From the Island Princess’ navigator:
Island Princess will spend the day cruising the waters of British Columbia, passing through Johnstone Strait (Waypoint 3),
to Pine Island Lighthouse (Cruise Companion Waypoint 4) during the early morning,
then transiting Queen Charlotte Sound and Hecate Strait,
and then into the open waters of the Gulf.
Thursday 12th July 2018
I woke early at 6 am as the ship slowed down to let off the British Columbia pilot.
Breakfast was in the Bordeaux restaurant. Our table companions were two couples from the USA. One was now living in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania and the other was from Dallas, Texas.
The first couple had travelled the world with the US Army even being at Sandhurst Military Academy for a while. The second couple were from Texas and were on their 11th Alaskan cruise. They explained that in Dallas they didn’t have mountains or the sea!
We listened to their advice about Alaskan cruises especially about always having your binoculars with you. For example, yesterday late in the evening there had been four whales off the ship. The lady had seen them through the window before dashing out on deck with her binoculars.
Finding out about Island Princess
Island Princess maybe the sister ship of the Coral Princess but there were a number of significant differences in the access to the outside. For example, at the stern there was only Deck 8 available and the Promenade Deck was closed off from mid-ships to the stern.
After breakfast we headed forward to Deck 10’s viewing platform but that was closed. Then we went looking for the aft platforms and it was then we discovered only Deck 8 was available.
We didn’t see any sea life but I had to make do with sightings of other cruise ships.
Then a whale popped up and went back down again – our first this cruise. I missed with my camera.