Saturday, June 17, 2023
Last full day on the cruise today. The morning was spent scenic cruising, continuing to look for wildlife. It was raining, so I took a nap for a while. As far as I know, no wildlife was spotted. After lunch, we went on a zodiac ride. We saw no big or fuzzy wildlife, but we did see several kinds of sea stars. Our naturalist, Alex (obviously a girl, because Alex is a girl name) really likes to hang over the side of the boat and grab stuff for us to look at. Then we went on a hike. It was pretty hilarious. We casual strollers crawled up a hill, climbing over roots and fallen logs, slogging through really muddy mud until our guides said we better stop. There didn’t really seem to be a place for a casual hike. We went back to the beach and our naturalists talked about rocks and lichen and little tiny beings that somebody eats (usually other tiny little beings). The people in our group all ooooohed and ahhhhhhed. I wandered closer to the boats back to the ship. One guide called out, “Are you coming further down the beach?” I answered, “Did you find some interesting stuff?” Another guest near me didn’t hesitate a second, “Nope.”
About 20 people did a polar plunge – including all the kids. They went out in zodiacs and jumped into the cold water and swam one stroke over to another zodiac and climbed out. I had heard it might be an option earlier in the week, and considered it for a few seconds. Today when they announced the opportunity, I didn’t even blink before saying NOPE.
They asked everyone to put a few photos into a slide show for everyone to share and it was fun to watch that all together tonight. This is the first time we have taken a cruise and haven’t made lasting friends.