Free at last!  Anchors Aweigh!

My preparation for this cruise has been an ongoing process for the last week and a half since school got out.  Since the Hites are coming the day after we get back (Yay!!) I wanted to have everything ready for their visit ready before we left, too, so I assigned myself a few chores and a few errands per day so I would finish on time.  My main goal was that on Thursday we wouldn’t be frantically packing, cleaning, and organizing. 

I was mostly successful.  At one point, Rich and I realized that we had been to about eleven stores each day, every day, for about eleven days in a row.  The idea of going to a store made me feel sick to my stomach (and you all know what a shopper I am!).  Luckily, by the time we reached that point, there wasn’t much left to buy.  We had stocked up on sunscreen, bug spray, hand warmers, extra towels for the house, night lights…funny, after all that shopping, this is all I can come up with! J

I didn’t feel stressed at all on Thursday, even taking about an hour to sit in the sun.  I dropped off the dogs with the dog sitter (last image in my mind is of Ruby riding off in the dog sitter’s car, feet up on the window look back at me nervously, realizing she’d somehow been tricked), started organizing the packing, did several loads of laundry…you know the drill! 

Finally it was Friday morning, we got up two hours before our friend Stephanie was coming to pick us up.  I had to pack up the last items and Rich was in charge of cooking breakfast and vacuuming (and running to the store for one more thing we forgot!).  I put the last item into my bag and walked down the driveway just as Stephanie pulled up and off we went.

One of the fun things about living in Bremerton is that we often have to take all the modes of transportation to get anywhere.  It’s become a game (“we took the car to the ferry, the ferry to Seattle, the train to the airport, the plane”…etc.) .  So yesterday we took the car to the ferry, the ferry to Seattle and then we needed to get to the pier.  There is a closer pier and we thought we were getting on there.  But then we realized that was pier 66 and our paperwork said pier 91.  That pier is NOT close.  We thought about walking it the day before.  Rich looked it up and thought it would take about an hour.  Not too bad…  But then, he announced, “Yeah, it’s about 5.5 or 6 miles.”  Honey.  That is NOT going to take an hour and did you SEE all those bags we have to carry??  Needless to say, we decided to take a taxi.  I figured it would cost about ten dollars or so to go the five miles.  Neither of us has ever gotten a taxi in Seattle before so we didn’t really know where to go.  Once we docked, we headed into the ferry station and down a ramp that said it would take us to ground transportation.  I noticed a sign that said something about reporting the behavior of taxi drivers if they weren’t behaving.  I was mulling that over when two men came RUNNING up the ramp, shouting at us “Taxi?  Need a taxi? You going to the airport? Want a taxi”.  It was overwhelming and my response in my head was “I’m not rewarding that behavior to either of you, I’ll find my own taxi.”  However, in real life we were both relieved at how easy it had been to find a taxi.  So the guy in front won (I’m pretty sure he pushed the other guy out of his way to get a head start, too) and he took my gigantic suitcase and off we went.  We had to cross the street and on a post along side the road I saw another sign saying that passengers were not obligated to take the taxi in the front of the line and were allowed to choose any driver they wanted.  At this point, I started to feel uneasy.  Why post all these official signs unless there was the chance of something pretty shady going on.  Sure enough, the guy who had recruited us so successfully turned away from the yellow taxis toward the shiny black limos.  I know that I wear a flashing sign on my forehead that says “Pick me! Pick me! I’m too polite to say no to you and you’ll be able to take advantage of me oh so easily!”  I’ve found that I’m always targeted in malls and markets.  I’ve actually become much stronger in my ability to ignore people.  However, at this point I was having trouble speaking up.  Luckily, Rich (who may also have a flashing sign) asked how much it was going to cost.  The guy said $25.  Now, that is ridiculous.  I SO wish I had been able to harness my inner Jeremy Gibbs because I KNOW that Jeremy would have said, no thanks, turned on his heel and headed over to the line of yellow cabs.  Unfortunately, I only found that power when we were nicely settled in the back of a clean-smelling limo and it was all over.  So I just tried to enjoy riding in style to the ship (I had to work pretty hard to quell the frustration of having to spend TWENTY-FIVE DOLLARS on that ride, though!). 

Check-in was easy and soon we were on the boat and waiting for our room to be ready and our luggage to arrive.  We claimed a table in the shade on the deck and got out our books.  I gave myself a tour of the ship and took some pictures before there were people crawling all over the place.   

We had our “free” lunch and read for a while and soon it was time to see our room.  We were pleasantly surprised because it was a nice size and, while I was secretly worried about where all the stuff I packed was going to go, we were happy not to be cramped into a tiny dorm-room since we had purchased the cheapest ticket there was. 

       

We decided to take a nap and wait for the luggage (the last chore standing between me and relaxing was unpacking).  We waited and waited and it didn’t come.  We went and had our safety drill (they literally lined us all up under the lifeboats, made us stand there for about fifteen minutes waiting for everyone else to get there and SHOWED US HOW TO PUT ON A LIFE JACKET.  No mention of getting into lifeboats or anything like that!!)  and then we were free to go.  Luckily, shortly after that the luggage arrived.  I spent some time squirreling everything away (it all FIT!) and we also spent some time watching the scenery go past.  It was fun to see the Dungeness spit, which we have walked on, and Point no Point beach, which we go to all the time, and the other side of the Olympic mountains.  Sadly, it was dark by the time we reached the northwestern-most point of the US and headed into open water.  But it was certainly beautiful and fun to see what we did!

Dinner was one of the highlights.  The food was fine and I tried some grilled shark, which was delicious (although it could have used some tartar sauce!).  There were several delicious-looking desserts.  I had stuck to my low-carb stuff all day but when I saw those desserts…I knew it was over!  It was the pavlova that really caught my eye.  Fluffy, white meringue thingys with a strawberry on top.  I was surprised at myself for being interested since there was no chocolate involved, but I went for it.  OH MY GOSH.  I’m so glad I did!  It was so crunchy and sugary and sweet…mmmm!  It will be almost impossible to stay away from those for the next few days…  I guess anything with sugar would have tasted pretty good to me since it’s been weeks since I had any but that thing was GOOD! 

We both decided to sleep in our sea-sick repelling write-bands and both agree that it is helping (be both took them off at one point or another and felt a little queasy so we think they really work!)  It is the morning of day two now and we are at sea all day.  There is a talk about the glaciers that we may or may not attend but otherwise, we plan to sit by a window all day and watch for marine life.  So far this morning we have seen some whale blows and we even saw one breach but it was far enough away that it was just a big splash.  We have also been passed twice by groups of something we think are seals but could be porpoises or something, it’s really hard to tell.  We are currently camping out in the nightclub, which is on the highest point of the ship and is fully enclosed (it’s already very cold!).  The main attraction is that it is completely empty and we are in comfy chairs with a great view and there aren’t any other people near us…perfect!