July 11/16: Day at Sea

Our Gala night took us to the Pinnacle for a feast of the eyes and the stomach, it was like we hadn't eaten in days. The scale will not be my friend after tonight. Lobster bisque (Jan had the Jumbo Scrimp cocktail), followed by the filet magnon (Jan had the King Crab Legs). We had way to many sides to even think about finishing but we did carve a small area out to enjoy dessert, me cheesecake / Jan, Lemon Brûlée tart. We thought about ordering a couple of wheelchairs to cart us out of there, lol.

This great night started with some surprise whale viewing before getting dressed up for the Captain's reception. After our dinner we watched the Noordam singers and dancers in the main show lounge, of course great. Followed that up with watching a set in the new (well new to us) BB King Blues Club, great energy from the eight performers.

A note on the Formal Night (Gala night). It seems this experience is longer a high point or desirable amongst this next lot of cruisers. Participation was limited as perhaps many did not read their daily program or simply snubbed the event all together. You know, I get it for the majority of these people that are just getting away and do not wish to bring along any formal wear (that's a stretch by the way, many appear to not even own a decent suit). Again, this is okay as I know the cruise industry is competitive and they are just looking to put bums in seats, I know it's a business. I just personally find it disappointing that this night of looking your best isn't taken to heart as it really is part of the complete cruising experience. I am just so happy that we began cruising when this meant something special and really enjoyed the experience along with all the other guests. To each his own now. 

Our captain seem very nice, Captain Pieter Bos, he has been a master of vessels since 1996, first on the Statendam then the Rotterdam and now on this ship, the Noordam. Our Cruise Director is Kelsey, she is good, knows how to roll with it and it very capable in this difficult cruise ship position.

We look forward to Ketchikan tomorrow as we are taking our first ever float plane tour - going to go and check out some brown bears (hopefully).

Tomorrow night brings us to our first invitation of the cruise, the officers reception in the crows nest, should be great. Until then, hope you enjoy today's few pics. One of Diane from last nights piano bar...

July 10/11, 2016: Noordam/Day at Sea

First impressions. Another very nice ship in the HAL fleet. Very similar layout to the Nieuw Amsterdam and Eurodam. We decided to move to a verandah cabin over our usual outside cabin. Why, well with these bigger ships they have more verandah availability with pretty reasonable prices, so why not. Could use a little more pampering this time around. They did serve a mariner lunch yesterday, fanastic, nice surprise. We chatted with the dining staff and were able to secure our table for four, set for two - nice, right on the window. Dinner was excellent, pictured is the scallops with bacon. Went to the abbreviated orientation show at 9:30 and then sat and said hello to Diane Fast in the Piano Bar and listened to her entertaining performances to about midnight. Great to see Diane again, we realized we hadn't seen her since out first Grand Australia / New Zealand Voyage back in 2009. Time does fly indeed.

First Formal or sorry, Gala night tonight, we are having dinner in the Pinnacle, looking forward to this experience on this ship. 

Okay time to try the first upload using the ships Internet and iPad. Hopefully this test will work, fingers crossed.

The last pic is of us looking back at our Paradise Rock from a reverse angle as we are usually looking out the other way. Nice to be on this side...

Alaska 2016

After a long hiatus from travel and blogging it is time to once again put the difibrillator paddles onto the heart of our travel blog. Under doctors orders we are setting course North, way up North to Alaska. Seems that some people think it is stressful to travel but it seems for us that it stressful not to travel, go figure. So here we go...

New this time around, I am going to attempt this with my iPad only, using the blogspot app, syncing my iPad to my new Panasonic Lumix DMC-ZS100 camera (for picture transfer), all the while linking the blog through my Facebook account. We will also try to spice it up a little by introducing video snippets. Perhaps a tall order but we will give it a go. BTW, although confidence level is up there, I am also going to be bringing our anchor of a laptop. I do find it amazing between what I used to travel with and the amount of equipment that I can now travel with to still provide the same results. So with the doctors blessing we embark the HAL MS Noordam tomorrow at about noon. The Noordam is a new ship and classification of HAL ship for us. Identifying as the four points of the compass these Vista class ships are the Noordam (North), the Oosterdam (East), Zuiderdam (South) and the Westerdam (West). Each of these ships carries just over 1,900 passengers and 800 crew at a length of 936 with a 106 foot beam at a gross tonnage of 82,305. So, yes something new to us.

We selected this ship and this cruise for a few reasons, first it was a 7 day up and 7 day return cruise rather than a 7 day turnaround cruise, second, it is out of Vancouver, just keeps it real simple transportation wise and finally timing. We could get on quickly enough (booked this about a week ago) so before the clinic people change their minds and tell us that the trip is too soon. Thank you for the messages from our other friends aboard the other ships leaving out of Vancouver and Seattle, really it is not you its us. The good news is that "The Piano Broad" is aboard the Noordam, yes, thank you Diane for you message, we look forward to seeing in the Piano Bar - they do have a piano bar right?

Okay, here we go,

Embark Vancouver, July 10th

July 11th, day at Sea cruising the inside passage

July 12th, Ketchikan - booked a private seaplane tour looking for grizzly bears

July 13th, Juneau - on our own to tackle picturesque Mt. Roberts

July 14th, Skagway - local tour hiking the Chilkoot Trail with a raft float down the Taiya River

July 15th, cruising the beautiful waters of Glacier Bay

July 16th, sea day

July 17th, Seward, hopefully able to get on 6 hour inlet tour offered by HAL

July 18th, Sea day

July 19th, Scenic cruising of Glacier Bay

July 20th, Haines - wait listed for a HAL biking tour

July 21st, Juneau - open, no plans

July 22nd, Ketchikan - 3 hour Adenture Kart tour of the backcountry 

July 23rd, Sea Day, cruising the inside passage

July 24th, home to Vancouver, in time to go see the Tragically Hip

So here goes, hopefully this posting formats okay and the pics attach in a viewable format.

 

Whistler, Sept 27, 2015

Today, I am testing another posting option to the blog, this time using the blogger app. I am hoping for a better display on narration. Meaning paragraph separation. Up front it looks like it may work but so did my other way, the proof will be in the actual post. So please bare with me. 

This is very unusual for us at this time of year to not be packing and taking an extended travel adventure. As many of you know this is the time of year that we get out of town and travel to some amazing places, especially for the month of November. Well for a variety of reasons we remain at home this year, call it a breather. We are weaning ourselves by taking mini day adventures (excursions), with today driving the amazing Sea to Sky highway to Whister. With the weather being perfectly clear we thought today would be "the day" to take in the spectacular sights. 

We took our time with making a few stops along the way, the first was at Shannon Falls - with all the rain we have had over the past few weeks we knew it would give us a great show. The next stop was at an amazing viewpoint offering spectacular views of a local glacier - at most times this peak is shrouded in cloud. Two hours after leaving home we were at our destination for the day, Whistler. 

Street parking was easy on a Monday, usually you would need to park in one of the pay day lots. We positioned ourselves close to the cross country ski trails as these offer great paths for biking. With bikes off loaded we tested Zydnea with her first ride with us and she did great. She kept up and seemed to love running along with us. We stopped at Lost Lake for a picnic lunch - amazing that there were some people actually swimming. Meaning about 100 metres to a float, lying in the sun and then swimming back as fast as they could. I heard one of them saying that they could feel their heart coming out of their chest - yes, a bit chilly. We then circled back to the truck, loaded the bikes back up and headed to the village for some retail therapy. 

A great day as we enjoy our extended summer. 

Paradise Rock at Half Moon Bay - July 2015

We originally purchased a retreat home here on the Sunshine Coast (British Columbia) in 2004, a block from where we are now. Although that house was beautiful and very solid (hand built by a Finnish carpenter) with a beautiful view, it wasn't exactly what we were looking for in a cabin retreat. So in early in 2006 we were very fortunate that our realtor personally knew the artist owner of our now waterfront retreat. You see we had been working with this realtor for some time to find us the perfect place, in fact we did find a beautiful home on the water, not 100% what we were looking for but given the market at the time we liked it enough where we were at the final stages of making our decision when we got a call while we were on the ferry. Jan told me it was our realtor and that she wanted to show us one more house, my knee jerk reaction was no, we had seen a lot and were about to make a final decision. Jan told this to the realtor who was insistent and finally said that she just wanted us to have a look to give her our opinion on the house, we agreed and she told us that to meet at our house. Well this where the story gets a bit crazy. We get into her car and she tells us to close our eyes, I'm thinking yeah right I don't think so and she gets insistent (btw, we love our realtor, she is a wonderful person), so we say okay, okay eyes are closed. She backs out of our driveway and starts to head down the hill and makes a turn all the while saying, lower bank, lower bank. She pulls into the driveway of this house and says, okay open your eyes. I look at the house before me and say, I know this house, this is a beautiful house, really this house. She says do you want to have a look, we respond with well yes. Now because this house is in our original neighbourhood we happen to know the owners, from dog walking etc., and they are there, so we have like a visit and go through the house. Everything we wanted and more, location, check, type of home, check, hot tub on the deck with water view, check, mooring buoy out front, check, check, check, check. Here's the rub, this house is actually not on the market, you see the owner called her friend the realtor (our realtor) and asked to meet for coffee that morning. They knew each other because as mentioned the owner is an artist and our realtor at some point purchased a piece from her and they became friends. Well at the meeting they discussed that they finally decided that they were going to sell and move back east, so they thought of their friend the realtor who after that coffee called us (back to while we were on the ferry). The owner wanted the realtor to come over and give them some ideas as to how to better present their home in preparation for sale. The realtor looked through the house and said don't change a thing I think I have the perfect couple and told the owner who, they were delighted to have us take "a look" and give us the chance to make a premarket offer. Well as they say, the rest is history... Long story short that was nine years ago, we have tweaked a few changes to date but in the most part the house is pretty much the same as when we moved in. We always wanted to name our little retreat but never could come up with the right name so we just called it the house on the Coast. We felt it was time to make it official and after some idea bouncing here we have it, Paradise Rock. Funny, the day we named it our internet installer came to the house ( yes, we are now connected), got out of his van and said to me as he walked up, this is paradise here and I said, yes it is, it definitely is Paradise. So with my new iPad and with a great optic fibre internet connection I thought I would highlight our place here in our travel blog as when we are in Vancouver and not travelling this is where we try to spend much of our time. So with these pictures, welcome to Paradise Rock, hope you enjoy! This is also an iPad test for uploading to our blog, so I am hoping for success here because I am hoping to lighten my load a bit and travel with just the iPad. Fingers crossed in this success...