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Saturday | July 16

Juneau

“Between the woods the afternoon / Is fallen in a golden swoon / The sun looks down from quiet skies / To where a quiet water lies, / And silent trees stoop down to trees, / And there I saw a white swan make / Another white swan in the lake; / And, breast to breast, both motionless, / They waited for the wind’s caress…/ And all the water was at ease.” -A.A. Milne, The Mirror

Today is shopping day. Yippee! This is my second turnover day since the start of the season where I don’t have to swab the decks with the deck department or break down boxes for the galley and vacuum for the hotel department.

Just getting off of the ship for a spell is good from time to time to stimulate the brain with the small town vibe of Juneau and the best part about it: the Juneau-ites.

Leah--our wellness instructor--and I hit all the big box stores: Home Depot, Fred Meyer and Costco to shop for various items that were requested from the different departments on the ship throughout the week.

We all work hard on these turn-over days and look forward to the arrival of our new guests after disembarking our old guest-friends in the morning.

We wave good-bye to the massive cruise ships docked along the waterfront as the M/V Wilderness Discoverer (WND) heads south through the Gastineau Channel.

 

“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeing new landscapes, but in having new eyes.” --Marcel Proust

Saturday | July 2

“If there is magic on this planet, it is contained in water.”  --Loren Eisely

 

The M/V Wilderness Discoverer lifts anchor and motors north through Gastineau Channel and docks beneath the rising peaks of Mount Roberts and Mount Juneau.  All (departing passenger) luggage is taken off of the vessel and carried up the dock ramp to the waiting buses.

 

A fond farewell takes place between crew and guests as the latter disembark to hug and shake hands with their favorite crew members on the dock.  Great memories and sad goodbyes!

 

The excitement for the morning is when I crashed a fully-loaded, heavy rolling cart on the ramp leading down to the pier.  Luckily none of the eggs in the 13-dozen box broke.

 

Note to self:  Do not use a cart that lacks hand brakes when the tide is low.  All of the carts but one has a hand brake.  Kristen helps me re-load and we get back to transporting stores from truck to ship.

All available hands on the ships crew prepare for a new group of passengers that will board the vessel at 16:30 hours.  All decks are swabbed, port holes washed, sheets changed, cabins and heads cleaned, dirty laundry and garbage hauled off ship, and galley stores stowed.

 

After our welcome aboard orientation meetings with the deck, engineering, hotel and expedition leads, the M/V Wilderness Discoverer pulls away from the Juneau dock and heads south in Gastineau Channel.  We spot some Humpback Whales feeding just outside of the Taku Inlet and enjoy the sunset on the outside decks.

 

Our destination for tomorrow will be the one of three spectacular fiords in the Tracy Arm—Fords Terror Wilderness, about 46 miles south of Juneau.  The area encompasses close to 700,000 acres of rugged Coast Range mountains bordering Holkham Bay, the spot where we will be anchoring tonight.

 

The three dramatic fiords are Endicott Arm, Fords Terror and Tracy Arm, all of which trend west-to-east through the Coast Mountain Range.  The three tidewater glaciers drop down from the Stikine Icefield and regularly calve ice bergs into the ocean.