Survival Suits and Sea Trials

The last thing we did in Washington was to get Himself settled in on the ship.  Much easier to do since we had a rental car. 

Each season everyone on the ships has to perform the survival drills.  Before the ship leaves they do immersion suit practice.  Also known as “Gumby suits” (I think you see why…), these will save your life if you’re forced into arctic waters.

They are buoyant to keep you floating, bright with both the orange color and reflective tabs so you can be seen, and they cover almost all of you so you don’t lose body heat. 

The instructor teaches them to form a ring so they will stay together.  That third set of feet from the left is Himself.

Then you are taught how to get into the lifeboats.  Himself is an old hand at this and gets up there pretty quickly and with minimum effort.

Others aren’t so graceful…

See?  Pretty much dry.  Most of that wet are from drips as the suit came off.  (Plus he got dunked a few times by a slightly panicked first-timer.) 

Back at the ship, loading was in full swing. 

While Himself ran here and there, I opted to stay on the dock for a bit; shooting some photos and visit with some friends I hadn’t seen in a few years before I went up to help him with the inventories.

A couple of those friends.  Alex (on the left) is the most fantastic artist.  And I love the dry humor of Julius (center).  On the right is Sean.  I don’t know him, tho I’ve met his wife who also works on the ship.  Himself speaks highly of him.  

I was invited to “ride along” on the ship’s sea trials (that is when you take the ship out for a little run to make sure all the kinks are out).  I jumped at the chance. 

Here’s Capt. Steve making sure that everything is being done as we leave the dock.

To get us out away from the dock, they used a tug boat to push/pull/shove us into position.  Looks kind of small, doesn’t it?

It’s NOT!

Soon we were out circling around Puget Sound “getting the carbon blown out”.  That is the assistant vessel manager Paul on the left and Capt Steve on the right talking to someone on the radio.

My favorite place on the ship! 

Funky Nautical Junk

One of the fun things about going to the shipyard with Himself is all the cool things I can photograph.  Everywhere I look there are fascinating objects. 

There are pallets and pallets full of ropes.

Ropes of every shape and color you could imagine.

Chains of all sizes sit rusting on the dock.  This anchor chain has links that are around two feet long! 

I’d love to have this hook!

There are even ropes with chains!

In other places you can find piles of nets. 

And stacks of crab pots with netted sides.

I don’t know what these pipes are for but aren’t they fun with that flower shape and pops of bright color?

Everywhere on the dock are turn wheels connecting hoses carrying who-knows-what. 

This old dock cleat caught my eye.  It’s marked “Atlas Foundry – Tacoma”.  I would take it home in a heartbeat if given the chance!  It looks ancient.  I wonder how old it is?  The company dates back to 1899. 

This welded tag was on a piling floating in the bay. 

And all of that is before we get to his ship – the M/V Independence.  Not quite sure what this grappling hook is used for but I love the contrast of the yellow against the blue.

Once on the Indy, there are more ropes tied in interesting knots!

These knots are called “monkey fists” and are used to help get ropes from the ship to another ship or the dock.  The monkey fist is tied to a lightweight rope that is tied to heavy rope.  You throw the monkey fist over like a baseball and pull the heavy rope to you.

This big chain is the Indy’s anchor chain.

One way to get to or from the ship is in the “man basket”.  This is a man basket that is collapsed down.

When you go down to the engine room, there are all sorts of pipes and rods.  I have no idea what they are for but I love the way they look!

The repetition of the yellow turn wheels and every other one having a red tie was a surprise.  Aren’t the brass tags great?

This green turn wheel was big.  Looks like it has had a rough time of it too.

There’s a little bit of everything with this wench… bars, wheels, gears, ropes. 

I wonder what this is for? 

I think this is part of the mechanism that controls the anchor chains.  It was heavy duty and grease laden.

Cool looking at any angle!

It’s funny watching the deckhands watch me as I photograph the things that are part of their everyday life. Sometimes they will go over to see if they can figure out what I found interesting enough to take a picture of. Usually they walk away shaking their heads.

Alaskan Adventure - Emergency Steering

One point along the southern end of the passage is called the “Seymour Narrows”. I’m not sure if the cruise ships go thru it, but the smaller vessels do. And life can become exciting real fast in the narrows, from what Capt Joe said. The tide is rather strong at this point and when it changes direction the rips can be very strong…even to the point that there are whirlpools created. Joe said one ship he was on was completely spun around by one of them! Wow!

One reference says, “Seymour Narrows is a long, slender, dangerous stretch of water north of Campbell River, B.C.. Like many sites in this part of the world, vast amounts of water are forced by ocean tides through narrow passages, which creates high water currents (15 knots at times) and dangerous conditions — whirlpools, overfalls, and other boat-busting conditions.

Explorer George Vancouver described Seymour Narrows as "one of the vilest stretches of water in the world." The rapids have claimed over a hundred lives and is regarded by many sailors as the worst hazard to marine navigation on the British Columbia coast.”

We were going to go thru the narrows right at deep dusk. While we did set anchor awhile to wait for the worst of it to pass, the ride could become interesting without warning at any time.

And I wasn’t going to miss it for anything!

I bounced up to the bridge a bit after we brought the anchor up. Capt Joe was the only one up there and all the bridge lights were off but one (the glare on the windows is really bad with the lights on). I noticed he was talking a lot on the ship’s phone to engineering. And it was kinda strange that the deck hands weren’t hanging out either, but figured it was part and parcel of going thru.

So I sat down and waited for the ride to begin. Since it was pretty dark by now there wasn’t much to look at outside, so I picked up a magazine and thumbed thru it. Pretty dull stuff. Until I hear the radio crackle and the Canadian Coast Guard ask “Independence, what is your current situation?”

Hmmmm… they take going thru these narrows really serious! I flipped a couple more pages.

Then Capt Joe replies, “We are heading into Deepwater Bay on emergency steering…”

Emergency steering?!?!

No wonder he’s been in such close communication with the engineers and the deck hands are scarce (read “BUSY”)! I look up from the magazine to find Capt Joe looking directly at me. I raised an eyebrow, he smiled. Well, he was relaxed and if he’s OK with what’s going on…so am I! I nod my head towards the stairs off the bridge to see if he wanted me to leave but he shook his head “no”. He then snapped off the last light, leaving the bridge illuminated by the instruments and the dim light over the charts.

For the next 15 minutes or so, I watch as 42 years of experience maneuvered us out of the narrows and safely into the bay where anchor was dropped until it could be figured out what was wrong. It was fascinating.

They got the problem fixed and we were on our way again...8 hours later than planned.

Alaskan Adventure - Inner Passage

The appearance of Mt. Fairweather was the signal that soon we would be entering the famous Alaskan ‘Inner Passage’. If you’ve been on an Alaskan cruise, you know what I’m going to be talking about. Wow! When Himself and I were planning our upcoming cruise I suggested we do the Alaskan package. He reminded me that he goes that route 2 to 4 times a year. Yeah…yeah.

The passage from Point Spenser to Ketchikan is full of mountainous islands with snow covered peaks, quiet coves & passes full of fishing boats and an abundance of wildlife.

Along one area a pod of Dall porpoise rode the wake of the Independence for about 40 minutes. They would zoom along in the wake of the ship, tho for them it was probably like skiing a bunny slope. Dall can swim up to 25 miles an hour…the Indy – on a good day going with the tide and a strong tail wind – can get up to 9 miles an hour. From a port hole in the bow, I was able to watch them and get some great photos of their games.



One time I was outside the bridge door taking some shots of a light house and I kept hearing a squeaking noise. Kinda like the sound of wet rubber-soled shoes on a vinyl floor. I finally looked around to try to figure out what sort of “Indy noise” that was (you wouldn’t believe the variety of sounds that ship can make!). Just as I turned I saw a huge fin slicing out of the water… a big male orca! He was gone too quickly to get a picture. A few minutes later I heard the squeaking again and started looking. Sure enough, there he was. This time he was too far to get a photo. Drat! Several more times I turned at the sound of his squeaks to watch him glide away from us.
Ketchikan was the first place you could get a good cell phone signal. So for that small portion of the trip, so many people were up on the deck calling home…some for the first time in several months. I’d been to Ketchikan in ’02, so it was fun to see it from the water side instead of the road side.

After leaving Ketchikan the passage narrows, becoming more “fjord” like, the land goes UP even more sharply...resulting in waterfall after waterfall.
Some started at the top of the mountain and fell 300-400 feet to the waters of the passage.
There are abandoned salmon canneries,



Logging camps,

Beautiful homes

And all along the passage are lighthouses.
So… have you booked your cruise yet???

Alaskan Adventure - At Sea

First… No, I do not get seasick.

Most of my trip was “at sea”. We left Adak on 20 March and reached dock at Tacoma, WA on 5 April…and only 2 of those days were we docked at other places (Akutan and Bellingham).

Two of those traveling days were stormy… 25 foot seas with some waves breaking at the bridge (six stories from the water line!) and wind gusts up to 80 MPH. Winds were sustained at 55-60 MPH. Temps were the mid-20s. Life just is not good in that type of mess. Even if you don’t get seasick, you still have to move about. And in moving about you can get slammed from one side to the other. Your knees just feel cruddy when it’s over from the grinding they’ve taken trying to keep you upright. Things that weren’t bolted or tied down came crashing to the floor… as did some things that were secured! Just laying in bed you sometimes had to grab hold. I would sure hate to have been in one of the top bunks!!!

We were rocking in a circular motion...the normal up and down from the ship moving forward combined with a stronger side to side motion from the waves. Then on occasion, a wave would hit really hard at some weird angle that felt like some giant had hauled off and kicked the ship. A loud vibratty "thooong" would ring thru the whole ship while it shuddered. It kind of felt like when you're driving thru a deep wet snow and your car is lurching along as it pushes, then all a sudden hitting some washboard potholes.

But most days were quiet sailing. The ship just rolls along with an occasional ‘rip’ hitting that makes life interesting. GREAT sleeping. Like rocking a baby!

For the most part, we were always in sight of land. The snow covered Aluetian Islands or the fjords of the Inner Passage made for an ever-changing scene.

However, we did have 3 days of crossing the Gulf of Alaska. We were blessed with perfect weather, a very rare thing indeed. To quote Coleridge, "Water, water everywhere..." and tho the waters are not becalmed as they were in the "Ryme of the Ancient Mariner", we had excellent sailing. Soft, rolling waves with very little wind.

Changing colors and moods of the sea.


The ocean is so big here it's like you can see halfway to tomorrow (truth be told...we were not that far from the international dateline) but anyway, it's really cool to watch as we approach a cloud system.
You can see ahead of you a misty 'curtain' that you can no longer see the horizon thru. Sometimes you can look to one side or the other and see the edges of it. Eventually it gets closer and closer until it brushes upon the deck, then across in a full blizzard and finally over the windows of the bridge (which I have been informed that on a "marine" vessel is called "the wheelhouse"). When you get to the other side it happens in reverse, with the air slowly clearing until once again you are in the open. The snow we are getting are those giant springtime snowflakes, so it's really pretty.