The Traveling Widower

Tag: alaska

  • The Cavitation Cabin Blues

    The Cavitation Cabin Blues

    The first two days have been absolutely amazing in terms of the Alaskan landscape, the wildlife, and pretty much all aspects of the trip. It is strange being back on a National Geographic/Lindblad ship – this one is the sister ship for the one I was on in Baja, and there is a comfort factor in knowing where everything is. Plus, the expedition lead remembered me from the Baja trip, and the marine naturalist I know from my last whale watch trip in Moss Landing – he was the naturalist on the Blue Ocean ship. A very small world it is. 

    The first day we cruised around into the inner passage channels, headed for a spot where we would explore the coast in the Zodiacs. That worked out great, since we spotted Brown Bears – finally. I have not seen one since a horseback trip outside of Yellowstone, many years ago. And that was not a good experience. 

    After that, we headed off North towards Glacier Bay, quite a ways off. We had reports that we should be able to see the Northern Lights that night. Even though I was already tired (more on that in a bit), I headed out to viewing area on the bow  at 10:00 – it was cold and extremely windy, plus the ship was moving really fast. Looking off to the North, there was a glow of sorts over the mountains – not very exciting. For the dimmer Borealis displays, you need to take photographs to see the colors – I’m not sure why, but it worked. It was a real challenge trying to take photographs with a heavy wind and rocking boat, but I did get a few nice shots (which I’ll be working on with Photoshop).

    I played around with the camera for a while, and then suddenly, the sky lit up as huge cruise liner sailed past us – it was like having a giant Christmas tree cruise by. Hideous. Kind of ruined the experience.

    So here’s the rest of the story on being tired. My cabin is on the lowest deck, on the very rear of the ship (aft). I’ve been on this level on my first two NG expeditions, and while you do hear the engines, it is actually a very soothing sound. But as the ship picked up speed, the hum was drowned out by an extremely loud rattle and bang, sort of like a bunch of marbles in a can. This was neither soothing, or a replacement for Melatonin.  After a second night of this, I did bring this up to “hotel manager”, and spoke to the captain. Much like the Arachnid Suite in hotels, I have learned that you should never reserve the Cavitation Cabin on cruise ships. The rear-most steerage level cabins on the smaller ships happen to be right above the propellers. As the ship picks up speed, you get cavitation (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cavitation). There was not much the crew can do about the sound – the ship has to move and unlike nuclear submarines,  cavitation is common at high speed. But they did lend me a set of Bose sound cancelling headphone for the remainder of the trip. Maybe a discount on my next cruise would have been nice.  I’ll survive. I don’t sleep well at home either. 

    100 lb (not really) porthole covers – head crushers

    Day two was amazing, even with just 3 hours of sleep due to cavitation noise. I woke up early (due to cavitation…OK I’ll stop mentioning it), and peeked out the porthole (I had to lift the cover first…very heavy, easy to crush your head) to a view of chunks of ice floating by. Hmm….must be near a glacier. Sure enough, by the time I got out to the front deck, we were already pulled up in front of the John Hopkins glacier. Wow. I’ve seen a few glaciers before, but this was incredible.

    The plan for the day was to cruise through Glacier Bay (another National Park off the list, woo hoo!), mostly looking for wildlife or anything else of interest to view from the ship. No stops or off-ship excursions. That was fine by me. The scenery was incredible and there were all kinds of beasties to see. I was exhausted after a few hours from wandering around the decks to get different views of the surroundings, or heading back to the cabin for different lenses. I eventually moved my camera bag up to the lounge to give my knee a break from climbing stairs. Here’s a few shots (many more to come once I get home)

    I have never seen anything like this area – the water was like a still pond, perfectly flat, surrounded by snow covered peaks. There were otters, sea lions, and a variety of birds all over the place as we cruised by. Plus, the scenery was beyond belief. We did hit a fog bank for a while, which was a good excuse for taking a break, and offloading some photos to my SSD storage. That and getting some food into my system (lunch). 

    I spent the rest of the afternoon watching the world go by, standing around with 20 or 30 other photographers and bird/scenery watchers as we cruised Glacier Bay. Incredible scenery. Every few minutes, a sea otter or some other interesting bird (Puffins!!) would float by, and the scenery just go better and better as we cruised along. After a while, you just sort of sat there, put the camera down, and just let it all soak in, and just relax for a change. What an incredible experience.

    But traveling alone still sucks

    As I’ve said before, I may occasionally mix some of my widower related experiences and thoughts in the travel posts – I can’t help avoid leakage from the journal I created a few weeks ago. So here goes.

    I absolutely love going on the National Geographic/Lindblad expeditions – they are so incredibly well run, and they offer incredible opportunities for photography and outdoor activities. The cruises are fantastic since they are true expeditions, but with all the high-end features you’d get from the more traditional luxury cruise outfits. Great food, outstanding service, comfortable accommodations, but with a focus on adventure.

    But, the vast majority of the travelers are couples. While everyone is like-minded in terms of their interests, I am still absolutely terrified at having to socialize with 90 or so complete strangers, especially at meals where I need to ask a group if I can join with them. It is still so far out of my comfort zone. For some reason, probably because of the lingering depression from our 50th anniversary a few weeks ago, I initially gave into my introverted self for the first day or two. It is just so hard meeting couples my own age, while I’m off on my own without Jan. Sometime you just feel like a leper, even though most everyone is incredibly understanding.

    Fortunately, I was able to pull out of my funk, and have begun to socialize with a number of couples so I’m not eating by myself. I’ll be OK for the rest of the trip. I’m guessing every trip will be like this – I’ll always feel strange traveling without Jan. 

    End of sad moment…back to enjoying the trip. Much more to come, especially once I figure out how to work with all the raw images on the iPad.

  • Gearing Up for Trips to Alaska and Antarctica

    Gearing Up for Trips to Alaska and Antarctica

    Retiree’s, especially those who have been retired for a long time like myself (9 years) have a problem remembering the current date and sometimes the current day of the week. Once you are out of work, every day seems like Friday. Or Saturday. Or whatever day you like the best. I use to rely on my wife to keep track of important dates – she kept a completely detailed calendar for important social, financial, anniversary dates,  birth dates – pretty much everything scheduled for up to a year ahead. Now that she’s gone, I rely on my Pixel watch – the face clearly has the day and date, so all I have to do is check my wrist. Seriously, I do maintain a schedule, and check it every day, which is why I realized the other day that I’m just 39 days from departing for Alaska, and maybe I should start getting serious about making sure I have everything I need for the trip. The Alaska trip is only 10 days, but it’s chock full of different activities (kayaking, hiking, cruising for wildlife), in a wet and cool location. Kind of different from the trips I’ve been on this past year. So I’ve dedicated the past few days to preparing for the next trip, the Inner Passages of Alaska, and starting to think about Antarctica in November.

    In Search of the Perfect Camera Backpack

    I posted a while back about my never ending struggle with lugging camera gear on my adventures. Every one of the trips I’ve been taking (or planning to take) that requires air travel seem to have somewhat different photography needs, and different airline requirements for carry-on luggage. For example, the Galapagos Island trip had land based wildlife photography plus snorkeling with sea lions and penguins. That’s a lot of gear. My upcoming trip to Alaska is primarily wildlife, but also kayaking and possible close encounters with whales. Long lens, wide angle lens and the GoPro. The next Baja trip will have opportunities for wildlife, and both surface and underwater whale photography – I probably will not need the 500mm lens on that trip, but probably take it anyway.  This large amount of camera gear would not be an issue if I were always flying first class on large planes. But most of these trips have a second flight on smaller, commuter jets, which have limitations on weight and size of carry-on. I’ve also got two trips so far, which have the final leg on single engine prop planes. Very small, with limitations on size and weight of luggage.  I’ll be closing my eyes on take-off and landing, especially the sea plane. 

    Now that I have a very large and heavy telephoto lens (150-500), my former go-to camera bag no longer goes. That’s what happens when you try to cut costs. My wife would have said..”just buy the damn bag you need”. But I didn’t. And then a miracle occurred while I was stressing out about what to do for my upcoming Alaska trip, I received two sale advertisements via e-mail, one from Mike’s Camera, and the other from Think Tank, both for the same camera bag – the Airport Commuter backpack. The overall size of this pack is between my giant LowePro backpack, and the smaller Think Tank backpack that I used on my last two trips. It’s also a bit smaller than the roller camera bag I have. It looked absolutely perfect for pretty much anywhere I travel to. So, off to Mike’s Camera, which had one in stock. For once in my life, I did not stand there trying to justify the purchase. I had already done the research on it, so as my wife had recommended at times like these, I just bought the damned thing. 

    The Think Tank backpack is pretty much the last photography related item I’ll be buying for a while, other than a raincoat for the camera. Seriously, they make specialized rain covers for cameras, large enough to cover huge lenses mounted on a tripod/monopod. You can get inexpensive ones which are basically large plastic bags, or spend a lot on waterproof material, sized to fit specific lens types. I opted for the latter – after spending that much on the camera and lens, I’m not going to scrimp on the rain gear. And I even found one made in the USA, from a company (Lenscoat) that specializes in various protective covers for cameras and lenses. It is rare to find any camera gear made in the US – almost all camera and lens makers are foreign, and even tripods/monopods are all made elsewhere. 

    When I got home, I packed all of the gear I could possibly use on a trip into the new pack – there was still plenty of room for other carry-ons like an iPad, books, glasses, etc. And the size really was perfect – it will fit in the overhead of pretty much any plane, and should not be an issue with the small planes either. I won’t be packing much in the way of clothing for those trips. On one trip we live on the beach, the other in a shipping container on a fishing boat. Who cares what I look (or smell) like. I’ll be staying at hotels after each trip, with real showers, and my own bathroom. I am treating both of these like a backpacking trip. I will be looking forward to a long, hot shower when I get to the hotels.

    The Grizzly Bear boat – no frills.

    Expedition Clothing – REI loves me

    And speaking of gear, I’m almost done buying out REI (and other places) for the Alaska trip. I now own waterproof outerwear for kayaking (which I’ll also need in Alaska, Antarctica and Patagonia), kayak gloves, photographers gloves for cold weather, boot socks for the rented waterproof boots, and some new lightweight insulated clothing. My annual REI rewards check should be impressive this year.  Fortunately, you can rent a lot of the bulky stuff you need on some of the trips, like knee high waterproof boots for Alaska and Patagonia, and winter boots for Antarctica – those would be impossible to pack, and really uncomfortable to wear on the plane. National Geographic gives passengers big parkas for the Antarctica trip. I’m not quite sure how I’ll get that home.

    Monopod vs. Tripod

    I mentioned in a previous post that I had purchased a new monopod, which will come in handy for photographing from the National Geographic ships, and the Kodiak converted fishing boat. I have two tripods, which are a must for shooting with heavy cameras and lenses, but both are heavy, and are not allowed onboard smaller ships – these take up too much deck space on smaller ships. Monopods provide some stability, relieving much of the stress and pain of hand-holding heavy gear, and work well when jockeying for space with the other photographers. The Siriu monopod I purchased is made from carbon-fiber, extends to 6’, and has a small set of fold-up feet for added stability. I also bought a ball-joint mount, and a specialized quick release mount for it as well. The mount and feet sections are removable, so it will be easy to pack the thing in my luggage, and it is super light.

    Big camera on monopod with feet
    Collapsed monopod
    Disassembled

    I’ll leave the feet at home for both trips to cut down on weight – I’m not planning on using it like a tripod for the heavy lens and camera. A very nice toy.

    So I think I’m ready for Alaska. I’ll worry about Antarctica in October.

    FYI – you may notice some formatting changes in this post, which I will be applying to my older posts as well. I’m learning more about blogging, and ways to maximize new visitors through Search Engine Optimization (SEO). I’m not considering advertising/monetization at all, which seems to be what most blogs use. But I will have an occassional link to the locations I visit, or for some of the companies I buy gear from – more of a convenience for readers interested in the stuff, and one of the SEO recommendations I’ve read about.