Voyage to Alaska—Day 4

I’m recounting, in a mostly true way, my recent cruise to Alaska, accompanied by my wife, Jean, and long-time friends Mike and Brenda. To fend off lawsuits, I’ve changed just about every proper noun. In our last episode, we’d boarded our cruise ship, cast off lines, and began motoring north from Vancouver, BC.

Our ship was the MS Hellandam, of the NetherStates Line. In that cruise line, the ships’ names ended in ‘dam,’ every dam one of them. Hellandam had ten decks, five devoted to passenger...