|
Port Call: Sitka!
Back in our stateroom! It felt good  to unload the backpacks, and put our Sitka stash of acquired goods onto the bed.
Dotti and I stepped out on our verandah and  took some pictures with the islands of Sitka Sound in the background. My lovely wife of 30 years still makes my world go around, and there is no other sight on earth that is more beautiful than her smile is to me.
Why does the Hemingway story, The Old Man and the Sea come to mind? ☺ An Alaska hat on my head, Alaska water, mountains, islands, and clouds at my back, standing on the deck of a ship, and looking at my lovely wife; I think paradise has to be just like this!
Today was an adjustment day for me on my eating. I had weighed 203 pounds in the morning, which was up 3.5 pounds from the day before. I had been having Baked Alaska every night at dinner, and definitely overdid it on my calorie intake. So, I had gone very light when we stopped for lunch in Sitka. It was about 3:00 in the afternoon when we got back onboard, and I was very hungry. Dinner wasn't for a couple of hours yet. So, Dotti and I decided to grab something right away for dinner and skipped the Vista Restaurant for today. It was the only evening meal that we missed with Jim and Tammy for the whole cruise, and afterwards we felt like maybe we made the wrong choice. It was good for the calories, without a doubt, but we missed eating with our friends! We went up to the Lido Deck Restaurant, and Dotti  went to grab our meals as I held our place at a table. From my chair I took this picture. (Along the bottom and in the lower left side of the photo you can see dim reflections from restaurant tables and chairs.)
This is where we had just spent a fantastic day. On the right is Crescent Harbor with all of its bare-masted boats, the seawall is reaching out its protective arm like a mother to her baby. Just to the left of that is the Harrigan Centennial Hall, its windows looking back at us. Is someone in the auditorium, as I was earlier, admiring the view, which, for at least a few more minutes, ms Westerdam was such a large feature? The top of St. Michael's is also partly visible, up slightly and to the left. The clouds and the mountains play in their own world high above us. Goodbye Sitka, but I hope that it will not be forever. One day I hope we can return. Looking like an angel in flight, Dotti  is bringing us our drinks. Her days of being a waitress during high school came in handy as she is easily carrying 4 glasses and some napkins. She is going to get a good tip from me! ☺
The table is colorful and our drinks are surrounded  by Westerdam napkins, and fancy shakers that grind fresh salt and pepper.
As I mentioned, we were hungry and when Dotti arrived with our meal I put the camera aside so I could grab a bite of my turkey sandwich that Dotti had brought. Later we had little ice cream cones for desert. (This meal was very tasty and it saved me a lot of calories over what I would have eaten at the main restaurant!) I only had an apple and a pear back in the stateroom to close out my eating for the day. Thursday was the best day of the cruise for controlling my eating. That may be hard to believe, when you look at what the ship provided for us in the evening... Once our tummies were full, I started to take notice of what was going on out the window about 11 or 12 decks below us at the water level. There were the last of the launches returning from Sitka directly below my window. I started taking pictures.
Our anchor had been lifted about 15 minutes before  this picture was taken. We are standing on the Promenade Deck and the ship is on the move. Dotti looks a bit chilly as the wind is blowing by.
We didn't know it at this time, but one of the most memorable ship board events was about to happen this very evening after we joined back up with Jim and Tammy after dinner. Dotti's MicrophoneIt was funny that shortly after we sat down, along came Bob and Judy, the couple who sat right alongside of us each night in the Vista Restaurant. They too were looking for a seat and had decided on the front row. The show was to be one of illusion, with illusionist Leo Ward performing. Leo Ward walked in, before the show actually started, wearing a black leather overcoat, and he went up to Bob, and asked him to look over a metal piece that was obviously going to be used later to shackle Leo Ward during his show. Bob checked it out and verified that it was solid. (Big surprise there. ☺) Leo Ward was filled with energy on the stage. He used humor and a personable persona to make his audience feel comfortable with him. When he came up with a one liner that didn’t get quite the laugh he had wanted, he would quip, "That was a joke!" He did a number of illusions that were very impressive, and at one point he asked for female volunteers to help with an illusion. So, naturally Dotti raised her hand. As it turned out, he needed a lady to volunteer her ring for the trick so he could make it disappear. Well, he didn't pick Dotti to use her ring, but he did pick her to get involved with the show. He gave her a little black bag to hold during the illusion. To add to the personal side of his act, and perhaps to bring a bit of drama to the illusion, allowing Dotti to answer while he was not near her, and announce what was in the bag, Leo Ward placed a microphone in front of Dotti, at the time he handed her the bag to hold. The poor man just didn't know what he was doing. ☺ If you give Dotti a microphone, she is going to run with it. Leo Ward didn't want to just shove a microphone in her face and walk away, so he got into a bit of a conversation with her. He had a bit of an edge to his comedy, because he had a very intense presentation to his show. But he was a very likable fellow. It worked well and we were all laughing with his humor. Well, he asked Dotti where she was from. She said, "Vancouver, Washington." Leo Ward didn't reply right away, and she thought maybe he had picked up on her New York accent, so she added, "By way of New York." I think this temporarily confused Mr. Ward, and he hesitated once more. His stream of patter had been fairly unbroken to this point. So, Dotti used the opportunity to zing him with his own line, "That was a joke." It got a great laugh from the audience. Leo Ward sat there dumbfounded for a moment, and replied with a stiff smile, "Just barely." He asked her with a laugh, "Would you like to do the show?" After a couple of more statements back and forth, Dotti was just starting to warm up. Clearly this was taking longer than he had originally planned. Before the conversation could continue much farther, Leo Ward decided to terminate it, and cut his losses. He pointed his hand at Dotti as if he were holding a remote control and he said, "Mute!" She fell immediately silent. (I have tried that myself since then, and it just doesn't work for me. ☺) We really had a lot of fun that night! He next picked a lady named Linda, who was sitting over in a section to our left, and back 10 or 15 rows, to supply the ring for the illusion. He then made the ring vanish. Leo Ward then asked Dotti to look inside the bag she had been holding, and of course there was a ring in the bag. He was across the room the entire time since the ring had disappeared. He walked over, grabbed the bag from Dotti, and as he walked back towards Linda, he pulled her ring out of the bag, and showed her that it was hanging from a chain attached to the bag. It got a big round of applause. For his next trick he needed someone to volunteer a $100 bill, and someone to volunteer a quarter. I could come up with the quarter, so I volunteered it. Leo Ward had me stand up in front of the stage beside the guy who gave up the C-note. Leo Ward asked the name of the other guy, and it was Al. He then asked me what my name was. I said, "Al." He looked like he just bit into a sour grape for a moment. He asked me, "Can I call you George?" I said with a smile, "No." While he was giving that some thought, I said, "I'm married to Dotti." He replied, "It figures." (I found out what the name thing was all about at the end of his show. The man was using a memory system to memorize every name of everyone he came in contact with during the show. He listed all of the light handlers in the booth, the stagehands, the dancers, and the people from the audience who volunteered—including both Als. It was quite a trick!) I got my quarter back pretty quickly, but that poor guy with the hundred dollar bill was run through the wringer before he got it back. It was found inside a locked box that had been on the stage for the entire show, placed before the show even started. If I remember correctly, he got a bottle of champagne for his trouble in the end. All's well that ends well. Leo Ward was a very good illusionist. This was the closest I have ever physically been to a professional magician when he was working, and being that close we could actually see the method used to perform a few of the tricks, and how they worked. If we had been a little farther away, we would have missed all of that. The ship's theater is a nice one but it is a bit small for this big of a show. It was pretty cool, and Leo Ward put on a good show all the way around! The guy had a great sense of humor, and he was really into what he was doing; it clearly showed. He had a lot of intensity and a lot of adrenaline flowing. One more interesting thing about the show; we were approached just outside of the entrance doors by a lady and her fiancé. She said that she really liked Dotti's Weight Loss Zone and used the page often. She had recognized Dotti and I during the show and wanted to say hi to us. We thought that was really nice! The next night at dinner, we found out that the two of them were assigned seats that were right behind Dotti and I in the Vista Restaurant. We had been right beside them each night when we ate dinner. Small world. As if that were not enough...when we stopped to chat with them at dinner on Friday, we found out that the lady was the "Linda" from the show! It was her ring that Dotti found in the bag for Leo Ward. Well, let's see. We watched our ship pull into Sitka Sound and anchor. We took in the beautiful scenery surrounding the sound. We took a launch trip into Sitka, and saw many of the sights there. We came back, ate, watched the launches get stowed away and the ship weigh anchor and get under way towards Ketchikan. We watched a great illusionist and even got to join in the performance a bit. We met a really nice Zonie, and that should be enough for any day. Right? Wrong! We still had the Dessert Extravaganza to go to, put on by the ms Westerdam. I was willing to skip it altogether, since calories had been a bit of problem so far on the cruise. But Dotti and Tammy wouldn't hear of it. So, we all went up to the Lido Deck pool area and there we found the pool surrounded by desserts and ice sculptures. I took a quick look around then headed back to the stateroom. I didn't feel confident enough in my ability to eat in moderation if I ate at all. Dotti, Tammy, and Jim remained to enjoy the extravaganza. Dotti went around and took pictures of the various treats and the ice sculptures. The whole thing looked beautiful! Here are a few pictures showing what was there.
Before my disappointment could quite reach maturity, I suddenly spied it; the animal was a hanging animal—a monkey—and it couldn’t be laid on the bed! And the mints? They were the monkey's eyes!
I used the mirror beside our bed to  get a more panaromic view of the stateroom, and to show where the monkey ended up hanging.
It had been a very full day, and when Dotti got back from the Lido Deck Dessert Extravaganza, we went right to bed, for a well earned good night's sleep. Tomorrow: Ketchikan! |
