Family Vacation to Alaska - Day 6

Tuesday, 29 May, 2007 – Sitka

We were scheduled to dock in Sitka at 8 am and our excursion was to leave at 8:30. We would be tendering from the ship today. I did get up quite early again and was at the Fitness Center just before it opened at 6 am. I ran for 30 minutes on the treadmill then went back to the cabin right away to get ready for breakfast. We ate at the Lido Restaurant breakfast buffet again then went to the Queen’s Lounge theater to wait for our tender. I waited in line, showed our tickets, and we were issued colored stickers with a number on it. When our color and number were called, we headed down to deck A and onto the tender.

It was raining, of course, and the highs were to be in the low 50’s today. We were scheduled for the Tongass Rain Forest Nature Hike. We got to the pier and stopped to take a few pictures. We were directed across the street and met our tour guide, Bob, who handed out chocolate bars to each of us (locally made) and instantly befriended Amina and Rhys – quite easy to do with chocolates in hand. LOL.

We were also given homemade shoulder bags with a water bottle inside too. These were both very nice touches.

We boarded a van and drove out to the national park as Bob narrated some interesting info about Sitka including pointing out the only 2 stop lights in town primarily for the high school students to learn to recognize when learning to drive.

We saw some eagles along the way and a lonely swan in the estuary who some thought was waiting for its mate who had died. All of the other swans had already migrated away.

We reached the Starrigavan Recreation Area and took the 1.5 mile Mosquito Cove trail which involved quite a few steps but was a relatively easy hike.

Bob put the kids in front as his “Bear Spotters” which moved the hike along at a good clip. He had to reign the kids in from time to time to keep them from getting too far ahead of the group. There were probably 15 people in our group.

We stopped to examine the 2 different kinds of slugs in the area – the banana slug which was huge and native to the area and the black slug which was imported with some building wood. Apparently, the black slugs were proliferating and killing off the banana slugs so Bob gave each of us permission to squash as many black slugs as we liked although he warned that if we did, we’d be taking them home with us because of how slimy they are.

We learned about nurse trees and saw how some of the fallen, rotting trees were homes to new growth and baby trees. We reached Mosquito Cove

and Bob’s student took the kids out to the water’s dge to hunt for crabs.

They lifted various rocks and found the teensy crabs under them and the kids loved turning over the rocks and finding them.

We then headed back to the trail head, stopped to use the bathrooms, then made our way over to the next hike: the Estuary Life trail and the Forest and Muskeg trails. We stopped at the bird lookout over the Estuary but didn’t see many birds. We hiked in the rain through the forest into the Muskeg and it was very obvious when the forest gave way to the Muskeg made up of much smaller trees and lots of water bogs. This part of the hike was shorter – about a mile.

We finished up our hike and got back on the van to return to the pier and took the tender back to the ship to dry off and have some lunch. We stopped off before getting on the tender to see the eagles perched on top of the docked boats.

I threw our jackets into the dryer and we ate lunch at the Lido Restaurant buffet. We were finishing up and bumped into Mimi and Papa who were back from their excursion to the Raptor center and to see the Russian dancers. They enjoyed their excursion. We left them eating lunch and returned to our cabin to collect our things as we wanted to do some shopping in this port.

Seth found a nice t-shirt and Alaskan Brewing Co. cap and I picked an Alaskan Ulu set with chopping bowl and Bear Claws (salad tongs) for Rene. Rhys spent his money on an Alaskan husky mechanical toy. We returned to the ship which was scheduled to leave Sitka at 5 pm. I called American Airline baggage service again after receiving a voicemail inquiring about our luggage. The voice was very snotty sounding asking us to call to confirm whether we had received our bag OR NOT. When I got a hold of an agent who informed us that our case was “closed” again that morning after someone had spoken with us to confirm that we had received our bag the day before, I blew my top. The woman was so flustered that she hung up on me. I angrily called them back and went through the whole story again giving them the itinerary for the rest of the week. I asked for the zillionth time if our bag had even been located never mind trying to get it to us here in Alaska. The woman had “no more information” which was the catch phrase anytime we had called.

At this point, it dawned on me why there might be the discrepancy with our case being open or closed. I called Uncle Tony to find out about our bag and it turns out that our missing bag had been delivered to his house THREE days ago! The airlines had no clue that it was delivered and apparently Uncle Tony had called and left me a voicemail but for whatever reason, I didn’t get it. The mystery was solved and I’m still not impressed with how American Airlines handled this situation having NO RECORD that our bag was located much less already delivered.

We got ready for dinner and headed to the dining room at 5:45 pm instead of our usual 5:30. Tonight, the upper and lower levels were open at the same time because of the special dinner and crew show - it was the Master Chef's Dinner.

Unfortunately, the ship was already rocking wildly and Amina was looking green. I returned to the cabin to get some Bonine and gave one to Rhys, Seth, and ½ to Rhys and for myself. Both kids started feeling sick quickly and didn’t have a chance to even eat their appetizers before I took them back to the cabin. When I returned to the dining room, Seth left for the cabin as well taking some green apples, crackers, and ginger ale for the kids – feeling nauseous and sick. This was the most rocking we had ever experienced on a cruise. Even a steward dropped a tray of wine glasses with a loud crash, passengers were leaving the dining room in droves, and we could frequently hear a large “BOOM” as the ship teetered and tottered in the water and was, what I assumed to be, slammed by a wave. We heard later that the wind exceeded 50 mph and the waves were topping 20 feet.

Mimi, Papa, and I stayed through dessert and watched the crew/chefs show off their foods.

I had the Golden Baked Brie in Phyllo dough and Duck Breast a l’Orange. For dessert, we were given special chef’s hat shaped white chocolate boats with chocolate mousse and a brownie inside.

By this time, I was starting to feel nauseous too.

I returned back to the cabin and found Rhys sitting on the floor in the bathroom hugging the toilet. He had not thrown up but was very nauseous. I gave him some green apple which really did seem to help. I sent Amina back to Mimi and Papa’s room where she climbed immediately into bed and went back to help Rhys get his pajamas on. Just bending over and picking up clothes off the floor sent waves of nausea through me so I got Rhys in bed, changed quickly, and also climbed into bed. I kep the TV on to have something to focus on, drifting in and out of sleep getting nauseous each time I woke up. Finally, by about 11:30 pm, I turned the tv off and fell asleep. I had set the alarm early because we had a very early excursion and were to meet at 7 am.