Grand Asia & Pacific 2014 Sailing

2014 Grand Pacific & Far East Voyage

Holland America Line

MS Amsterdam

Flying to Seattle on Friday, September 19th, we were fortunate to be upgraded to First Class because of the generosity of our travel agent, Janis, and her husband, Jeff.  We are truly glad to have their friendship, as well as Janis’ superb travel advice!!

United routed us from Miami to Newark where we changed flights, but then actually we re-boarded the same airplane, before flying on to Seattle, arriving in the early afternoon.  We enjoyed two days of sightseeing, including the “original” Starbucks store at Pike Place Market; seeing the Calder “Eagle” that once had its home in downtown Fort Worth now in its new home at Olympic Sculpture Park, and viewing the glasswork exhibits in the Chihuly Museum at the base of the Space Needle.  

Janis and Jeff flew to Seattle to see us off on our 220-day voyage around the world.  They took us to dinner at one of their favorite restaurants before wishing us bon voyage!

We sailed on Sunday, September 21, 2014 from Port Seattle and immediately as we boarded we were greeted by persons we had sailed with on the Grand World Voyage in 2013.

 Our first stop was the Alaskan island of Kodiak.  Our tour guide, a young woman from Wisconsin named Bree, drove us around the island and we saw several brown bears and bald eagles and we drove up to the top of the hill overlooking the harbor.  

Then we walked through the small city that Steve had visited with his sons, Tom and Steve Jr., almost 30 years ago.  New buildings had sprouted up all over town but the historic Russian Orthodox Church was still there serving the community more than 100 years and replacing an earlier church building built when most of Alaska was part of Russia.  We met Father David who surprisingly was not Russian, but rather hailed from Illinois.

After a little more sightseeing and some shopping, we again boarded the Amsterdam and enjoyed an Alaskan Salmon Bake outside on the Lido deck.  

The next stop was the Port of Dutch Harbor, along the south shore of Amaknak Island, that serves the city of Unalaska in the Aleutian Island chain.  This is reputed to be the world’s largest fishing industry port and we enjoyed a tour given by Bobbi who had lived there almost 40 years.  Our primary focus on this tour was the history of Unalaska and its part in the “forgotten war,” which was central to Alaska’s role in WWII.

We enjoyed Bobbi taking photos of our group for everyone.  Steve saw his name on a street sign perhaps evincing distant relatives once lived here?  Bobbi knew where we could see more bald eagles--right in front of her house, which was also sited next to a memorial park honoring those who were killed by the bombing of Unalaska during the war.  

Today, we are on the third of four sea days sailing mostly through the Bering Sea and then back into the North Pacific Ocean on our way to Japan. 

Life aboard the Amsterdam is a lot of fun--dinner with friends, walking the deck in the morning.  Learning a lot of things at lectures and nightly entertainment.  Steve has enjoyed learning Tai Chi.  Until next time, we hope you are enjoying this blog.

We will publish a new post following our overland visit to Tokyo, Kyoto and Nagasaki.

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