August 11, 9th day OTR, 2nd day OTS

Well, I caught up on my sleep. Went to bed at 8 pm last night and didn't get up until 7:30am. Our camping spot the last two nights before the cruise was very noisy with the traffic running almost at our heads. Needless to say, we didn't get much sleep. It was very quiet overnight. We have an inside cabin on the first deck and didn't even hear the fog horn. It was quite foggy this morning but is starting to clear.

We are traveling in the Pacific Ocean on the west side of Vancouver Island, about 20 miles out to sea. We will head inside soon and travel some of the Inside Passage to reach Ketchikan tomorrow morning.

At 11 am we had our Meet and Greet. Forty people were registered and all but 15 showed up. The Cruise Director Michael was there for most of the meeting and the Hotel Manager and one other office also showed up. A lot of the group stayed until 12:30 – they were enjoying the conversation so much.

We ate lunch in the dining room. I had tilapia and Otto had macaroni and cheese. We walked a couple of miles around the ship in the afternoon and then went for a tea. Kathy and David from Orlando joined us.

For dinner Otto had Beef Wellington and I had stuffed quail. The quail was quite good but far too much work to eat. They are so tiny. We went to the Captain's champagne welcome and stayed for the production show – Dance the night away. It was well done and the costumes were very nice and suited to the various dance numbers.

Our ride so far has been very smooth even though we are in the north Pacific Ocean. Let's hope it continues when we cross the Gulf of Alaska, again open ocean. We will stay behind some islands for a day or so and should be calm until we leave Juneau at least.