I awoke at 4:02am for a quick- ahem- bathroom break, and happened to glance out our balcony door. What I saw nearly knocked me flat.
The start of a sunrise. A sunrise. At 4am. On our side of the ship. Along Alaska's Inside Passage, a normally gorgeous, but wet, foggy, and grey part of Alaska's southeast coast.
I grabbed some pool towels from the stack in the bathroom and tried to roust G from his sleep. No way, it wasn't going to happen. But I picked up my iPhone from the vanity near the sliding glass door (didn't want to dig for my Nikon and wake G up) and sat on the balcony, bundled in blue and white striped towels from head to foot.
It was perfectly quiet, save for the sound of the ship cutting slowly through the water, at about 6 knots or so. I looked down at the balconies below me, but saw no one and heard no stirring from the surrounding cabins. I was alone out there, and reveled in the moment.
The mountains were rising out of the water right next to the ship. The sky above them grew increasingly light, and while I saw one tiny patch of fog hovering just above the water, everywhere else it was so clear that I could see the stars in the sky.
We've done this Alaska cruise twice before. Weather like this just doesn't happen. Sunrise? Sunset? Stars? Not part of the program along the Alaska coast.
This goes way beyond luck, and is more in the realm of divine intervention.
Eventually, I began to hear a sound other than that of the ship moving through the water. I knew it was a waterfall, and peered intently at the rock walls, searching for it. Finally I found it, a partial waterfall falling from half way down the sheer rock cliff. It was just light enough out to take a photo. Eventually, I heard another one, louder this time, and spotted it, falling the entire length of the rock cliff. Spectacular!
I tried gently, once again, to wake G, but he would have none of it. This was turning into a personal gift, meant just for me.
As we moved slowly through the water on our approach to Skagway, the sunrise kept changing. Some mountains were higher, temporarily obscuring it, and then they would open up to reveal more and more of the light.
I was freezing. Wearing only a nightgown, wrapped only in towels, I could see my breath. I checked for phone service...I already had AT&T 3G and could check the weather. It was 46 degrees. Yikes! My fingers and toes were blue with cold, but I couldn't bring myself to go back inside. I still wasn't hearing any stirring on any of the other balconies.
5am came and I was still out there. Eventually I could hear other cameras taking photos on that side of the ship...my private paradise was being discovered. But no voices- people seemed to know that this quiet beauty was not meant to be disturbed.
Finally, around 5:45am I came back inside. I had been out there for over an hour and a half and taken 100 photos with my iPhone. 90 minutes later I'm still in bed, and still shivering non-stop. That's okay. That, and the photos I'm enjoying, are the only proof I have that it wasn't just a dream.
What a start to the day!!
Photos: sunrise, starting at 4:02am