Overnight I slept like a baby rocked in our bed by the constant motion of the ship. My wife, on the other hand, didn't fare as well and was kept awake by the motion. When my alarm went off at 6:30 and I turned on the bow camera in our inside room it was obvious we weren't yet near our moorage as we were still sailing at 16 plus knots. I showered and dressed and headed up to the Lido for breakfast expecting to see land. But the low clouds and drizzle obscured it until finally it came into view and the lonely pilot boat first came out, we anchored, and a larger boat containing the immigration team arrived with their important passengers.
About this time Captain Arno came on the PA system for his first announcement that it was not looking promising to be able to tender with 6 foot swells and a 35 knot wind. From the Lido it really didn't look bad. Lance came on the PA system to tell all guests to not proceed to the locations on their HAL shore excursion tickets or the Ocean Bar for those going ashore independently. We were to wait for further instructions..
At 8:35 am Captain Arno announced he was cancelling the port call as the tenders were experiencing a 5 foot swell while at the tender platform. Later in his noon update Captain Arno said the winds were so strong we were dragging the anchor and even the thrusters running at full power couldn't keep us in position. So, after disembarking the immigration authorities, the test tender was retrieved, the anchor retrieved, we pivoted clockwise and slowly proceeded out of the harbor into the rougher open seas.
Lance came back on the PA system and announced a change in the programming and that a revised When & Where would be distributed. He'd re-present his Japanese ports talk at 10am and at 11am Terry Greenberg would share some personal travel history in a talk called Tairy Tales which we've seen before on the Volendam. Ron did a a special talk on Guano which turned out to be quite interesting.
During lunch my wife and I both saw a pair of flying squid that Ron had described in a previous talk. They fly using a jet boost of water and their flukes flutter as they fly about 10 feet before touching down and relaunching. The 2pm movie wasn't of interest, so I took a nap in the library before participating in the rescheduled 4pm interdenominational Bible study.
Tomono Kawamura performed her last piano concert of this cruise. At 10pm the Orange party was held up in the Crow's Nest and it was well attended. Much of our time was spent with a Japanese couple communicating with the aid of Google Translate. They have 9 cruises booked after this one primarily on MSC.
We also received a letter tonight from the Captain apologizing once again for the missed ports and extending a $100 per person shipboard credit plus another Future Cruise Credit usable within a year amounting to 15% of the value of the 14 day segment. While it was certainly not expected, it was a nice gesture.
Tomorrow we are in Otaru and have the lengthy arrival immigration inspection. We think we have an interesting day planned. Stay tuned.
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