I felt like it was another one of those announcements that is phrased as helpful but totally trashes your plans. Like the Pennsylvania Turnpikes “improvements for your safety and connivence” follow by the “no guard rails” sign. In this case NCL gleefully informed us we would be docking at the new WONDERFUL terminal. It is only 7 miles out of town. And, the courtesy bus is free. Right O. Add in riding on a crowded bus, possibly losing 20 minutes each way, what is not to like? Right?  

Part of it is because I have no clue how many of the 800 people on this ship are going to want to take the shuttle bus. We are in town for only about five hours. I am hoping that most folks are either on tour or staying on ship. I also haven’t a clue how the shuttle bus handles scooters, chairs, and walkers. And there are a lot of individuals on this ship with mobility assisting devices.

Now, in case you are wondering why I am grumpy, there is a perfectly fine dock right in the center of the old town which lets us off about 100 meters from a great coffee shop. There is a quilt shop down the street, bookstore two streets over and…. Never mind, you get the whine.  And if I didn’t want to look for some quilt fabric featuring sea otters for a friend, I probably wouldn’t be bothering to head to town at all.

——->-8———–

Well, made it to town. Found fudge, found magnets still on sale for a couple of the crew. Quilt store was open – but found only one panel of fabric that had anything that looked like an otter on it. Picked up two spools of thread I like. As it turns out made in Canada means that it is not easy to find in the US.

Stopped at the bookstore, then headed back to the ship. As it turns out, the bus ride was fine both ways. The drivers were entertaining (and long standing Ketchikan residents). The drive was interesting in terms of seeing something outside the tourist portion of town. And no one is happy about Walmart moving in and putting a number of  mom&pop stores out of business. Interesting perspectives about living somewhere that salmon is a cheap food….

off to relax – tomorrow is a sea day and we dock in Vancouver on Monday. No internet till then…

The last time I was here was well before the pandemic. The ship docked in front of the old Cannery which had been turned into a small, pleasant and walk-through in 10 minutes museum. Today it appeared significantly different. The tribe, the state, and some grants had gone for upgrades including two gondola systems and upgrades to the Cannery. All was finished in fall 2019. And you can just guess how the following two years went. One of the young women proudly told me that she was glad to be able to be working at home this summer between semesters; that they were expecting 250 ships this summer.

I walked the nature trail over to the Cannery meeting only one other person on the ½ mile trail. He was having a wonderful time complete with fancy camera and tripod. We chatted for a few minutes; this trip had been delayed two years for him. But the trees, moss, and sunlight filtering through the canopy was well worth the wait.

The history portion of the Cannery hasn’t changed. But the clean up has been extensive, it now feels open and welcoming. There are obviously the usual number of shops with a variety of goods; cheap magnets and t-shirts through incredible paintings and carved stone art.

Underneath the gondola run (green, free, thank you very much!) was a fantastic cross between a par course and the type of jungle gym that would be the envy of any adult school yard. . It would delight any teenager in the world. For that matter, with ladders, elevated walks, short zip-lines, rings, ropes, and balance areas I would have been extremely tempted. If it hadn’t been raining and a bit slippery. And, if I had less brittle bones or a bit less common sense.

This evening I finished Death Before Decaf, pattern designed by the WitchyStitcher

Since there is no way I am paying the hefty bill that NCL wants for internet – even the low bandwidth kind I decided instead to see how long I have been cruising with them

2011 – NCL Spirit in the Western Caribbean – immediately after Army retirement

N2011 – NCL Star – Alaska

2012 – NCL Jewel – Bahamas etc

2012 – NCL Jade x 2 – Canaries (did the loop twice)

2013 – NCL Jade x 2 – Western Med; Eastern Med (and I still have the lovely leather jacket I bought in Turkey)

2013 – NCL Epic – Eastern Caribbean

2015 – NCL Jade – 21 days of Mediterranean

2015- NCL Escape Transatlantic – Inaugural cruise over Halloween.

2017 – NCL Jewel Mexican Riviera

2017 – NCL Sun – Panama Canal x2

2018 – NCL Bliss – inaugural transatlantic

which sort of counts and 15 cruises and mostly on the older and smaller ships…

and mostly it was reading and knitting as sea day pastimes.

and then I went back to grad school in fall of 2018. And when I was about to be done with that – SARS-COV2 decided to come out and play….

It is not that I really mind that this wonderful cruise is coming to an end. It is just that getting through this particular day can be a pain.

The seas are rough, I need to pack, and trying to check in for my flight is absolutely insane.

In order – rough seas – I can live with. I don’t usually get sea sick. Haven’t so far this cruise and not expecting to have any issues this last night. But the bobbing and weaving around makes it a bit challenging occasionally to navigate across the cabin, much less ensure that I have all the small, rolly-things under control and tucked into the correct pocket. I am thinking that I may wind up going with the toss the suckers in and sort-em-out when I get home. I have acquired almost nothing on the trip, having lost the taste for souvenirs a number of years ago after trying to figure out exactly WHAT I was going to do with all those fridge magnets. I don’t scrapbook. I am also taking home less than I brought. The two puzzles will remain here on the ship and I am tossing my sandals as they have reached the end of their life expectancy.

The checking in process is what is driving me nuts. It took 10 minutes for the United site to load. I have no interest in using the app since I won’t be on line in the terminal unless there is free wi-fi. In any case, I have hard copy documents + pictures. So I finally, after about 10 tries (no, the slider on the side doesn’t move the form up – it closed the pop-up). Slow learner here – after trying several things – using the down arrow worked after clicking somewhere – anywhere inside the pop-up border, I  was able to upload my documents. But no, that is nowhere near enough! I then had to manually enter all the data on my immunizations.

And, after all of that – the site tells me it is “processing” whatever the H that means. But I can’t go any further in the process for the moment. I wonder if the process needs human eyes or counseling to process….

Ah well. Not much else accomplished today. I am tired and need some sleep!

We docked today at a reasonable time. Even more important, we docked at the pier closest to the city which put the ship on the walkable side of the port.  It was the other side last November when we port called here necessitating a bus ride as the sidewalks ended at the freeway entrance. Not so this time. We could walk out if not interested in the shuttle bus, striding past the closed information center before arriving at a set of well tended cafes and clothing shops.

You can see our pier clearly on the map along with the second pier toward the edge.

I strolled along following the City Center signs, past several roundabouts –

all of which seemed to have something or other to do with boats and/or fishing.

Considering that this port call was arranged on only a few days’ notice, the ship managed to come up with access to some of the standard tours (ride a camel & see a volcano; wine; bus around the island; hike across a lava field). I am thinking that these are essentially the same type of tours that were offered when I was first here in 2012.

I stopped at La Playa – source of cheap, schlocky tourist goods –

because: Hello? Flamingo!

Found the toy store I remembered from the last time and picked up a couple of jigsaw puzzles, then wandered back to the ship.

The passenger decks are 4/5/6. The eight or so cabins that are on Deck 3 are technically not in use. Since I am not the only one who originally booked one of those cabins, we are assuming that they are being held for isolation, quarantine, or treatment in the case of an outbreak on ship. Failing that – some of the senior crew might just have better digs for the crossing.  As the ship is sailing no where near full, I suspect also that it is just easier not to have to assign crew to clean 1 or 2 cabins separate from the rest.

I didn’t spend all that much time off ship. None of the Canary Islands are COVID free and I saw way too many ship’s passengers not wearing masks off ship. So I will be back to masked for the duration of the trip when out of my cabin and will probably choose dinner out at the grill or use room service a lot. I have no intention of getting stuck in Portugal for a length of time rather than be on my flight on the 1st….

and I am so not discussing the almost 200 stitches I had to pick back out of the LongDog sampler..

and our brief flirtation with lovely weather has disappeared. Yesterday, during most of the day the weather was bright, breezy and cork-in-a-shaken bottle. There was a short time when it was reasonably fine to be out on deck. The rest of the time? The crew battened down most moveable objects and people were navigating the corridors via the drunken sailor walk.

Me? As you might expect, I spent the day chatting with various people in the lounge hearing more tales about family members stranded at the start of the pandemic.  The stories are interesting. More than one has a family member they haven’t seen in several years due to resistance of that member to get immunized.

Ah, well The only thing I can keep chanting is “You can’t regulate common sense and you can’t cure stupid.”

So I am continuing to work on one or more of the cross-stitch projects I brought along, take a few naps and listen here and there to interesting conversations.

I continue to make progress on the LongDog (You Belong to Me aka the Egyptian one). I will say that negative space objects are less my joy than positive ones (see goats vs birds). I just went past 70% so I think I am safe in thinking I will have this finished this year. Finishing out the bottom of both pyramids will mean that I have completed 8 full pages + part of the 9th.

And then there is the Galactic Dragon Puzzle

which is only 500 pieces but took various contributors a couple of days. It is all whimsy pieces of stars, inserts and sharp angles.  After looking through the remaining puzzles, I may well hit a toy store in Accerife. None of the ones left appeal to me.

I think we may have one time zone change left, but it should be after we leave the Canaries. Hoping for better weather tomorrow, but one never knows!

I might well consider the cruise line’s offer. If I didn’t have other things that I would rather be doing. And if the ship was going somewhere I hadn’t been before. And this would comply with a number of additional reminders from Ron: – don’t fly in on the day of the cruise; don’t let the ship leave if your luggage isn’t in your cabin; cross pack if you have a partner. And I would add – check around you so that you don’t leave a bag behind in your transportation to the ship. )

Anyway – Windstar apparently has more than half of the current passengers heading off in Lisbon and less than a dozen boarding. They have offered an incredibly reasonable price for anyone who wants to extend their cruise through the next Lisbon-Lisbon leg. Unfortunately, that extension no longer includes Morocco. So it would be Gibraltar and several of the Canary Islands. They haven’t figured out that waiving the single supplement would probably get several of the other solo travelers to stay. This crossing had a significantly reduced single supplement. (what is better? charging a solo passenger double? Or having an empty cabin which translates into no passenger, no daily service charge and lack of work for the staff….)

But I have (I think) a number of things scheduled for the first 10 days of April….don’t I????

And, in any case there are plenty of things that I need to do around the house before I take off again. Staying would be just delaying the return flight home….

What else? Oh, I have found that if I have my phone on the network I can’t airdrop photos to the computer. If I have the computer on the network, the phone can still manage to airdrop photos. Go figure!

And, on the stitching front – I actually managed to get a couple of photos to upload. Even clicking on them, they won’t embiggen much as serious reduction was the only way to convince the server that I didn’t want to spend hours on uploading.

So I am making steady progress on the LongDog Sampler (>62%)

Started as my airport/airplane and cruise stitching – The words are done, now all I have to do is finish the ring of coffee beans. (Forbidden Fiber Co)

And finally – this is my start on the March Quaker by Heart in Hand. It isn’t hard, not very complex, and only three colors. So I am counting this one as my “new Cruise, new start.” Given that I want to finish up the Coffee, and the Long Dog keeps calling me – I probably won’t get it finished before the end of the cruise.

It is now Wednesday – and what should be 0600. From an intellectual point of view, no problems. From a physical point of view? Let’s see – three hours change from California to Miami involving the red-eye and an extremely short night. Then the fleeing of an hour two days ago – getting up was not so bad. This morning? I am claiming that I am not really interested in a time zone change and going back to sleep. Loss of five hours on the physical clock right now feels like a lot more than that on the biological one. Up to this point, I have always preferred the gradual change but now I am starting to wonder about just having the change and getting it over with. But then, traveling by ship is so much nicer than airplane, and certainly, in this case MUCH cheaper than a business class ticket.

Yesterday was another lovely quiet day and I have the same planned for today. I haven’t figured out a good time to hit the gym when there isn’t anyone else in there as it is a rather small space.  Pictures still aren’t willing to upload. Ugh.

No, not me. Again, not me. I have everything I started out with. So far I have met three people whose luggage didn’t make the ship.  

The first is a retired engineering type from Vancouver who was caught in the  1 March additional requirement by St Maarten for obtaining a pre-authorization certification for entry.  Apparently, I have one of the few travel agents who made the extra effort to ensure that I knew about the requirement.  In fact, my agent both phoned me and sent me an email complete with the link so that I could comply.  Even so, at this point I always double check entry requirements before leaving home. He, and several others on his first flight were lucky enough to manage getting through the St Maarten website  and getting an email back while waiting to check in. But he said it was a run for the gate;  his luggage didn’t make the flight. Not all airlines fly in everyday. As a result, he spent all of Friday dealing with the mess and repeating dozens of times that luggage arrival on Sunday would do him no good.  His luggage will be shipped back to family in Vancouver. And he was smart enough to do some minimal shopping before getting on the ship. The ship is providing him free laundry.

The second passenger’s luggage didn’t arrive on ship. By the time she realized that it wasn’t on, we had sailed. Her luggage, for whatever reason, was loaded onto the Seaborne ship that was also departing on Saturday. She picked up some clothes from the Ship’s boutique. Since she and her husband are staying in Portugal, her luggage will be sent to her there.

The last person, so far, is probably the one who is going to have the most challenge. First caught in the “you don’t have pre-authorization trap” the airline personnel in Portland Maine helped her through the process. She managed to lave a couple of bags in the taxi that brought her to the pier. More importantly – her son, who was suppose to meet her at the connecting airport was unable to get his authorization in time and didn’t make St Maarten’s at all – much less the ship. My best guess is that she is in here late 80s and hasn’t traveled by herself for a long time. 

I have learned a couple of lessons through observation if you are going to a foreign [to you] port to board a ship :

1.  you need to check country requirements personally to make sure that there isn’t a problem
2. use a good agent or book your flights through the cruise line. Flight failure, etc puts the burden on the cruise line to get you to the port
3. It might cost more, but cruise line transfers are more likely to get all of your luggage to your ship than random hotels or taxis.
4. carrying at least one change of clothes along with documents and meds in your carryon is a really good idea.
5. and last but not least – fly with a regularly scheduled airline so that there is a chance that your bags, should they be separated from you, might actually make it to port. The airline with daily flights is a good idea. That budget one which offers flight only 2-3 days a week? Not so much.