Chapter 25
What Can We Af-fjord?

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According to our Personal Navigator, we would officially begin entering Tracy Arm around noon, but we started seeing signs of a shifting landscape around us a little earlier than that.

The subtle change that I’m not honestly sure we noticed at the time was that we began seeing signs of snow for the first time on our voyage.

I’m not sure what these frozen waterfalls would be called technically (they almost look like mini glaciers themselves), but they dotted the mountains on either side of the fjord and were really interesting.

We had settled into our stateroom for the long-haul this afternoon, knowing that our verandah seemed like the “place to be” for excellent views. Every once in a while, we’d get cold and head back inside for a few minutes, and I took this picture of our latest purchase on one of those trips in.

No, not Meeko. Minnie Mouse! We had loved her special Alaska Cruise costume and thought it was fun that they sold a little ornament plush with her wearing it.

Anyway, back outside, we saw movement in the water and I realized it was another whale! This time I actually got a few decent pictures in addition to another video.

Blowing out the spout.

Hint of a tail.

Okay, so I’ll admit this isn’t the BEST video, but you get a quick glimpse of our whale friend coming up for air twice.

[kad_youtube url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vY8VCyxudqs” ]

We kept ploughing forward into colder, snowier climes.

At this point, we were starting to get hungry, so we went upstairs to Deck 9, where they were holding a barbecue outside of Beach Blanket Buffet.

This elaborate bread sculpture table was just comical.

The menu at the barbecue didn’t exactly thrill me. It seemed like the specialty was the grilled salmon, but I couldn’t have that because I’m allergic. Another option that looked good was the sausage, but I’m not a fan of venison either. I was left to choose between marinated chicken breast and grilled steak in addition to some side dishes. I think I tried some of both, and I remember that neither option was great.

While we were on deck eating, the landscape around us really started changing again. For one thing, we saw our first iceberg.

For another, the mountains on either side of us started to get really green and covered in lots of beautiful waterfalls.

Here was the view of our wake behind the ship.

We began navigating around mountains and through narrower passageways as we started to actually get into the fjord itself.

And I thought some of the mountains we passed were just so pretty.

Tracy and I decided after seeing some of these views that we were really going to be missing out if we didn’t have a pair of binoculars. It was one of those purchases we’d meant to make leading up to the cruise but had totally forgotten about until it was too late.

First, we went toward the ship’s bow on Deck 9, where they’d set up a makeshift binocular stand. Unsurprisingly, though, they were only selling the most expensive pairs in this convenient spot.

While we were up there, we noticed Jimmy walking around with a woman who we figured out was his wife (apparently his whole family was on board for this sailing). Always laughing internally at Jimmy based on our fondness for his “very pleasant good morning” announcements, I think Tracy and I sort of made eye contact and smiled at him. We were surprised when he came up to Tracy and asked, “Did they contact you yet?”

Though she was confused at first, Tracy tried not to look like she had NO IDEA what he was talking about (even though she absolutely did not). She sort of stammered, “Um, no…” in response to his question.

“Well I’ll make sure they get in contact with you,” he replied and then sort of moved along.

Tracy and I looked at each other—neither of us having any clue what had just happened. As we talked about it after Jimmy was gone, we realized we’d both had the same idea when he first asked the question. Back on our honeymoon at Walt Disney World, one of the cast members had seen our “Just Married” buttons and grabbed his attraction’s phone to play us a “personalized message” from Mickey and Minnie. We were both thinking that maybe this was the same sort of situation and Jimmy was planning to surprise us with a bit of Disney magic.

About five minutes later, we passed Jimmy again, and this time he pulled Tracy aside to say, “I think I got the wrong person and totally thought you were someone else. Another guest who looks like you had asked if she could talk to one of the dancers on board and I had told her I’d put them in contact with her. You must have thought I was crazy!” Yes, Jimmy. Yes we had.

The case of mistaken identity solved, we went down to Shutters on Deck 4 to browse their more extensive selection of binoculars. The cast member working there was Kate from the U.K., and I think we must have driven her absolutely crazy because it took us at least 30 minutes to decide between two pairs. She set us up with samples of each and let us look out the portholes to try to decide which ones we wanted, but we are extremely indecisive people—especially when it involves spending money—and I don’t think Kate could have known what she was in for.

FINALLY, we chose the smaller, slightly more expensive binoculars because we decided they might be more convenient to use at the other ports we’d be visiting in addition to having for Tracy Arm. I imagine that our buddy wasn’t sorry to see us checkout and walk out of the shop (though she had remained pleasant throughout the entire transaction and never visibly showed it if she was fed up with our shenanigans).

Now we really WERE getting into Tracy Arm proper, so we headed back up to our stateroom and onto our verandah.

Tracy made good use of our new binoculars as we passed by scenic views and started to hear the ship’s naturalist, Doug Jones, talking about the views around us.