We Take Ourselves With Us

After boarding on Sunday, we had a sea day on Monday, giving us all time to sleep deeply in our inside cabins, explore the Koningsdam a bit, and just relax ... except, the captain had advised us that we'd be passing by the volcanic island Stromboli at 8:30 that morning.  So, Ned and I pulled ourselves out of bed and wandered the upper decks--from which we saw only ocean in every direction--trying to understand where a volcano could be hiding.  It turned out that it was hiding at 10:30--the captain had made an error in the timing. We made the best of it by going to an early breakfast in the still rather uncrowded Lido market. As 10:30 neared, I went up to the observation deck to grab some space at the railing--and in the distance, ta dah, a volcano appeared! Just a week earlier, Stromboli had erupted with fury, killing a hiker and putting the small villages at its base in danger.  As Penn wondered aloud, who would build a town on a volcano?  Great ques...

Our last day on ship began early morning as we floated in the smooth mirror of the ocean a few miles from the Hubbard Glacier, a surprisingly noisy and active glacier.  The still of the water was paired with cracking thunder as the ice calved and groaned.  You'll see some random hats and strangers in these pictures because it seemed like the entire ship was on the front decks to catch an image (or one hundred) of our last glacier (though, hopefully, not the last glacier).  At one point, I heard a woman remark in a familiar marital-tone, "Be careful honey, don't drop the camera or we'll lose the 200 photos you just took."  Looking back at just the photos I took with my phone (and not counting the ones Ned took with "real" cameras), I can completely sympathize: it's that kind of experience.  Look at the tiny white ball of the sun forcing its way through the heavy clouds.  The day before, the park ranger told us that these are the conditio...