Having just arrived back from Canada in the Fall on Fred Olsen Borealis, I will be setting off on my next assignment on Saga Spirit of Discovery to the Caribbean. This cruise will be a bit warmer than Canada or Alaska and I’ll be delivering a series of talks as well as doing some stargazing nights.
After a brief sojourn to visit our son in the USA we are back on our travels. From October 3rd I will be the resident astronomer on Fred Olsen’s Borealis during her latest voyage, Canada in the Fall. More info later!
Well! What a voyage this has been so far. Firstly, Fred Olsen’s Borealis is a terrific ship with nice venues, artwork and the food is great. However, when we left Southampton to cross the Atlantic to Canada we were not prepared for Hurricane Kirk which meant we had to divert to Funchal in Madeira! It took us nine days to reach Canada by which time we had three ports cancelled due to weather. Fortunately, once we were in the St.Lawrence river, things brightened up and we had a fabulous time in Montreal, Quebec, Saguenay and Corner Brook. We are now sailing to St.John’s in Newfoundland (one of our earlier cancelled ports) but will miss Cobh in Ireland on the way back. I have delivered several talks during the voyage, all with great crowds and very well received. The stargazing nights have not been so successful because of weather and the only two clear(ish) nights were blighted by a bright Moon.
This morning I received an email asking me to join our next cruise to the Caribbean on November the 5th instead of the 9th so, onwards and upwards!
After a fantastic assignment on Viking Orion we are now at home in sunny Devon. It was a pleasure as always to sail on the beautiful Viking ship and deliver lectures on astronomy and astrophysics to the guests. We even managed a great stargazing night on the first clear night for over a month! We are now heading to the USA for a brief holiday where we will stay with our son in Connecticut! On our return we will only have a few days before heading back to sea for Canada in the Fall!
I had an amazing whale watching trip from Sitka and fulfilled a life-long ambition to photograph a breaching Humpback whale!
I had a fabulous trip to Neets Point from Ketchikan where I got up-close and personal with several Brown Bears, one of which surprised me by suddenly coming through the undergrowth and onto the trail. It was no more than 4 feet away from me and just looked at me as if I was breakfast. Fortunately, the guide came along and told the bear to “get back!” I was amazed when it turned around and went back to the shoreline having obvioisly decided salmon was more tasty than Scotsman!
We sailed into Glacier Bay where there are over 1000 glaciers! Beautiful place, full of wildlife.
At the start of our second cruise, back to Vancouver, we visited the Columbia Glacier. We managed to see quite a bit of wildlife, including Humpback whales, sea otters, Stellar sea lions, seals, bald eagles and puffins! The weather has turned bad again and we are currently heading for the Hubbard glacier in rough seas.
Today is our final port of call on this Viking Orion cruise and we are in Seward, Alaska. All of our guests disembark tomorrow and a new set of guests will board. I am staying onboard to deliver more lectures as we sail back to Vancouver on the return leg. It’s been a great cruise, despite the poor weather.
Our visit to Valdez was interesting as it is the base for the Trans Alaskan Pipleine and quite an interesting town. We visited a couple of the museums and saw a very interesting movie about the 1964 earthquake and how the twon was moved and rebuilt.
Today we sailed into Disenchantment Bay and up to the Hubbard Glacier. We have been here five times before but the weather has never been this bad. It is an amazing sight as you get close and I managed to get a few pictures. You can see the full size images in the gallery.
