Day 40 - 11/11/22 - Milford Sound & Dusky Sound

 Today we doubled up on scenic cruising.  As we woke up, we entered Milford Sound.  Not being a morning person fits this portion of scenic cruising well as it's one way in and the same way out.  So we enjoyed breakfast watching the narrow fjord walls through very dirty sea water stained LIDO windows.  After breakfast we adjourned to the aft LIDO deck and took a few pictures before moving forward to deck 9 and some on Deck 10 in the Crow's Nest.  I spent most of my time in the calm of deck 9 forward.

Along the way there were many waterfalls, at least one glacier, and very steep fjord walls.  At the end of the fjord is a research station and some tourist accommodations.  There's even a small airport and there were many flights landing and taking off from it.  Many of the guests didn't believe there was an airport there until I showed them the picture of it and the activity on my Flight Radar 24 APP. At the end the ship did a slow 540° rotation before heading very slowly back out. On the trip out I finally saw a very large seal sunning on a rock and a dolphin.  At the xx waterfall, the ship stopped and lingered and rotated 180° right and then left.  Along the way there were some smaller expedition type ships. We then sailed out of the fjord and out into the open sea.

Out in the open sea, it was time for lunch and we found an empty table in the LIDO area where it was warmer than the LIDO pool area.  Erik and Marilyn joined us and we shared our day with each other.  The Captain's lunch "Voice from the Bridge" has been pretty matter of fact with no Covid information being disclosed. He did make announcements when we entered the scenic cruising areas. We were also warned about potentially rough seas when we pass tonight between the mainland and Stewart Island.

After lunch, Angela and I made our way to the Crow's Nest where we initially started out with sharing a cushion, then Angela secured a chair facing a window, and finally I secured two forward facing front row seats.  That took about an hour to work our upgrade using the Crow's Nest shuffle as we nicknamed it.  As we approached Dusky Sound (named by Captain Cook as he moored here at dusk), I went down to deck 9 and gave up my front row seat.  

Sailing through the first stretch of Dusky Sound was calm and peaceful.  It was an area of much more rolling hills that the steep and jagged walls in Milford Sound.  There were also many fewer waterfalls.  As soon as we reached the end of that passage way, the ship turned left and the powerful winds chased most people off of deck 9 forward except for a few brave and hardy souls like me.  I had thought that the ship would have turned right, but apparently the Captain used turning left as a better chance to rotate the ship and head the direction I thought it should go.  I was able to photograph some seals on the way. These seals are quite large at around 400 pounds.  Soon the wind got to be too much for me and I retreated inside to the spa area on the port side and watched from there for a while with a fellow passenger from Seattle.  He has very sharp vision and we spotted a number of large fish as well as a sea otter, and a number of pieces of floating kelp.  I finished up watching the rest of the exit from the Crow's Nest where I reclaimed my seat.

Our LIDO dinner was quite light and we joined Erik & Marilyn.  We talked a bit about doing an upper Amazon River cruise on Uniworld.  Over the past few days we've observed that the LIDO staffing is quite light.  In fact, we have, as well as other passengers, bussed our own dishes and retrieved silverware.  For breakfast, I waited twenty minutes for a server to bring water.  Several servers passed right by me as if I must have been invisible.  This definitely wasn't the case on the re-positioning segment of the cruise.

Jim Short was the comedian entertainer on the Main Stage.  His show was a repeat of the second show that we heard on the first segment.  He's still very funny although a number of people walked out during his performance which made for some additional joke material. We started to watch the "Guess My Identity" game show in BBKing, but when we learned with was using guests as contestants, we opted out and went to the LIDO after deck to watch the sunset at just before 9pm.   No, we didn't see the green flash and it was a bit cold out there.  

So we came back to the stateroom where I could work on my blog and we wrapped up another good day. Tomorrow we are in Dunedin (Port Chalmers) and we have to take a shuttle bus from the port to the town of Dunedin.  It's rather expensive at $35NZ or $21US round trip.  We may try to take a city bus if the schedule permits it.  We'll see.  Given that it's rather chilly, we may search for a thrift store for some warmer clothes.