Yesterday was tough. We began to travel through the Inside Passage, “a network of passages which weave through the islands on the Pacific coast of North America,” and hit some open ocean. It was turbulent and in spite of the Sea Bands and anti-nausea patch behind my ear, I had a hard time functioning. By the afternoon, the waters had calmed down and I started to feel like myself again. We had some tea and hot chocolate and watched whales diving into the ocean. First a spray of air and water, then a fin, and finally the sleek tail with distinctive flukes. This morning, as we continue to sail towards Icy Strait Point in Alaska, the sea looks like a smooth sheet of pale blue glass and the mountains in the distance seem insubstantial, floating on top of clouds. Layers of glassy blue sea, snow-white mist, black mountains with patches of sunlit green, and a sky that mirrors the colors of the sea, all combine to create an ethereal scene, a poem to perfection… [photograph from alumni.psu.edu]
