Pining for the fjords and wailing for whales-Onset of an Orcan Adventure

Dry spell. The only stamps in my passport originated from one all too brief jaunt to Bonaire in November of 2016. It was a bittersweet experience punctuated by the death of yet another musical icon and the election of a new breed of American president.

The island's growing popularity was made manifest by the number of boats cruising the coasts and the cars coasting the cruisers. Underwater, my peace-place remains unchanged. I escaped there to my favourite sites as I have done since 2002 but soon returned home to the grind of métro-boulot-dodo.

Working hard and never quite feeling like everything was getting done right weighed on me heavily. I didn't take time off because I felt like it would me set me back. My superiors at work had new projects for me and evaluated that it would take another pair of hands to get it all done in a reasonable time-frame. What a relief! Sure, it took some time to find the right candidate and train them but having a supporting team-member was like a pony-bottle of air to a scuba-diver. I finally had that sense of security that there was a fail-safe if I took some extended time off. With gratitude, it was time to plot my next salt-water infusion.

Sri Lanka. Blue Whales. January 2018. Exotic. Far away in time and space but a life-long dream to see and swim with them. I did my research, was tentatively booked and was just waiting for details to pay a deposit. When the tour provider came back with the sad news that the trip was cancelled due to the local authorities withholding permits to swim with the Belles Grandes Bleues, it was a great disappointment.

The last sentence of the email read:

We have also been working on tours to swim with the Orca in Norway. We are not quite ready to launch this yet but wondering if you would be interested?

Toothy cetaceans. Big toothy cetaceans. I needed to do some research. One of the first pieces of information that I gleaned was that although these apex predators are killers of fish, whales, penguins and pinnipeds, they pose virtually no threat to humans in the wild.

Then I started researching about the region in Norway where the proposed trip might take place. Topographically, some places near my home in Quebec are very much like Norway. We also have deep fjords carved by glaciers. Our estuaries and river systems mix salt water with fresh and are nurseries for countless kinds of fish which is also what makes it such a rich feeding ground for many whale species including Blue Whales.

D'oh!

This dingle-berry hadn't even considered visiting the Blues in her own damn backyard.

Fortuitously, I was offered the use of a car for three weeks in June so I considered doing a road-trip to Tadoussac and Baie-Sainte-Catherine, two towns flanking the place where the Saguenay and the Saint-Lawrence rivers meet. This region is a mecca for whale-watchers except for dumb Montrealers who routinely travel to places like Alaska and Japan and Tonga for their fix.

And now NORWAY. I put my deposit in and began the slow travel fore-play of planning that to me is just as much fun as the climactic orgasm of a departure lounge.

Impulse Buying a Cruise

It's January 2014. After a really crappy period of personal turmoil and depression, I finally felt human again. I had quit my job to take on something a little less demanding and wanted to use the time in between to rebuild confidence in myself. My weapon of choice?

Solo Travel.

I spent hours scanning the web for a deal over a period of a week. Window shopping for travel is almost as much fun for me but to actually book something while between jobs, the deal would have to be a door-crasher.

How about a cruise? said the marketing email in my inbox.

Good suggestion. Itineraries to warm climes with lots of opportunity to snorkel were most tempting. I also wanted to try a smaller ship with a more exclusive feel and not centred on partying or families.

The dreaded single-supplement turned out not to be an issue. According to +Vacations To Go, many cruise lines are offering reduced supplements or none at all for those who wish to have their own stateroom. However, you often need to call for quotes, cruise lines don't advertise these solo prices in a banner on the home page.

I made enquiries but didn't find that magical value/price sweet-spot so I declined the offers from the kind travel agents and let them know that I was still searching.

The phone rings…Lori from +Cruises.com  who twenty minutes earlier had proposed a Caribbean cruise fare that would have involved a second mortgage and the sale of my left kidney on the black-market.

"Have you ever thought about Asia? I have something."

Um, yeah…I have thought about Asia since grade 4 International Day at school when I first tasted seaweed crackers and said to myself: these are wayyyy better the matzoh crackers that I brought!

That little minor in East-Asian religion and three levels of Japanese language from Uni might be a clue too, but I had never had the opportunity to go to Asia.

+Azamara Club Cruises on the Journey, February 17-March 3, 2014 sailing out of Hong Kong ending in Shanghai. Overnights in Tokyo and Osaka plus two stops in Okinawa prefecture at Ishigaki Island and Naha. Xiamen, China & Keelung City, Taiwan were just gravy along with a few days at sea. 

Quick look at +KAYAK …multi-city airfare from Montreal on Star-Alliance ran at $1100.

Visa requirement for China…yes…no problem, it takes four days, I had almost a month.

Water temps in Okinawa in February = 20°C

Price of the an outside cabin for the 14 night cruise worked out to less than $250/day, drinks and tips included.

I booked it immediately without consulting anyone. No spouse. No friend. No parent or sibling. Just me, the travel agent and my Visa card.

The price was unbeatable…it would have been impossible to travel to and stay in those cities, have three squares a day plus booze and entertainment for less.

Was this the road to sanity or the descent into madness?