Days 40 & 41 - Nearing the end of "The Chunk" - Sept 2nd/3rd

Not a good night’s sleep – again.  It seems that we are not the only ones with disturbed sleep patterns at the moment as almost everyone we meet seems to be sleeping in late regardless of bed time.  Paula didn’t get to sleep until about 3:30am.

By the time we’d waded through breakfast, it was morning quiz time.  Outside the rain had stopped but the seas were a bit more active than they had been, but not enough to feel queasy. 

The sea day followed our usual relaxing pattern with non-winning quiz results and a late lunch, with a bit of internet catch up and blogging.  Currently, internet is still fast enough to make it easier and quicker to download the emails rather than read them on line.  This area of the ocean is alongside the “Dangerous Catch” base if any of  you have seen the documentaries on crab catching in the area.   Hopefully we’ll be able to sample the local crab at some stage when we hit land, even if it is only a crab sandwich.

Afternoon’s quiz was notable for Megan knowing that the book with the greatest sales in the UK after the Bible and the Koran, was the Guinness Book of Records.  The adjacent team won, but only had 4 team members instead of six, so with our new found motto of “if you don’t ask, you don’t get” when Ali brought the six prizes over, we offered to relieve her of the two spares.  She accepted our kind offer!  Seems odd that not so long ago, the second book in the UK list, after the Bible, was Baden-Powell’s “Scouting For Boys”.  Pity that isn’t still the case. 

Dinner was OK but as previously, the star course was the French onion soup.  Pat and Mick are back in their original cabin, but one of Mick’s brothers in England has sadly passed away, so Mick is heading over to the UK for the funeral, assuming he can get the flights organised.

We went to the theatre for yet another production showing of  “Save the Last Dance”.  This was performed by our original dance group and is their last before San Francisco when they move on.  We had seen it twice before, but still enjoyed it.  The most interesting aspect is that the backdrop is all coloured lights, yet the earlier shows all seem to have relatively simple and featureless backdrops.

With clocks moving on yet again, we opted to crash early at 11:30pm – or 12:30am with the clock move.  We were hoping it would help our sleep. 

It may have helped Paula.  It certainly didn’t help me!  Although I got to sleep OK, I was awake again for several hours and probably only got back to sleep not long before the sun rose.  Final wake up then was 10am!  Too late for Paula’s Zumba but just enough time to grab the parfait (yoghurt + cereal) before quiz at 10:45.  I’ll let you guess as to whether or not we won it.

Coffee afterwards with M & M up in the Horizon Court, as neither atrium floors (5 & 7) had seating for 4 as they had Australia vs the rest of the World bowls challenge.  Wandering through the buffet which was serving lunch by then, we noted the delicious spring rolls and a chicken curry.

Unfortunately, by the time we returned, about 2:20pm, they had run out of both.  The cherry cobbler was absolutely delicious though.

The quiz was relocated to the Wheelhouse Bar and we probably had our worst score ever – well, on this cruise anyway.

I didn’t have an afternoon nod, so hopefully that means a decent sleep tonight.  After dinner, we did Alan & Alana’s quiz, but with just Paula and I, we did well to finish in 4^th place.  I should point out that it is 4^th equal, out of 2,000 players (according to Alana...).  With no clock advancement tonight and an early cruise into Seward in Alaska, plus the previous lack of sleep, we crashed at 11:45pm, looking forward to our dog sled ride tomorrow, for a real Alaskan experience.   Initially that 2 hour experience was sold out, but we managed to get from the wait list to confirmed.  Whilst we are sledding, the ship is once again going through an intensive sanitisation programme, so we have to clear all bench/desk/sink tops this time and cannot re-board the ship until after 2pm.   Our tour finishes at 12:20.

Presumably, tomorrow is also our coolest day, as afterwards, we start heading south again, albeit slowly, via some scenic cruising.   Meanwhile, we read that there were floods on Auckland’s North Shore and Julie has just gone to Fiji, so we hope that our notoriously dodgy roof coped.  (It was always pretty good - until we had it replaced.)