Birdwatching Broke Me

That there is a volcano.

I wrote in an earlier post that one of the perks of being a crew member is the opportunity to escort tours and essentially do them for free. I've signed up for my preferred tours in every port for these first two cruises and not gotten a single one. While I understand that I have to pay my dues, I finally had to say no to tour sign-ups, at least for the duration of this cruise. Why? It wasn't the city tour of Victoria that I was given against my will. Nor the city tour of Vancouver that I also didn't request.

It was birdwatching.





The last tour I would ever sign up for (beyond Remembering Alaska's Abandoned Nursing Homes) is a birdwatching tour. And yet, lo and behold I was given one. I tried to maintain a positive attitude. Maybe we'll see bald eagles (even though I've already seen plenty before and there's no thrill in it anymore). Maybe it'll be an adventure hike (it did say participants need to be fit enough to walk for 2 hours on nature trails). Maybe, I hoped, it would be unexpectedly fun.

It wasn't.

The tour was set in Sitka on the Fourth of July. A "big" parade was planned for later that day, the highlight of which was the hotness of the Coast Guard members who led the parade (or so I was told later by females who had decided to stick around for it). The tour was the only thing I had going that day so I needed it to pay off.

I led my group of 13 to the shuttle where we were given our light snack which consisted of a promotional candy bar from the local dive shop. Then it was off to the Tongass National Forest. Now, I will fully admit that the Tongass National Forest is a beautiful place and it alone is the only reason I'm bothering to make a report about this tour. I figure some of you will enjoy the few photos I took. But as far as birdwatching went? The best photo we could have taken was of a woodpecker, and later, a squirrel. The rest of the time the guides would point at a black (or gray or white) speck in the trees and excitedly say something along the lines of, "That's a warbler!". The highlight of the tour for me ended up being the slugs. Huge ones the size of cigars.

Our tour guide, asking herself, "Why the hell am I holding up this slug on a bird-watching tour?"

It makes me wonder why someone would sign up for a tour like this. The guide asked, but no one confessed that they were a "lister", which is apparently a bird watcher who maintains a checklist of the birds they see. In our group there was a family of fighting sisters and their mother whom they seemed to forget was their mother whenever a steep hill came up, and a Japanese group who also appeared to be adult family members who took photos of everything, including photos of birds in the guide's birdbook. None of them were birders, or whatever they're called, and they all could have signed up for something else. Why this tour? Towards the end, even they were bored and taking photos of each other rather than listening to the guides.

I can't say I completely hated the entire thing. The views of the forest were nice. I guess it was something to do. But this tour has made me leery of volunteering for anything else, even though I badly want to do dog sledding and ocean kayaking, tours which are given to people who have paid their dues on bird watching and other less thrilling outings. I'm too paranoid about getting Trash Collecting in Juneau (not a real tour, but if it were I would probably be assigned to it). We recently had a crew casino night where the casino staff dealt to the ship staff in the crew bar. On my table was the guy who assigns the tour escorts and I totally cheated in order to give him an advantage. Unfortunately he was drunk at the time so who knows if he remembers me. It's probably a good thing I didn't offer him sexual favors for the same reason. We'll see what happens next cruise when I give it another shot at picking up a decent tour.

We didn't climb up this because that would have been too interesting.

We didn't kayak or fish this because that also would have been too interesting.

Tongass National Forest. Not bad, but don't go there for bird watching. Bigfoot is better quarry.