April 29 - At Sea

We've been hearing a lot about the Northern Lights (Aurora Borealis) lately.  They've been seen in the area over recent nights.  Last night I got up around 12:30 am and looked north from our cabin and saw a very light-colored greenish glow on the horizon.  If there had been a big city in that direction, I'd have thought it was the glow from that.  But there is no city and as I looked, the glow sort of changed shape very slowly.  I woke Michael and he saw it too.  We think it might have been the Lights.  A few hours later I was up again and the glow was still there, but had grown.  I told this story to another passenger and she said that on one of her cruises they were called out to the pool deck to see the Lights.  She described it as a sort of vague glow also.  However a professional photographer took their picture and with his fancy camera and proper settings, they could clearly see the Lights behind them in the picture.  So I'm sticking with my story that we saw the Northern Lights.

  Today was our last sea day.  The weather was dreary all day with gray rainy skies and gray rolling seas.  

We didn't get any calls about our Customs form, so I guess we're good to go.  And Naveen was able to get my eyeglasses repaired, so all is well.  Fortuately, I had brought a backup pair.

There were two lectures today.  The first by Terry Breen called "Devil Beneath the Sea: The Story of Ripple Rock" was really interesting.  We're sailing down the Inside Passage now.  Before 1958 there was a narrow passage along here that was the most direct route, but it had a big problem in that there were 2 mountain peaks just under water that caused wicked problems in the fast currents in the narrow passage.  Boats would have to wait for slack tide and then make a run for it hoping to avoid being thrown around or worse.  More than 100 people had died, ships had been destroyed and millions of dollars lost in time wasted waiting for slack tide or lost cargo.  In 1958 engineers devised a way, after 4 years of study and construction, of drilling tunnels under the channel and up into the underwater rock mountains to plant a massive amount of explosives.  As with any new undertaking, they were pretty sure it would work, but not 100%.  Fortunately, it did and we will sail through later tonight.  Terry had a movie produced by DuPont, who provided the blasting materials, that documented the whole affair.  It was most interesting.

The second lecture by Diana Preston was "The Evolution of Charles Darwin".  Diana and her husband have written a book about Darwin and this lecture was very good also.  I hadn't realized that his 5 year voyage on the HMS Beagle was his only venture outside of England.  Or that there was another naturalist, Alfred Wallace, who had come to almost identical conclusions as Darwin on evolution and was thought to be getting ready to publish his theory.  Darwin hurriedly finished and published his paper "On the Origin of Species" which he'd been sitting on for nearly 20 years for fear of criticism.  

While waiting for the lecture to start, I realized I had no pictures for today, so I took a photo of the theatre from my seat at the back.

Those brown posts are a real nuisance.  Whoever designed the theatre must not have ever sat in it.

Today was the last Trivia and again the women beat the men, but still out of the points.  We gave some of our points to Tom so he could get a jacket he was working for and the rest to Phil/Carol who are bringing their kids/grandkids on this ship to Alaska in July.  Their kids might be able to use them for T shirts.

Tonight was the Krew Kapers show, and again it was fun.  The same show as before, but still a fun event for all.  We were invited to join Brandon, the Food and Beverage Manager, for dinner in Chartreuse.  Also present were Mark and Arlene who we sailed the Grand Arctic with in 2022 and another couple whose names I didn't get.  Also there was Peachie, the Head of Housekeeping.  We had dinner with the two of them on the Voyager last year in the Eastern Med.  We think they must be an item.  It was a delightful evening where many stories were told and behind the scenes info shared.  We feel honored to be included.