Alaska Cruise, Part One

I returned from my vacation Monday evening - a ten day cruise to Alaska.  This trip had a number of firsts for me:  first commercial cruise, first time in San Francisco, Vancouver, and Alaska.  I enjoyed it tremendously.  Took hundreds of photos.  Not all of them are worth sharing, of course, and you’d be bored bored bored, so I’ve selected a few to post here. 

I sailed on the Sea Princess out of San Francisco. 
It’s a relatively small (less than 900 feet) cruise ship and carries less than 2000 passengers.  It's the largest vessel I've ever sailed on.  The previous largest ship for me was a 600 foot research vessel that was owned by the University of Miami.  Most of my sea time was on a 300 foot vessel, the R/V Gyre, then owned by Texas A&M University, now retired.  Here's the Sea Princess at the dock in Victoria. (Edit:  click on the pictures to biggify.)

The San Francisco dock was near Alcatraz island.  I didn't have time to go there, or anywhere else in the city.  Boarding was already in progress when the bus from the airport dropped us off.

The boat plus flying thing became an unexpected theme.  I got photos in almost every port.  Skagway, well, I had to improvise. 

I had an interior cabin - D205 - on Dolphin deck (level 8) near the bow.  The steward left chocolates on the bed every night.  Three different kinds, in rotation, dark chocolate, mint chocolate, and milk chocolate.

That is one stretch of the hallway, headed aft.  At the far end it jogged to the right, then to the left, then to the left and right again before coming to the ‘foyer’ with the stairway and elevators.  (Didn’t take a picture of that.)  I don't know what that distance was, but three times around the Promenade Deck is a mile.  There’s a fancy multi-deck atrium in the center of the ship that’s more photogenic than the maze to and from the cabin.

We sailed out of San Francisco around 4 pm and headed out under the Golden Gate Bridge.  There was less than twenty foot clearance.  (I can't remember the exact number the skipper told us.  12?  16?  But for sure < 20.)

The fog rolled in and it was raining by sunset.  No sunset pictures.  No chance to see the green flash. 

Our second day was sailing north toward Canada.  Beautiful weather, seas running around 8 foot most of the day.  Here’s that sunset.

Clouds on the horizon.  No green flash visible.