May 10, 2013
Noro virus.
The vessel is trying to get rid of an outbreak of symptoms that look like noro virus.
Everyone must leave the ship today, no exceptions – taking cruises around the Kenai Fjords, coach trips to Anchorage, or walking around Seward – anything to let the workers armed with bottles of disinfectant get at the ship.
To off the boat, all of us had to go through American Immigration.
If anyone is impartial, or if not that, at least able to judge the speed with which passport inspection works, it should be the 3 Canadians.
We have been through immigration in China, Japan, Russia – the line-ups are the same, long with people shifting from one foot to the other and saying out loud as they leave, “Never again. Never again.”
Or maybe the words are “Now that was a big mistake”.
We don’t hear enough of the conversation to know what it was that was a big mistake, and for sure we don’t want to replicate the mistake, but there is no polite way to run after the disgruntled passengers to find out more of their story.
Greg says that someone should write an article called “The True Story of Cruising”. All he has ever seen are the sunny commercials, where the men have six packs and the women wear bikinis. The truth is long line ups, weary travellers from flights, some as long as 25 hours if people are arriving from New Zealand. The ones who flew into Anchorage had another 4 ½ hour train ride to the boat in Seward. That ride is supposed to be a traveller’s delight. If it is, they were awful crabby for having been on a pleasure trip.
The trip off of the boat that we took was entitled Kenai Fjords Wildlife Cruise. Wyona signed us up a few days ago – a bit expensive, but with when the boat gave us a $50 refund on our tickets since we didn’t go with the other group into Anchorage, the pain over the cost of the ticket was ameliorated: all you can eat prime rib and salmon, plus the promise of see Bear Glacier, part of the Harding Ice Field.
We took a trip through town, narrated by a local school bus driver. Now that was fun: here is the canning factory, there is the coal shoot through which the ore runs that is shipped from here to the Philippines, there is our one block of main street, to the right you see our local one screen movie theatre. Inside we have 5 different kinds of chairs. Going there is an experience. and now I am going to drop you off at the tourist centre.
The building far outstripped any of the other local facilities. I watched the swimming birds catch and eat fish from an underwater vantage point. The highlight was to listen to a naturalist explain facts about Lulu, the local octopus who laid her eggs in March 2012 and hasn’t eaten since, but is tending them as they hatch ... right now in 3 and 6’s, but later this month, 2013, there will be a massive hatching before she finishes her life cycle and is finally eaten by the star fish and other sea creatures in the huge holding tank in which I saw her. Right now she fans her tentacles and brushes them away from the eggs that her tentacles surround, but soon she won’t even have the strength for that. In an hour I didn’t see much more than that in the building.
A park naturalist was on board, narrating the water tour. Her traditional park uniform, a wide brimmed hat ranger hat and khaki coloured coat with a US Parks insignia was accessorized with her hair in pig tails and a her nose ring and outfit. She knew her stuff sometimes referring to information she learned from her friend, the glaciologist. The 165 passenger boat had hardly begun to circle Resurrection Bay when ranger was using the placement of the hands on a clock to tell us where the wild life was. Otter in the water at 3 o’clock she began. The otter didn’t move, though she explained he spends his life in the water and was probably sleeping when we saw him. I believed her, though 1 per cent of me wondered if what I was looking at wasn’t a large balloon, shaped like an otter. I felt the same way about the bald eagle sitting in a tree. Have they just planted imitations of animals at certain points and then drive by them in a boat. I was convinced I was seeing animals in the wild when I saw rocks covered with seals, laying in the sun, honking, and seeing the scat covered cliff with a myriad of sea fulls sitting on the cliffs beside them was just a sight! There were sightings of grey whales, the first one in nature that this naturalist had ever seen herself, and multiple sightings of whales and their babies, back Resurrection Bay after their long swim from Hawaii. “Don’t those mountain goat ever all,” one passenger asked.
“Yes. My friend tags some of them, and when she sees them, some have broken limbs and teeth before she sents them loose in the wild again.”
We saw porpoises on our way back to Seward as well as many sightings of mature and immature bald eagles. “Have you ever been lucky enough to see a bear?”, someone asked me. I knew there was a whole conversation inside of me, which would end with, “Most of my summer days I feel lucky if I don’t see a bear.”
Wyona headed back to the ship, but she left Greg a shopping list: a jar of Nivea Cream and a few bottles of Coke for her. He and I thought we could pick them up in this little village. I was trying to get a feel for its size, thinking in my mind ... Salmon Arm. But no – its population is a little over 3,000, multiplying itself to 30,000 on the 4 of July when they have the second oldest footrace in the world – one up to the top of Mount Marathon and back – the prize going to anyone who can race up and down the mountain in less than 45 minutes – which is about the standing record. So, a town of 3,000? Doesn’t that make Seward about the same size as my Sicamous.
We could see the beginnings of tourism in town as we walked. Pup tents on a field and about 25 pick-ups dressed up as travel vehicles, rimming the edge of the bay each one facing the lake with a perfect view of the water.
“No tires with studs / April 15 to Sept 15” a sign on the highway said.
So ... the trick for Greg and me was to find Nivea Cream. One local directed us across the street to The Fish Shop, a warehouse like structure, with everything from fishing tackle to plastic buckets for your home—but no Nivea. The shop owner told us we might find it at the local Chevron station.
“I have never purchased hand lotion at the local gas station before,” I said to Greg, “but who am I to question local wisdom?”
The gas jockey told us no -- no hand cream there ... go a half a mile down the highway to the community Safeway store. That was his best guess. “How many more thousand miles to Safeway”, Greg asked a group of 20 year olds who looked like they might be local kids. They left and flagged us onward to a store, whose only sign of being a Safeway was a small red “S” on its side wall. Hard to get lost in Seward.
The ship is in dock – 11 stories high, it towers over any other building in town. To walk back we only had to go down Port Drive which was accessed, for us now, by walking over a railroad track – just as we do as the Shuswap, and going down a steep incline, about like the one where the beach can be accessed from Janet’s and Glen’s house, without the nice steps that are there. “You are kidding me? We are going to travel down that slope? Only if you go ahead and I can lean on your back,” I said to Greg.
A runner passed us. One who was running for her life. I knew she was a dealer from the ship’s casino, Osaka. Her run let me know that Greg and I had an extra half hour to get to the boat. Vessel employee’s have to be on board ½ hour before the rest of us. Greg and I did not pick up our speed.
A person can walk from one end of Seward to another in ½ hour.
Arta
 |
| ... octypus tentacles protecting eggs ... |
The vessel is trying to get rid of an outbreak of symptoms that look like noro virus.
Everyone must leave the ship today, no exceptions – taking cruises around the Kenai Fjords, coach trips to Anchorage, or walking around Seward – anything to let the workers armed with bottles of disinfectant get at the ship.
 |
| All-You-Can-Eat Salmon Buffet on the boat |
If anyone is impartial, or if not that, at least able to judge the speed with which passport inspection works, it should be the 3 Canadians.
We have been through immigration in China, Japan, Russia – the line-ups are the same, long with people shifting from one foot to the other and saying out loud as they leave, “Never again. Never again.”
Or maybe the words are “Now that was a big mistake”.
 |
| ... the barking of the sea lions was deafening ... |
Greg says that someone should write an article called “The True Story of Cruising”. All he has ever seen are the sunny commercials, where the men have six packs and the women wear bikinis. The truth is long line ups, weary travellers from flights, some as long as 25 hours if people are arriving from New Zealand. The ones who flew into Anchorage had another 4 ½ hour train ride to the boat in Seward. That ride is supposed to be a traveller’s delight. If it is, they were awful crabby for having been on a pleasure trip.
 |
| ... mountain goat ... this trip delivered so many sightings ... |
We took a trip through town, narrated by a local school bus driver. Now that was fun: here is the canning factory, there is the coal shoot through which the ore runs that is shipped from here to the Philippines, there is our one block of main street, to the right you see our local one screen movie theatre. Inside we have 5 different kinds of chairs. Going there is an experience. and now I am going to drop you off at the tourist centre.
 |
| sea lions basking in sun in lower part of picture |
 |
| Seward sign points to Hawaii and North Pole |
“Yes. My friend tags some of them, and when she sees them, some have broken limbs and teeth before she sents them loose in the wild again.”
We saw porpoises on our way back to Seward as well as many sightings of mature and immature bald eagles. “Have you ever been lucky enough to see a bear?”, someone asked me. I knew there was a whole conversation inside of me, which would end with, “Most of my summer days I feel lucky if I don’t see a bear.”
 |
| boat on land |
We could see the beginnings of tourism in town as we walked. Pup tents on a field and about 25 pick-ups dressed up as travel vehicles, rimming the edge of the bay each one facing the lake with a perfect view of the water.
“No tires with studs / April 15 to Sept 15” a sign on the highway said.
So ... the trick for Greg and me was to find Nivea Cream. One local directed us across the street to The Fish Shop, a warehouse like structure, with everything from fishing tackle to plastic buckets for your home—but no Nivea. The shop owner told us we might find it at the local Chevron station.
“I have never purchased hand lotion at the local gas station before,” I said to Greg, “but who am I to question local wisdom?”
The gas jockey told us no -- no hand cream there ... go a half a mile down the highway to the community Safeway store. That was his best guess. “How many more thousand miles to Safeway”, Greg asked a group of 20 year olds who looked like they might be local kids. They left and flagged us onward to a store, whose only sign of being a Safeway was a small red “S” on its side wall. Hard to get lost in Seward.
The ship is in dock – 11 stories high, it towers over any other building in town. To walk back we only had to go down Port Drive which was accessed, for us now, by walking over a railroad track – just as we do as the Shuswap, and going down a steep incline, about like the one where the beach can be accessed from Janet’s and Glen’s house, without the nice steps that are there. “You are kidding me? We are going to travel down that slope? Only if you go ahead and I can lean on your back,” I said to Greg.
A person can walk from one end of Seward to another in ½ hour.
Arta
hahahah great description. Steve and I took the tour that dropped us off at the top of the mountain with a bicycle, so we could ride down and enjoy the view. It was steep enough that I mostly focused on the road and not the view! :-)
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