Friday the 13th

13 June 08
Hammerfest, Norway


Well after a VERY late night … I got to sleep around 5am, but it was nice to not have to get up! However, someone was banging around in the hallway around 9am, so I ended up waking up. Which was ok since I knew Amie was going to page me around 9.30 for breakfast before we went ashore. We were all in quite the state … all of us had a very good time at the Filipino party and the after parties as well. LOL So we grabbed breakfast and decided we better go ashore right after or else we were never going to make it ashore later on.

Here are a few pics from the Filipino party: (again from a few of our cameras)

http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=bf232dhz.c4zo0rwj&x=0&y=tcw0gf&localeid=en_US

According to the Port Guide onboard (I don’t have access to my cruise critic!! Grrr I love that site for all the port info) there was a small town not far from the berth, so we figured we would just go for a wander and see what was around. However, it turns out we were not in the berth as was assumed when the port guides were made. Of course we had walked all around the port area before realizing all of this. We finally asked a shop owner and he told us it was a 20 min walk to town. Hmmm. We were already struggling to wander around right there, so I didn’t know that we were going to make it the 20 mins. We walked back to the ship and there was a shuttle bus to the town, but it was 50krn ($10) to go. Forget it. I think I only had 50krn left anyway. So Amie and Gemma went straight back to their cabins; however, Pierre and I went up to deck 9 ½ to look at the views and take some pics. I got some nice shots of a small cruise ship coming in. It was nice and warm standing on the one side of the ship as the wind was on the other side. So we stayed on the sunny side LOL

We headed back to our cabins around noon-ish. I decided to read for a while; but I fell asleep. I woke a little later only to turn off the light and roll over J I woke around 3 and had a little snack, as I was hungry. I watched a little TV but there wasn’t much on, so I decided to read more. Either I am reading a very boring book or I am sleep-deprived, because I fell asleep again! I woke up at 6 when my alarm went off (I have my phone set for 6pm everyday in case I nap, I can still get up on time for work)

Needed to get back to the land of the living; so I got showered, dressed and went to dinner. Then came up to the cyber about 7.15 to see if we were getting any signal at all. We weren’t, so I checked my ship email, put the pics from last night and today on my laptop and of course, had to start fielding complaints from the pax who are starting to get itchy about not having access to the Internet. Hell, I think they are more uptight about it than I am and you all know how I am very connected and always online! I had one pax tell me she had no idea if everything was ok at home; I told her that her mobile probably worked in port yesterday and today and she said .. ready? “Oh no, that’s too expensive to use”. Well do you care what is going on at home or not??? Isn’t it worth a few bucks??? Jeezus these people can be so GD cheap sometimes!!! Unfortunately, they were annoying me, so when they left I closed the cyber door and took a break; I went into the shops for a chat with the girls. It’s now a little after 9pm and we still don’t have anything. I had hoped by now it would be up again. As now this will be Day 2 of NO revenue. Null, nada, zero, zilch, nil. Crap! The good thing is that I might get a big influx tomorrow and it might actually end up being more than if I had a connection the whole time J Here’s to hoping! Fingers crossed!!

Oh, I didn’t take any pics last night when we had the “Cruise By” on the North Cape. The sun didn’t come out and it was overcast. So the scenery and mountains looked the same as pics I had already taken ~ so I didn’t bother.

Just got off the phone with the Bridge ~ the 8-12 watch keepers are the nicest (In my opinion) so I called and asked if they could rattle off some coordinates for me; basically, I was trying to see where we were when we lost the signal (roughly 69 1”N, 14 18”E) on the evening of the 11th and then where we are now (not close yet) and then where Tromso (our port tomorrow) is. They are approximately the same coordinates (69 40.5”N, 18 58.7”E) So I am hoping that either en route to port in the early AM, or by the time we get there, I will have the connection back.


Hammerfest, Norway pics:

http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=bf232dhz.8xchvt6r&x=0&y=-95l82e&localeid=en_US