November. We shall see – I’ll keep you posted! This means I have two weeks in dry dock, a 4 day repositioning cruise and 2 10-day cruises to Mexico and I’ll be home!

We have about 40 kids on this cruise within the Club Hal range and 11 babies on board (that we don’t watch). I am on the kids/tween group this week because we combined groups because we only have two staff. Today, I had 18 3-12 year olds in my tiny tween room and it was crazy but tons of fun in comparison to last week with one girl who only wanted to play UNO, Guess Who and Checkers. She also didn’t talk and had no desire to listen to music. It was quite boring! So this week is keeping me on my toes and for Mexico I will be the only staff on board, so I’ll be ready J

I think that’s about all for now – I won’t have a phone for the next 2 weeks (I will, but can’t afford the international charges!!!) Please e-mail and keep in touch. Hopefully there will be a place where we have access to wireless internet. I know we have a shuttle to and from downtown Victoria and I’m sure there’s internet there.

I look forward to hearing from everyone! Have a great week!!