La Salle Explorers

[Jungle Rat]

Dayton is almost the same distance once you're above 275. I flew out of there a bunch of times. Easier too.

[innocentbystander]

I'm not that much of an avid cruiser. My wife and I want to do an Alaskan cruise and then we'll be done with cruising. I did a couple of those cheap bahamas cruises years ago, they were fun to bring the extended family on, eat 12 meals a day of junk food and go snorkeling, but I don't care to do it again. I'm on my 3rd year of trying to take an Alaskan cruise now.

Each time its canceled and I reschedule, it ends up costing me about $1200 more.

We are getting a trip to Glacier National Park out of it this year. We already burned the airline tickets and while I guess I could get them exchanged or whatever, we're just going to go and hike Glacier for a week instead.

I have cruised Alaska in 2003, 2007, 2013 (there were 24 of us on this cruise), 2018, & 2019. Needless to say, I love it. If I could recommend a time to sail, it would be over June 21st (the Summer Solstice.) My wife and I were dancing on the top deck lounge late that night, about 10:30 PM, we could still see the sun. That was real fucking cool. You wake up like 5:30, 6AM, whatever, it will be bright and sunny. You are not likely to see much darkness all week.

Unfortunately eCat, I don't think you and the wife will be doing that this year. I have a hard time believing that they will open the port in Seattle or Vancouver Canada for this cruise in 2021. I hope you can, its outstanding. Maybe next year.

The Bahamas cruise that I am talking about is actually on a real ship, with real food, real entertainment, and real crew doing real work.



The Crystal Serenity is only 13 decks and it can only carry 1000 passengers, but still, not a ferry.

[eCat]

yea, the cruise was for late June and its been canceled. I have already rescheduled for next year.

However while the Canadian ports are closed for the year, they are pushing congress to grant a waiver to the passenger /Johnson act to allow boats to travel directly from Seattle to Alaska

Won't help me, but it might salvage people who wanted to cruise in July/August.

I have no interest in a cruise outside of Alaska. I have looked into river cruises and small cruise ships that go along the coast of New England. They are, IMO, vastly overpriced for what you get and I think I'd rather see it from a car anyways.

[innocentbystander]

yea, the cruise was for late June and its been canceled. I have already rescheduled for next year.

However while the Canadian ports are closed for the year, they are pushing congress to grant a waiver to the passenger /Johnson act to allow boats to travel directly from Seattle to Alaska

Won't help me, but it might salvage people who wanted to cruise in July/August.

I have no interest in a cruise outside of Alaska. I have looked into river cruises and small cruise ships that go along the coast of New England. They are, IMO, vastly overpriced for what you get and I think I'd rather see it from a car anyways.

Canada is having a horrible time trying to distribute the vaccine. There is less than 30,000,000 Canadians (and with their birthrate they are declining, dying, depopulating), but only 4,000,000 to 5,000,000 of them have been vaccinated. Our unpatrolled and unsecured border with Canada has been closed now for more than a year. And that was their desire to close it (to protect Canadian citizens from infected US citizens.) Seems logical. And unlike our Southern neighbor, we OBEY when our neighbor tells us NOT to cross their border.

The thing with Canada is we have to remember, that country is fucking huge. Gigantic. Like, second largest nation on the Earth. So a nationwide mandate to vaccinate all your people where they are spread out over such a giant land mass (even if they are not spread out equally) is going to be much more daunting than it would be here in the USA. There are just not going to be able to do it quickly.

So yeah, as your clearly said Alaska cruise means getting around that Johnson Act. That is unless Canada allows our ships to just "park" at Victoria Island and not let anyone on or off. They might go for that because, well, what difference would it make? Just put the RCMP on a boat with a machine gun next to the cruise ship and direct the captain not to put out the gangway.

I certainly hope you can cruise Alaska next year.

[aTm]

Canada may be "2nd largest" but it is roughly the same size as the USA, China, Australia, and Brazil. Canada is only 1.5% larger than the US.

[Jungle Rat]

Fun facts brought to you by Metamucil

[innocentbystander]

Canada may be "2nd largest" but it is roughly the same size as the USA, China, Australia, and Brazil. Canada is only 1.5% larger than the US.

Oh I get that but they have less than even one-tenth our population with 1.5% more land area. So their people are going to spread out over a much larger area, gigantic. So getting vaccines to indigenous people who live as Canadian citizens up in the fucking Arctic Circle, that is going to be a challenge that we don't have here in the United States.

[eCat]

If Alaska can get their population immunized then Canada really has no excuse.

unless its a situation where they can't get enough vaccine to distribute.

[Dr. Nostron]

Alaskan cruise is great - well worth it!!

[hedge]

"Oh I get that but they have less than even one-tenth our population with 1.5% more land area. So their people are going to spread out over a much larger area, gigantic."

This is absurd. A quick google search reveals that over 80% of Canada's population live in urban areas. Over 90% live within 150 miles of the US border. Nobody is living on the frozen tundra near the Arctic circle or anywhere close to that. So the people in Canada are not spread out over a "gigantic area." At all. And for that matter, who the fuck has got covid in the Arctic Circle?? There's like 25 people up there spread out over a few hundred thousand square mile , I doubt covid is a real big concern...

[innocentbystander]

"Oh I get that but they have less than even one-tenth our population with 1.5% more land area. So their people are going to spread out over a much larger area, gigantic."

This is absurd. A quick google search reveals that over 80% of Canada's population live in urban areas. Over 90% live within 150 miles of the US border. Nobody is living on the frozen tundra near the Arctic circle or anywhere close to that. So the people in Canada are not spread out over a "gigantic area." At all. And for that matter, who the fuck has got covid in the Arctic Circle?? There's like 25 people up there spread out over a few hundred thousand square mile , I doubt covid is a real big concern...

The people who live in the most "remote" areas of both the USA and Canada, are indigenous people. Here we call our "tribes" native Americans, and in Canada, they call them "First Nation's People." Sounds a lot better than "Indian" which makes no sense when you think about it.

In any event Hedge, the minority groups who (per capita) that were ravaged the WORST with the covid-19 death, right or wrong, it was our Native American population, all the tribes. Here in Arizona, the Pima tribe, the Navaho tribe, they were just decimated with covid-19 death on their reservations, and they live where they live largely alone, all spread out. So the covid-19 did get to them and it did hammer them. Still is.

I can't find the data on the death rate among the Canadian indigenous population but I'll bet it is at a higher rate than the population of Canadians on the US border. And there are hundreds of tribes up there and they live in entirely remote areas. You want to live in Labrador Canada? I sure don't. But I think there are some First Nation's tribes that do. It remains to be seen if they were harmed by covid-19.

[Saint]

I've signed up for 3 cruises, 2 of which have been canceled due to covid

You have coronavirus immunity via the shrimp omelet. I jokingly told my kid that some leftover steamed shrimp would go good in an omelet and he literally recoiled in horror. To this day, I fail to understand the thought processes, minus marijuana, that would cause someone to order a shrimp omelet.

[eCat]

lol

do you not like shrimp at all? I mean, it doesn't seem that strange to me - other than you know when the shrimp smell like a prostitutes vagina after a bachelor party.

[sardis]

Alaskan cruise is great - well worth it!!

If you want to see a whale breach, it would be cheaper to follow Nostron on his post-tax season beach week.

[Jungle Rat]

But then there's no sun.

[eCat]

I just saw that Canada is allowing cruises out of Halifax

I don't know the details, I assume its Canadian citizens only and stops in Canadian ports only.

[sardis]

My kids' grandmother promised she would take her grandkids on a cruise after all of them graduated from high school. Unfortunately for them it ended up being that Canada cruise you're talking about. Talk about disappointment

[eCat]

I stumbled around on a youtube video about all the dead bodies on Mt. Everest, something like 281 are up there. Then that lead me to another video about a guy named David Sharp, a solo climber who went up Everest in 2006, made some decisions that ultimately led to him falling gravely ill, holing up in a cave next to a dead body known as green shoes, and 30 people passed him, some seeing him , others did not.

A double amputee named Mark Inglis and 3 other New Zealand climbers stopped to check on him on the way up. He was alive, but mostly incoherent and nearly frozen. They faced a decision as to help him, derailing their potentially once in a lifetime ascent to the Summit, and ultimately they made the decision to leave him there, climb to the top and descend back down. On the way back down they stopped again, he was still alive but in much worse shape, and at that point, no one had enough oxygen to do anything for him.

There is more to the story, especially regarding the decisions David Sharp made from choosing his outfitter to climbing alone to the time he chose to ascend.

So the Everest Test is....

If you planned a once in a lifetime trip to climb Everest, spent upwards of $50K for the climb, trained for months and then encounter a dying man on the mountain 1 hour from the summit, do you make the decision to do whatever you can to save him and forego the climb or do you do what you can in the moment to comfort him and then proceed on knowing you are leaving him to his fate, living the rest of your life knowing you left a person to die?

My wife and I immediately had different answers

[10ac]

He made the decision and knew the risks.

[Jungle Rat]

Let's go climb it and you'll find out.