I was so worried about G getting to his meeting time and place (6:15am on the pier) for his salmon fishing excursion this morning that I set alarms on my watch, my iPad, my iPhone and our travel clock…and then was in the bathroom when they all went off at 5am. He was plenty awake after that. The alarm setting process was complicated by the fact that we moved clocks back an hour last night. I clearly know how to set the time on my iPhone manually, and have done so for years while we were crossing oceans, but, for some reason I got a <The time zone can’t be set manually due to device restrictions > error. This sent me to Google which instructed me how to fix it except it didn’t and when I was still messing with it at midnight, I gave up, pulled out our old fashioned travel alarm and just hoped for the best. Has anyone else ever run into this issue?
Once I had sent him off with a verbal “Vaya con Dios” and a silent “Catch a fish!”, I napped a little while longer. I had no plans other than to watch the sea planes taking off and landing next to the ship. We had the best weather in Ketchikan today and the ship was berthed in the best location, and that should have had me out exploring on my own while G fished but my knee, though improved, has a limited number of steps in it each day. To expend some of them without Mr Motion at my side would have been wasteful.
I first took my phone out of Airplane Mode to see if there was any new info on how Mom was doing from my non-Apple family members, since their texts don’t reach me except while on cellular. When there were no texts waiting for me, I tried phoning Mom. We now haven’t talked in over a week, and that feels very strange altogether. When her phone went unanswered, I called the nurse’s station instead. She is happy and doing a little better. Cruise on!
There were only two of us at breakfast in Sabatini’s this morning. With all the time in the world, I had a fruit plate and then smoked salmon, which seemed appropriate in the smoked salmon capital of the world. Along with two cappuccinos and a mimosa, life felt very good. I decided I wouldn’t eat again until dinner, when I was hoping to enjoy fresh salmon (spoiler alert: wait until you see my lunch pic).
At 8:45am I looked at my phone to see if there were any fish updates. There weren’t, and for few minutes I began to worry. But soon after that my phone dinged an alert, and the first fish pics began to arrive began to arrive. I was dining on fresh salmon tonight!
Oh yeah. We’re eating good tonight!!
We both love the Princess Cook my Catch excursions!
Knudsen Cove Marina is 12 miles from the ship (the blue dot).
It’s away from the cruise ships and the water there is cold and crystal clear.
One word of advice for anyone interesting in reserving this excursion in Ketchikan: check online for the dates when the salmon are running. Based on G’s experience, a friend of ours did the same excursion in September and caught nothing. Silver (coho) salmon is at its peak right now, and that’s exactly why we are taking our anniversary cruise almost two months early. It’s all about the fish!
I went up to see Sonu and Judith at the juice bar and they wanted to know where G had been this morning. I showed them the fish pics I’d just received and said I knew he would come to see them tomorrow, and that I was also certain that they would be shown the same photos again.😉
I walked around the ship for the first time then, and was amazed at how little I remember of it from its part in our self-designed around the world trip in 2018. Why does so much of it seem unfamiliar to both of us? We decided it’s because the Mediterranean cruise and Asia cruises we were on that year were so port intensive that there are large parts of the ship we simply never saw. Nearly every day involved a very early meeting time for a shore excursion, a long bus ride to a city, long hours in the heat and sun, a long bus ride back to the ship, dinner and bed. The Sapphire was our bedroom and dining venue and little more.
I sat in a lounger on the starboard (town facing) side of the Promenade Deck, wanting to stay close to the gangway to get pics of G when he returned carrying a big ole bag of fish. I tracked his location on Find my Husband and saw that he was finally on the bus coming back to the ship. However, when he got off the bus, he was empty-handed. Where was our dinner? Rules have changed from two years ago and the fish are not carried back to the ship in the bus as they were then, but are instead packed in coolers and brought back en masse. That makes sense, though I kind of missed ship security calling out “Fish coming!” every time one was hand carried up the gangway and handed over to galley crew.
The happy fisherman returns home
G had not yet eaten today, so we went immediately to Alfredos Pizza restaurant on Deck 5, our first visit there this cruise. Despite my vow to not eat again until dinner, I ordered an Alaskan amber and a veggie pizza without zucchini (yuck) and ate just enough to tide me over until Salmon O’Clock tonight.
Alfredo’s menu
Veggie pizza with an Alaskan amber beer
We enjoy having lunch at Alfredo’s on port days, but there was no shortage of lunch options today. Because the on board time was early, at 1:30pm, the International Dining Room was open for lunch, and British Pub Lunch was served in one of the midship dining rooms.
While we ate, G filled me in in his fishing adventure. There were six guests on the boat and he said they caught dozens of salmon (he thought close to 100). He kept just one and offered the rest to the guests who were shipping fish home. In fact, none of the others on his boat were even bringing a fish back to the ship for dinner. That’s the best part! He really enjoyed this and has plans to repeat it next cruise if the weather cooperates.
The weather definitely cooperated today!
We spent the afternoon on the beautiful aft decks of the Sapphire, using the two huge hot tubs and two pools and soaking up the sun. It was a gorgeous day weather-wise, sunny and in the low 70s, and the outside decks were full of happy guests. I ordered my first salted watermelon margarita (because…watermelon) and it was everything I’d hoped it would be. Because it is a premium drink that carries a premium price of $19, I will be charged the difference between $19 and $15 (the Princess Plus drink price limit) for it. Still, so worth it. You know me and watermelon. In fact, I’m so obsessed with it that even my dental floss is watermelon flavored Cocofloss. How convenient! My two favorite things in one product. 😉
Restaurant Manager Valentin from Romania made quite a production of bringing the cooked salmon out from the galley to our table in the Pacific Moon Dinung Room tonight. It was a female salmon (see the roe in the pic below) that barely fit on the serving platter. G had notched the tail fin again to be able to tell it was his fish and, once again the galley got it right. There were a lot of salmon brought on board today. I don’t know how they keep them straight.
Our entire corner of the dining room came over to take photos and we all applauded when Valentin filleted and plated the salmon. At least four tables of guests around us received plate-fulls also, and the 15- and 17-years old boys at the next table made certain there were no leftovers. It was so tender and delicious. I love salmon but salmon we get at home is not nearly as delicious as this is. Expensive but worth it!
Though we didn’t order from the menu, junior waiter Paresh reminded me to scan the menu for this blog. He is a real sweetie, and has the kindest way about him.
Valentin carving and plating the salmon with
junior waiter Paresh from India looking on.
Once again I dug in before remembering to take a pic.
This was my first serving. I didn’t touch the veggies and rice. I had two servings of salmon. 😆
We left dinner and went to the Most Traveled Guests cocktail party in Skywalkers at 7:30pm. They had a wonderful buffet of appetizers and desserts, but this was not the evening for more food regardless of how delicious it was. We were thrilled to see Safety Officer Luigi from Italy and, after the initial introductions, sat and chatted with him and the second Safety Officer (they have two in Alaska) Emanuele, also from Italy, until well after the party ended. They are both as fully trained as the Captain, and are just waiting for their turn at the Staff Captain and Captain roles. We go way back with Luigi, as we share the experience of the Pacific Princess in Nice (which, if you don’t know that story, is detailed under the Nice label in this blog). We had seen him again on the Ruby Princess in Australia just before COVID struck.
Pics from the MTG Cocktail Party:
It was nearly 10pm when we returned to the cabin, and we decided that we will sleep in tomorrow (but I know we won’t) and have an unstructured day in Juneau.
Finally, the interface to the internet through the medallion app went down around noon today, and I was unable to get on wifi on either my iPad or iPhone. I left for dinner a little early and stopped by the Internet cafe on Deck 7. First let me say that I am shocked that large space is still serving as the Internet cafe. While it was constantly packed on my 2004 transpacific cruise (I remember exactly where I used to sit to send G a daily email as he was deployed in the Army and bit traveling with me, which is why I was with friend Sheila), no one uses a computer to access the internet any longer, as we now have WiFi. I thought that area would have been re-configured during the last dry dock, but it hasn’t been. Internet Manager George told me about the interface issue and got me on WiFi using login.com.
He no sooner got my phone connected when it rang. Mom was calling! What a wonderful surprise. She is still very weak but is far less disoriented. It did my heart good to hear from her. She is back to being her same harious self. She laughed while she told me about the hallucinations she had totally believed were happening even a few days ago, and how one involved her flying to Vermont and climbing a mountain to hand out communion in an attempt to win Michigan football season tickets because she knew G and I would love to have them. Even when she is sick and confused, she’s a mom, trying to do things for her kids. I was deeply touched by that thought. I am so glad she’s slowly returning to us (but admittedly a little sad that the Michigan season ticket thing was not real). We were right to move ahead with this cruise, and I’ll be seeing her in three weeks.
Life is good. :)
Source: Princess Cruises
Source: Princess Cruises
Source: Princess Cruises
