20231001 AAAA Trip - Bering Sea - The calm before the storm

2023 Alaska, Asia, Australia, Arabian Peninsula Trip 
Day 15/105 - Bering Sea - Day #3 to Japan

The calm continues.  It's a little eerie.  Glassy seas, light winds.  

So not like the Bering.  But...looking out back on deck seven, what do we see?  Nearly everything is secured down.  

Side tables stacked and strapped

Chaise lounges stacked, covered, and strapped down

Dining tables strapped together and chairs stacked and strapped

Why?  The captain has been warning us on his sea day noon reports that changes are a-comin'.  Here's a look at Windy:

We are approximately where the crosshairs are - approaching the Russian peninsula where we were supposed to stop before Russia went all military on Ukraine.  The Windy image I captured is wave height.  Where we are now?  Two to three feet.  That white area south of us?  30 feet!  Wowzers!  The purples to reds on our way to Sapporo?  7-15 feet.  The good news is that we seem to be dodging the storm so as we move southwest, it is moving away from us to the southeast. The bad news is that it is leaving some unsettled areas behind it with big waves that we cannot dodge. This is nothing for us, but we've met several folks so far who don't like big movement on a ship.  It will be an interesting couple of days coming up.

We had some birds following along with us today, but they were too far away to get a good look.  To me, they appeared to be either terns or gulls.  I'm hoping they get closer this afternoon.  At breakfast, we saw what appeared to be a few dolphins in the distance, splashing.  Again, they were too far for a good look.

Speaking of breakfast, Jeffery whipped us up another tasty batch of biscuits and sausage gravy this morning. Yum!

Arlona continued her knitting and crocheting lessons.  I went to Baggo earlier today to be sure to get a spot.  The entertainment team runs it and they do a terrific job making it entertaining.  They add in trick shots, side-by-side boards where you can accidentally score for the other team, tossing from all the way up the atrium stairs, and so on.  Our team was getting killed but made a surprising comeback in the final round to win.  It really doesn't matter as everyone gets mimosas.

Arlona finished her knitting class and went on to a cooking demonstration of Tiramisu and Vanilla Bean Panna Cotta.  

We met up after that for our third round of progressive trivia.  We finished on top today, missing only two questions and making some incredible guesses.  The two misses:

• Name the 23rd US President
• We drew a blank and guessed Taft - it was Benjamin Harrison
• Name the ligament that connects both sides of the knee and provides stability
• Two members said ACL, but one insisted on MCL and won out - it was ACL - Anterior Cruciate Ligament 

That should help move us up a little on the leaderboard.

After lunch, we did a little more hot tub time.  When we got out, we did catch a few whale spouts before heading to the room for a shower.   We went to Torshaven for a presentation on the European Christmas Markets by our friend, Travel Consultant, Hâmed.

His talk was a nice mix of Christmas traditions and history and Viking’s offerings to take you to the Christmas markets that pop up all over Europe.  We’re exploring the itineraries.

We enjoyed time in the Explorers' Bar before heading to dinner at the World Café.  Since we had a made-to-order breakfast, we decided to do that for dinner.  Nothing excited us on the menu tonight so we asked the pizza chef to make us a custom pie with pepperoni, bacon, mushrooms, green peppers, and double cheese.  In short order, he dropped it off at our table and we had some good eating for dinner.

We returned to the Explorers’ Bar after dinner for an after-dinner drink and conversation with other travelers.  We also enjoyed background music from the resident guitarist and singer, Indra.

Unfortunately, the winds forced the closing of the front balcony, so sunset photos had to be taken through the glass, causing reflections.

We returned to our room to catch the solo show by Assistant Cruise Director (and Trivia Master), Harry.  

We adjusted our clocks once again, this time to UTC-12 or 16 hours ahead of the US East Coast.

We’re gearing up for potential rough seas overnight and for the next day or two.  We’ll see what the sea has in store for us tomorrow.