Journal Entry #6 - Seward, Alaska, USA
Welcome to America!
Well, not really.
Last night, it got cloudy and we did not see the coast of Alaska before going to bed, even though it was light until well after bedtime. So I looked forward to getting up early – after all, I slept late that morning! - and watching us slide up Resurrection Bay, past the snow-capped mountains, and do a crisp 180 before backing into the pier at Seward.
Well, no. I set a new sleeping-late record – 7:45 AM – and we were already there. People were already leaving the ship. A thick overcast obscured all but the bottom half of most of the mountains, although it was really clear that the town was surrounded by some pretty awesome mountains.
On the other side, was a slim strip of flat land that contained the city of Seward, and then the mountain reared up immediately. Nothing was above the flat except about five or six big houses, up on a ridge about 100 feet up the mountain, looking like the place where the people lived who owned the rest of the town. And mountains, mountains, mountains.
We had been in Seward in 1986, when we drove our VW Westphalia camper from NY to Alaska and the Arctic Ocean and back. We camped out of town, sat around a fire with a bunch of folks our age from another country, and the next day hiked up Exit Glacier (or the edge of the glacier) to the ice field above, which was one of the memorable sights of the trip. Then we went into Seward and took a boat trip through Kenai Fjords National Park, and saw calving glaciers and puffins in the mist. Then we got ice cream, and headed back north.
Seward was kind of wiped out by a tsunami created by the Good Friday earthquake in 1964, but by 1986 had regrown to a decent small town with a few boats at the dock. Today, there's the “old downtown,” which was there in 1986, and the “new downtown,” mostly big hotels, tour boat offices and coffee shops. And a brand new boat harbor, with a serious quay, what looked like a hundred slips, and lots of very interesting, multi-colored boats of all sizes. Including a US Coast Guard ship which, it seems, was there to make sure the QE passed inspection to let it operate in US waters for the season. We passed, according to the Captain on the PA later that afternoon.
Our goal in Seward was twofold: get decongestant for Abbey (not available in any of the shops on the ship), and find wifi so we could reconnect with a world we had been disconnected from for over a week (and to download some books from Libby). But first we had to get off the ship.
This being our first stop in the US, the Immigration Service understandably wanted to check us all in. When we were in Otaru, our last stop in Japan, everyone had to check out with the Japanese immigration service. Even though Otaru was a small city, they sent about thirty officers who set up in the Queen's Room, and things went smoothly and quickly. Not so in the US! We had to check in before we left the ship, and they sent four officers for nearly 2,000 passengers and over 1,000 staff. They sent five, but one processed paperwork. When we finished breakfast and got ready to go, the line was the length of the ship, and not moving. A half hour later, the same. We sat and read for a while, not being in a hurry, and finally found the line at a reasonable length – still long, but reasonable. We got off the ship at 11:30. I found it embarrassing that this ship full mostly of non-Americans, would find their first interaction with the USA to be bureaucratic incompetence that wasted a big chunk of their day ashore.
When we finally got off the ship and into the terminal, we found it to be a big, completely empty warehouse, with a set of rest rooms in one corner. And no wifi. Not even a box with a router with a solar panel on top. Nothing. One lady who was answering questions, but didn't know where we could find wifi. She did let us know that our best bet for decongestants was the Stop n Shop, and told us which shuttle bus stop to get of at.
Also – you will remember that every town/city in Japan (except Yokohama and Busan, massive ports to whom we were one more piece of shipping) we were greeted by somebody. Usually, a lot of people had made an effort to make us feel welcome – and we did feel welcome. In Seward, Alaska, USA, not a thing, on arrival, or departure. Big painted signs on the warehouse – “Welcome to Seward, Alaska!” - but somehow that didn't measure up.
On to the shuttle bus; the queue was about fifty yards from the exit from the warehouse. The queue was long, and we waited about a half an hour, in the cold and wind (and eventually the rain) for our turn in the bus. There were three small buses planned, but one had mechanical trouble. Overall, it seemed like maybe Seward didn't know that 2,000 people would be arriving for a short stay. I couldn't help noticing, as we rode the shuttle route, multiple parking lots with idle buses parked in rows.
The Stop n Shop had a Starbucks in it, with tables and chairs, and the S n S itself had free wifi. So that's where we caught up on e-mail. We were gratified to find that our phones worked without the surcharge, because we were back in the USA. Great! Pressing e-mails were responded to, which took most of the laptop's battery power. Coffee was drunk. Rest room was used. We planned to do less urgent e-mail tasks, as well as all the other stuff, back on the ship, with our phones. Back across the parking lot, the Seward Cup, the vacant lot, and caught a bus back to the ship. The route took us from one end of Seward to another. Not a glamorous city, by any means – a working city, focused on the sea and on tourism. Furthest from the water, the streets rose a bit in elevation, and in these areas there seemed to be houses older than 1986, probably spared destruction by their height above sea level. We had spent so much time getting off the ship and getting our e-mail done, that we didn't feel we had enough time to see the Marine Wildlife Center, an aquarium and museum established by funds from the Exxon Valdez disaster.
We returned to the ship, settled in with a great view, and got busy with our phones. Or would have, if our phones would have connected to the internet. They did in the Stop n Shop, of course, because of the wifi. We figured that we could continue our work with data. But we couldn't. After lots of fiddling and resetting, it became clear that our phones could not find the internet by using data. Texts worked – a lot dropped in as soon as we turned them on – and we could make phone calls – I called Abbey just to test it, and she called Barb Field back home and had a long conversation. But – no internet. Meaning no Libby books. No more e-mail. No maps, no news, No nothing.
So we put both phones on airplane mode and resigned ourselves to the inconveniences – too complex to relate here – of disconnection from Libby. And then, as we were sailing out of Resurrection Bay, Abbey's phone dinged – a text from Verizon welcoming us to the $10/day travel plan, which kicked in as soon as we got far enough away from Seward to qualify as “outside the USA.” Abbey had not turned off airplane mode. However, it was off. She turned it on again, and we rolled our eyes. Technology as cash cow.
Well. There are still the magnificent mountains, and the endlessly varied cloud formations. On our way out of Seward, the fog rolled in as soon as we were under weigh, and we passed through the bay with ghosts of mountains appearing and disappearing. Then it cleared again, to a cloud cover that came halfway down the mountains. The whole evening has been shades of grey, with tones of blue, and they are beautiful. We can see forever, to the horizon, with stubby half-mountains scattered through the view. It's 10:00 in the Crow's Nest; I'm writing, Abbey's painting. It's still day. The sun will set in Seward tonight after 11:00. Good night!
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