As promised, here is a quick wrap up from this trip, where we talk about the things we liked and things we might improve for next time. Usually, we do an individual top five things, but when we discussed it seemed we both agreed on what the top five were (in no particular order: Top…

Today is our last day before we make the trek back to Australia, starting tomorrow morning. We woke to another beautiful day here in Vancouver with the blue skies making another appearance. We had our hotel breakfast. The omelette dude was back, so that’s what I had plus a pancake and some fruit. Deb opted…

Today is one of our two sightseeing days in Vancouver. We’ve picked off a couple of things each day, so there was no rush to get up this morning. We have breakfast included at this hotel and they do have the added feature of an omelette dude, so that is what I had. It was…

This morning we woke to the sun coming up over the islands as we entered the Vancouver port. We had one more opportunity for my favourite lamb chops breakfast where Deb started talking to the New Zealanders on the next table, only to find a Columba College alumnus, thus completing another small world story. It…

We had a lot of nautical miles to cover today, so it was a full day at sea. We woke up to the boat rocking and rolling to 3-4 metre waves, as we headed out to sea a bit, so we could ‘discharge’ in such a way that complied with Canadian Government rules. Later today…

It was pretty rough in the open sea last night, so the ship’s captain tried to keep to the channels and fiords. We look forward to his announcements, but he often bears bad news. This morning he told us that we were unable to to ‘discharge’ in the open sea because of the 5-6 metre…

We woke up this morning to the good news that we had arrived in Juneau, the capital of Alaska. Juneau was named the capital of Alaska in 1906, when the government of the District of Alaska was moved from Sitka as dictated by the U.S. Congress in 1900. Over the years there have been rumblings…

When we woke up this morning to the ship slowing down on the approach to Skagway which was an important port during the Klondike Gold Rush which was a migration by up to 100,000 prospectors between 1896 and 1899. Gold was discovered there by local miners on August 16, 1896 and when news reached Seattle…

Overnight the conditions improved so much that by morning we could hardly feel that we were still moving. We were close to Sitka in protected waters which was a nice change. We were definitely back in forest country that looked pretty magical as we came into port. Deb has come down with a bit of…

The wind whipped up to 55 knots overnight, as predicted, creating 4-5 metres waves on the open sea where we now find ourselves. Unfortunately, the weather along the coast was much worse, so we’ve taken a big loop into th Gulf of Alaska and will get back on track tomorrow. The ship rolled around a…