A Well Overdue Blog; Sarah & James Travel Blog

First of all, I am very sorry that we have not written a blog in ages. It’s the same old reasons, not enough time and no internet, especially as we spent a week, actually nearly 2 weeks in the pacific ocean. I will reveal all.

So we arrived in Seattle 2 weeks last Friday and we probably stayed in the best hostel we’ve ever stayed in. Well actually it wasn’t a hostel, it was the Fairmont 5 star hotel that Stuart had put us up in for our 1st night. We were so grateful and overwhelmed. It was a great way to start off a perfect 2 weeks on the west coast of America. We arrived late at the airport so we arrived late at the Fairmont only to be greeted by Stuart and his girlfriend and my parents in the hotel bar with a glass of wine and some yummy food. It was great to see Stuart again as we saw him at the beginning of our trip in India and now again at the end in the States, it was kind of weird to think what we had done in the time we last saw him. But it was great to give my parents a huge hug after 8 months away from home. I had been graving a hug from them both for so long. So we stayed up til 1am chatting away and catching up, only to be told by Stuart that we had to be up at 6:30am the following morning to catch a boat to a place called Roche Harbour, Stuart and Cathy had it all planned for us.

So the following morning, we set out to Roche Harbour as this was where we were going to be spending the next few days celebrating the 4th July. Stuart spends alot of his summer time up here as Roche Harbour is actually part of the San Juan Islands and Stuart regularly takes his boat up through the islands. Stu had already taken the boat up to Roche Harbour a few days before with his boat partner John, so we were going to meet John and his family up there by catching a clipper from Seattle. All very complicated, but totally worked.

After a fairly long journey and some beers and fish and chips along the way we arrived on Stu’s boat. Mum and Dad were staying in a lovely (but pretty slanted) hotel on Roche Harbour and James and I were staying on the boat with Stu, Cathy and John and his family. The boat was actually moored on another Island called Henry Island and the only way to get to and from the island was on a dingy (the really cool fast ickle boat from the Stu’s big boat) which was loads of fun and throughout the 3 days on the boat the dingy was very useful as it carried all our luggage when we arrived, provided transport for dinner one night from the boat to mum and dads hotel (James cooked an awesome BBQ) and got us home in the dark every night, including when it was throwing it down. Fuuuunnnnnn!!!

So we spent the run-up to July 4th eating and drinking and catching up really and hanging out with other boaty people, life was great. The weather was also great, although quite refreshing after Mexico the sun was out everyday.

Mum and Dad’s quirky hotel (that we were all convinced was moving) had a great balcony overlooking the harbour which was prime spot for watching the fireworks on the 4th July. The night after the 4th we all headed back to Seattle. James and I cruised back on Stuarts boat whereas mum and dad got the clipper back and we all met up that evening at a restaurant called Anthonys. The restaurant was situated on Belle Harbour which is the harbour right in the downtown Seattle as Stuart has paid for us to moor there so we had a great location and we were all near each other. Stuart lives right in the centre of Seattle where literally his neighbour is Abercrombie and Fitch so he gave up his apartment for mum and dad whilst he stayed on the boat with us. We had such a great view from the boat.

After a week of being the States we were all very excited as we were going to be getting on a Cruise Ship to Alaska. Basically this was all arranged by Stuart as my Dad had expressed an interest in doing it a few months back so Stuart organised it all. This definitely wasn’t on our original itinerary and obviously an absolute luxury for us but we changed our flights a while ago so we can all meet up and go on the cruise. Wow, it was totally worth it.

On the Friday morning in Belle Harbour, we woke up and our little boat was literally in the shadow of our cruise ship. So we took our bags off the small boat and stepped onto the big boat. From the minute we entered the Cruise terminal to the minute we left a week later we got total preferential treatment. This was because Stuart had booked a fancy Suite with a Butler (which was amazing and will tell you all about it) and Dad was registered as disabled so we felt like royalty and were 1st on the ship and were greeted with champagne. Not bad hey??

Stuart had booked all our rooms and mum and dad had a balcony room on the port side of the ship and Stuart had a suite with a overhanging window and lots of space on the Starboard side and James and I were in a windowless room in the middle of the ship but we didn’t care as we had access to both of the other rooms so it was a winner for us. AND, all the rooms were right next to each other. Bonus!!! Let’s just say James and I only used our room to sleep in and that was it!

So like I was saying Stuart’s room came with a Butler. But this wasn’t just any butler, Robert was the so unbelievably good. He served dinner for us twice in Stuarts room, that’s all 6 of us and 4 courses. Everyday at 4pm we would all make sure we were in Stuart’s room as Robert would come round with afternoon tea. James and I felt so spoilt and fortunate and amazed at how good everything was. Robert also knew all our names and went totally beyond his job description to help us. Stuart took his email address and is going to find out what cruises he’s doing in the future.

For those of you that don’t know much about Cruises, ALL THE FOOD IS INCLUDED. Basically you can eat 24/7, there is food everywhere and all the food was amazing. We also found a cafe called Renew which was quite cleverly tucked in a corner but served really healthy delicious food for breakfast and lunch, it was the best 2 meals I have ever had in my life.

Anyway, enough about the food. The cruise ship stopped in 3 places in Alaska along the way, Ketchikan, Juneau and Skagway and the rest of the time it was at sea, going what felt like really fast. It was up to you whether we left the ship but we did in Ketchikan and Skagway and in Skagway we did a wonderful train ride up into the mountains to the Canadian border. We were so lucky with the weather so the views were amazing. We knew the weather was unusually good as the captain had said over the tanoy that he has sailed this trip to Alaska for 9 years and never had they seen such good weather. The sea was so calm, but to be honest for the most of the time going South the ship actually goes in and out of narrow passages and straits and not only until we started to head back to Seattle did we go into the open sea.

On one of the middle days at 6:30am in the morning, we had a knock on our door. Assuming it was housekeeping we ignored it, until the

knock kept continuing so we got up and Stuart was at the door and he said “you have got to see this!”, so we trundled very sleepily over to Stuarts room and after rubbing my eyes I noticed that the ship was travelling through a really really narrow Fjord, called Tracey Arm Fjord with mountains all around, but not only that the water was was crystal blue and there were the remains of icebergs everywhere. I can’t begin the explain how amazing the scenery and it was probably up there with one of the most beautiful sceneries I have ever seen (although New Zealand and Vietnam were also breathtaking). As well as the scenery being amazing, it was actually the fact that this humongous cruise ship was cruising very slowly through this very tiny passage and crunching through ice which made it all the more impressive. It was also a very calm day and there was no signs of life anywhere on the land so it was so peaceful.

The ship continued for about an hour through this passage so I sat with mum in my pyjamas and had a blanket over us as we just took it all in. The passage got so narrow eventually and then the fjord came to a bit of an opening so the ship turned round and as it turned we saw the glacier from which all the ice came from. Another great view.

We spent alot of our time in Stuart and Cathy’s room as the view from their window was so good and was also perfect for spotting whales. I think we all saw at least one whale along the way as well as dolphins and seals. James and I have been so keen to see a whale as that is one thing we have not managed to see properly on our trip. Although I missed it, James and Cathy saw 2 killer whales right up close to the ship, it was quite hard to take pictures though as the cruise ship was actually going pretty fast and often against the current so seeing any type of wildlife would only be a very brief encounter. We also made use of the theatre one evening (much to the enthusiasm of Dad, but was totally worth it), where a variety of performers sang and danced songs from around the world. In particular one chap sang Nessum Dorma which was actually very impressive and I think we all had goose bumps.

Right, well I think I have ooohhh and ahhhh enough over our last few weeks but we really did have a wonderful time and we even learnt how to play Canasta. A great card game that Dad introduced to us all and although we are all still debating the rules abit it is a great team game.

We actually left Seattle nearly a week ago and flew to New York. I have to say I am not going to bore you with the details of our time in New York as we bascially shopped til we dropped and spent what little money we had left, but we are in Cape Cod now. We hired a car and James drove quite a painful 6 hours up the east coast to a place called Yarmouth in New England. The East coast is having a heat wave at the moment so New York was boiling, but Cape Cod is quite a bit cooler so it’s easier to do stuff. We are actually booked in to go Whale Watching as the cruise ship gave us a taster for it but we want to see them more up close and apparently sightings are guaranteed. yey!

Less than a week until we’re land back in The Smoke, we can’t believe it.

Speak soon everybody

xxxxx