2024 Sydney to Seattle

 Oh what a day in so many ways.  Overnight I woke up at 2:30am for a bio break and took a peek out the stateroom window and discovered that we were tied up at Canada Place in Vancouver.  That meant that we sailed under the Lions Gate bridge at least an hour earlier and I missed it.  We had the STAR NOVA berthed behind us and we were expecting a Royal Caribbean ship in later in the day (likely around 2pm when the next low tide would occur).  The skies were blue and just a few clouds in the sky.  We slept in a bit until around 8:00 although I was awake much earlier and took care of some bill paying electronically.   Up in the LIDO marketplace on Deck 16 we were treated to the display of seaplanes taking off and landing with significant frequency.  We were warned that with the 3rd ship arriving that there will be significant delays in returning to the ship, but to carry the "IN TRANSIT" card to skip all of the  immigration check delays.  With that apprehension planted in our min

 Today is our last sea day before reaching Vancouver.  The Captain announced that we would be entering the Strait of Juan de Fuca around 2pm today and that we should be able to see marine mammal activity.  Our day started with the Bible study in the Princess Live theater.  Ron, the leader for most of the studies, was presented a Captain's hat as a token of gratitude for his service. Afterwards I watched a Culinary demonstration in the Princess theater which included a large processional of waiters and culinary personnel.  After lunch we watched a comedian, Mike Sealey, who's the Welsh one liner..  He's  good.  Around 2:40pm I was in our cabin and happened to spot a whale swimming by and was able to photograph it.   Afterwards I watched a navigation presentation by Giovanni, the ship's second officer.  It was pretty interesting. The evening entertainment was a variety show featuring Ashlie Amber, David Klinkenberg, and Yaniv Zarif.  They were all good.  We then did the l

 Each day has been getting colder.  This morning it was 50ºf when we woke up.  Per our Captain, we were sailing off the coast of Oregon State. After our customary  morning Bible study which was a continuation of sharing from yesterday, I attended Mark Harris' excellent talk on dolphins.  Afterwards I pretty much just hung out until lunch we we enjoyed for the first time in the Concerto Dining Room.  It was a birthday lunch for Gary, our piano player for the worship service.   A group of nine of us honored him on his 70th birthday. Afterwards, I went to David Klinkenberg's presentation on the Da Vinci Code.  He claims to have cracked it, but I remain a bit skeptical.  He's continuing to try and raise money to get a series put on the History or Discovery channel. If you want to watch it, there's a video on YouTube. Write me if you want more specific directions. Angela sang in her 3rd and final pop choir performance in the Piazza.  I watched it along with Gary and JoAnn an

 Today I made the transition to long pants to accompany the sweatshirt I'm generally wearing during the day around the ship.  It's 5-6 degrees colder this morning with an outside temperature of 56ºf at wake-up time.  We attended our normal Bible study session this morning and it was the first of two days of sharing as many of the people are getting off in Vancouver in a few days.  3 men shared.  One was a former federal agent severely burned in a helicopter training accident; the second shared about becoming a Christian on his way back from a second tour in Vietnam, and the 3rd fellow shared about his volunteer work in disaster relief around the world.  Ron will continue with a Revelation study for the following 3 days starting on Wednesday. Our first enrichment lecture this morning was all about bears and Mark Harris had a really concise presentation about the 3 types of bears: black, grizzly, & polar. Lewis Lucke followed up with a great presentation on Petra.  Petra is a

 Today we crossed the official half way point on our 2,440 mile leg from Moorea to Vancouver, BC.  At noon the captain made note of it.  Throughout the day the seas were extremely flat, but the temperatures are slowly dropping as we sail north east.  It was 61°f at 7:30am and didn't get much warmer.  I'm thinking that tomorrow I'll transition back to long pants after wearing shorts for most of the previous cruise days. Given that it was Sunday, we attended the interdenominational Sunday service which had over 200 people in attendance.  We even had a pianist, Gary, which really helped.  Ron preached once again a powerful message. The rest of the day was pretty low key with no major events except the 3pm Voice of the Ocean final performance and the evening entertainer. So I decided to attend the chocolate demonstration in the Piazza.  It was yummy!  I then participated in the ring toss game which our team won. At 3pm the finals of the Voice of the Ocean were held and our new

There was a bit more motion to the ocean today although the waves did not look that large.  Even after all these many days of cruising all over the world, I still marvel at the vastness of the ocean.  We haven't seen another ship in days and we continue to cruise at 18 knots covering around 440 miles per day.  I have never seen the Captain except at official events.  This is unlike most HAL cruises where the Captain is more visible especially at meal times. Our day began with Bible Study in the Princess Live theater with Ron leading. Today's message was on the 8 roles that Jesus performed in the Bible. Lewis Lucke presented his talk on Iraq reconstruction which was quite good.  The USAID program provided so much help that went unreported in the media.  After Lewis, naturalist Mark Harris gave an interesting presentation on glaciers.   There was a reprise of the production show, Encore, at 3pm, but I skipped it to take a short nap and catch up on some YouTube videos. Violinist D