As the ship is passing east to west at 22 knots, we lose one hour each night. When I woke up I looked at my watch, did a few quick calculations, and worked out I'd slept nine hours.
Oh, wait. I need to add an hour, not subtract one, so... ELEVEN HOURS?!?!
Is that possible? How can doing nothing be so exhausting?
Once again I left Emma in the room while I fetched coffee - it must be the five flights of stairs wearing me out - and frittered away time until the next lecture by Dr Ray the geo-physicist/seismologist, this one titled "why is there water?" It was about the origin of the earth, and where the oceans came from.
(Summary: mainly from icy asteroids nudged in our direction by Jupiter's gravity.)
Then reading on Deck 7, with a string quartet playing, followed by a jazz trio. Thankfully, no freaking pan pipes.
For the first time this trip we finally managed not to screw up opening hours and made it to the International Dining Room for lunch. One American, four Aussies from Western Australia. There's a group of 70 or so Western Australians that did some sort of combined package, and it's next to impossible to walk the deck without running into one of them.
Then back to our beloved Deck 14 for more reading, hot drinks and snacks. Especially the peanut butter cookies. Great for reading, as they make the things you read more likely to stick.
One of the interesting things I've noticed is that passengers are more likely to have e-readers and tablet computers than hard-copy books. At a rough guess I'd say the ratio was 1:1:1. There are a few factors at play: e-readers and tablets are easier to lug around, they're increasing affordable (especially for the cruising set), a slightly younger age profile, and because consumer tech is so widespread these days.
The afternoon snoozies hit, and rather than have a nap we went off to the gym. While we were on the walking machine the ship hit something with an almight WHUMMMMP!!!
Emma and I looked at each other and had exactly the same thought. I joked to another passenger that maybe we'd hit a fishing boat, but we knew the truth:
Goodbye, Mr Whale.
(OK, it was probably just a large swell. But there was a cruise ship several years ago that hit what they thought was a large swell, until they arrived in port and had to remove what was left of the whale from the bow of the ship.)
Newly-energised we decided we needed Adventure!
So we rugged up with every layer of thermal clothing we could find, and headed for the top deck to watch a movie. In the open air!!!
Crazy stuff, I know.
If we got too cold we could always leap over the side. It was 7 degrees C/ 55 F on deck, but the water in the Bering Strait was a full degree C warmer.
The crew was freezing, especially the ones from places like Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand. It meant we didn't have to queue for our burgers, at the bar, or when picking up our bags of popcorn, and we had our choice of recliners for the movie (Pixar's "Brave" - not a bad film).
Strangely enough, between the open-air bar, pizzeria, and hamburger grill, the place that did the most business was the ice cream sundae shop. Adventure! is one thing, but Stupid! is another.
We were heading in a southerly direction, but still far enough north that we hoped we might see a trace of the Aurora Borealis. If it was out there it was hidden by cloud.
Oh, well. Guess that's another reason to come back to Alaska.
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