Day 03 - 09/18/26 - Scenic Cruising - Day 2

 What a contrast this second day of cruising has been. While we set our alarms for 715. I was awake at 6 AM and Angela had turned on the stateroom television to the bow channel and the light from that kept me awake. So I rolled out of bed roughly at 7:45 or so and prepared for my day we ate our customary breakfast in the Lido. Just north of Ketchikan we spotted the southbound Nieuw Amsterdam headed for there and I photographed it. Last year we were on that ship doing that same route southbound to Vancouver. We then attended Theresa's coffee chat with the executive chef. He's from India and is a vegetarian. Following this, we watched his cooking demonstration of preparing salmon meatballs in the Wajang theater. Again it was very interesting and we enjoy watching these cooking demonstrations. Unfortunately, there's no sampling of the food that's prepared there.

For us, there was a gap in the programming so we went up to the Crows Nest and watched the scenery go by. It is considerably chillier today and heavily overcast and we didn't see any wildlife together although Angela had seen a pod of dolphins earlier in the morning. Our route today was to transit Snow Pass and Decision Passage and those were accomplished with little fanfare.  Lunch was once again in the Lido and we enjoyed a really nice conversation with a couple from Toronto, who were very baseball literate and so we could talk baseball freely with them. They were both widow and widower and had found friendship in Ireland and have been together for the last six years.

After lunch, Holly gave a really nice port talk on Kodiak and Homer in the world stage and once again after that, I adjourned to the Crows Nest to watch the scenery go by and also watch a little bit of YouTube video. At 3 PM Dr. Douglas gave a nice presentation on glaciers and their landscapes and he also included some video that he shot in Snow Pass of a humpback whale breaching. He tried to chide the audience for not being outside very much, but I have to tell you it was pretty chilly out there. I believe the windchill factor brought the perceived temperature down to about 41°. We talked about changing our dinner plans for tonight and having dinner in the Canaletto. I made reservations for the first available slot, which was 6:30, but we stopped by the entry location And the greeter said that he could accommodate us as soon as we were available. So we went back down to the room and changed into a little bit nicer clothes and headed back to the Canaletto where we enjoyed a very nice dinner with a window seat. We rather like the Canaletto and its Italian theme and we have a couple free dinners in it this cruise.

With the early dinner, we were able to make the 730 show which featured Marco Kopitzke who did a show titled Hollywood Swing. It featured largely big band songs and other songs of that genre. He was really good and we had front row seats. After his performance he even acknowledged that we were singing along with his songs as we knew virtually all of them.

Angela wanted to listen to the guitarist, Shelly, so I left her there and I returned to the room to work on this blog. My aim is to get to bed earlier tonight as we arrive in Sitka tomorrow morning and we are planning to have an active day. I'd like to get a little more sleep tonight than I got last night. It's worth noting that the cruise terminal was about 5 miles from downtown. The town provides a free shuttle and we were encouraged to make a reservation for the shuttle so that we would not have to queue up in line and wait for best of seats that might become available. So I made reservations for the timeslot 9 to 9:30 AM.We've been here previously a number of times and we'll probably just walk around and possibly visit the little Costco as well as a thrift store. It's a really nice touch that the town provides the free shuttle as that's not really common in most ports we have visited around the world.

We're totally enjoying sailing on the Zaandam and really like the size of the ship and our interior state room location (3395), which is an interior cabin in the aft part of the ship. We do hear a little bit of noise from carts in the dining room on the floor above before bed and in the morning when we wake up, but it is not objectionable at all. We are also on the same deck as the walking track around the ship so it's very convenient to pop out there to get from one into the ship to the other, depending upon the weather.

Nieuw Amsterdam 

Bow Wave Action 



Mark Kopitzke


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