April 18 - At Sea

 The sun is coming up earlier and earlier and since we sleep with the shades open, we wake up early.  With the loss of an hour, we still got up at 6 am (5 am body clock time).  After a leisurely breakfast and coffee, we went to the first lecture of the day by Terry Breen titled "Alaska's Forgotten War, Part 1".  I knew nothing about the plans to defend Alaska from attack.  Since our father spent time up in the Aleutians during the war (around 1943 we think) this was especially interesting.  

Then a nice lunch with Sarah up in Chartreuse before the second lecture by Diana Preston titled "From Edo to Tokyo" about the development of Japan.  It was a bit of a repeat of many things we had heard from our guides, but in a clear timeline with illustrations so it was all a bit clearer.

After that, we put down a deposit on another cruise for July 2025 doing all of Norway and many of the UK stops.  Jan and Tom also put down their deposit on that one, so we have 2 more cruises to look forward to in 2025, not to mention the sibling cruise to Alaska on Princess in June of this year.  Fun!

I'm a little light on photos since the ocean is a dull gray like the skies so not so pretty to photograph.

Jan got this in Otaru.  Can't believe I missed it and I think the mother and baby otter are so cute.

This is Princess Charlene of Monaco, the ship's Godmother.  It's a striking, if rather odd, painting.

The lounge area on Deck 5 where all the passenger service desks are.

We got a below-average score of 7/15 today, so no points.  Carol still isn't feeling well so they had dinner in their cabin.  The rest of us ate in Compass Rose and then headed off to our cabins.  We lose another hour again tonight.  The fog horn is blowing again as it has been on and off all day.  Kind of eerie to hear in the dark of night.