2023 Alaska, Asia, Australia, Arabian Peninsula Trip
Day 20/105 - We have a plan - let's all blow to Tokyo
We bounced, rocked, rolled, and generally moved in random directions most of the night. Nothing horrible, but certainly not smooth. This morning, the ship's weather indicated 39MPH winds gusting to 47MPH. Wave heights weren't too bad, perhaps 8 to 10 feet, but they were constant with breaking whitecaps and abundant, wind-whipped spray everywhere. These photos don't do it justice.
We are sailing down the east side of Japan's main island, Honshu. Here's a look at what we're facing.
The middle image shows winds and the right shows waves. Darker colors are worse. 30MPH+ winds, plus 10-foot+ waves. Weeeeeeee!
The good news is that we now have a plan. At 9 a.m., Captain Richard came on the speakers with our new itinerary. Originally, we were to dock in Tokyo from noon on 10/9 until 7 p.m. on 10/11. Now, we will dock around 2 p.m. in Tokyo tomorrow, 10/7 until the evening of 10/8, giving us a day and a half in Tokyo. We will sail to vacate that berth on the evening of 10/8 and then return to our planned berth on 10/9 and rejoin our original schedule. The net result is that we get more time in Tokyo and we’re good with that. I can’t imagine the scrambling Viking has had to do on the backend to make this all happen, but we’re happy that they do what they do so well.
Arlona attended Emily's final knitting and crocheting lesson. Arlona continues to work on her second hat. Photos will come once she completes it.
Back in the room, we could hear the wind howling. The amount of spray getting kicked up was incredible. Outside our room, the spray combined with the bright sunshine kept creating brilliant rainbows just off our balcony. Too bad it was too wet to go outside and enjoy them.
Since it was a sea day, there was trivia. Today’s was another themed trivia – food origins. Harry showed photos of dishes and we had to identify their country of origin. A few were easy (taco, pizza, gyro, sushi), but others were rough (Nasi Goreng – Indonesia, Feijoada – Portugal). We scored 10/15 with 13/15 as the winning score.
We hit the hot tub again this afternoon. The wind was wailing on the glass. It was amazing looking up at the glass ceiling and watching the spray water from eight floors below landing on the glass and getting swirled by the relentless winds. The pool was now a wave pool. We got in there for a bit and rode the waves.
We enjoyed a "Mexican margarita" in the Explorers' Bar tonight - on the rocks for Arlona and chilled and neat for me.
We made our first visit to The Restaurant tonight with our trivia compatriates, Karen, James, and Betsy. While waiting, we met up with a fellow 21/22 world cruiser Sally, who joined us as well. We're working on plans for the additional time we have in Tokyo and hope to finalize some plans tomorrow after the 9:30 a.m. port talk that should provide additional information.
Tonight's entertainment was a show by none other than our Cruise Director, Graham Seymour.
The audience was laughing and singing along. It was a fun show.
When we got back to the room, there were a few new options for excursions. We made a selection and got the form turned in. The Explorers' Desk said they would be handled on a first-come, first-served basis yet they were not timestamping forms as they were turned in. We will find out how it goes tomorrow.
We will still be rocked to sleep tonight as the wind is still blowing and the seas are still moving.
Tokyo is an amazing city. On our last visit, we docked in Yokohama. With a little research and planning, we were able to take the train into and around Tokyo. You will appreciate the extra time. Looking forward to your comments.
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