August 25^th, 2026

Nome

When we woke up this morning it was clear that we were nowhere near Nome, and it was very unlikely that our tour would meet at 9:30.

Sure enough Captain Simon announced that due to a delay of the arrival of the fueling ship because of the bad weather we didn’t finish refueling until 5:30 this morning so our arrival in Nome is delayed until noon.

However, there was no chance of us getting bored this morning, already 2 talks had been scheduled to keep us busy.

When we finally arrived in Nome the Zodiacs were lowered, and we went down to the landing platform to take our final Zodiac ride into town.

It was a very smooth ride and the sun was shining.

And yay! There was a pier there, so we had a dry landing, no wading through water.

In the harbor there was an interesting assortment of boats.

This boat apparently is used to suck up the ocean floor in search of gold.

Once upon a time Nome was the largest city in Alaska, and the Alaksa Gold Rush is a large part of the history here. Currently Nome is probably best known for being the site of the finish of the Iditarod dog sled races from Anchorage in March each year.

Judging from the number of fishing boats in the harbor, there is still a lot of fishing going on, mostly salmon.

Our tour bus was waiting for us – it was an old school bus, and it was definitely designed for small children. We all had difficulty squeezing into the seats. The driver was the regular school bus driver and she said she was not at all used to driving adults around.

Hopefully she would not have to use any of these supplies with us on board.

Our first stop was at the museum.

The museum was extremely well done. The history of Nome goes back hundreds of years since the first settlers made a home here, and the many artifacts from the different stages of development of the region were on display. We spent a long time there.

I particularly loved the old ice cream scoop. The size of scoops today is certainly much larger.

I also liked the roulette wheel, a nod to the town’s past life.

Our next stop on the tour was the museum at the Bering Land Bridge National Preserve headquarters. The preserve is one of the most remote protected areas of the United States, and is located on the Seward Peninsula. The preserve protects a remnant of the Bering Land Bridge that connected Asia with North America more than 13,000 years ago during the Pleistocene ice age. Most of the land bridge now lies beneath the waters of the Chukchi and Bering Seas, but its historical importance remains significant. Again, this museum is very well done, and very informative.

Due to our late arrival the tour ended there.

Our bus driver had recommended that we visit the gift shop owned by her cousin, Maruskia’s. Once inside the shop it was hard to navigate around as it seemed like the everyone else had been directed to visit. I had hoped to buy a T shirt, but there wasn’t anything that I really liked. They all said, “there is no place like Nome”, “Nome is where the heart is” or “Nome sweet Nome”, cute, but not my style.

I ended up buying a little polar bear,

but there were a lot of really beautiful items on sale there.

We walked around town a bit.

There wasn’t much else to see in town, so we took the school bus back to the harbor. Folks on the bus were very excited because they had seen muskoxen walking around town. This is apparently very common. I am sorry we missed them. Next time.

Our Zodiac ride to the harbor had been very pleasant and calm, but by now the wind had picked up and we had a very rough and wet ride back to the ship. I thought our boat driver was doing a very good job minimizing the bumping and the amount of spray, but the captain called her on the radio and told her to speed up. She tried this, but it was difficult to hang on and not get thrown around, so she slowed down again.

The weather was deteriorating, and I expect the captain wanted everyone back on board as quickly as possible.

Thank goodness for the drying cupboard in our cabin. We could shed all of our wet clothes and hang them up to dry.

We had enjoyed Nome. But it was good to be back on board. So to celebrate we ordered caviar. I went down to the bar on deck 4 to pick up drinks for us and on my way back to the cabin I bumped into the doctor and a member of the US Coastguard team who was on board inspecting the ship. They both gave me a strange look as if it wasn’t normal behavior to be walking around clutching 2 drinks in the middle of the afternoon. Oh well, that’s life.

Now I enjoy dance parties, but I wasn’t too sure about the one planned for tonight. It was described as Captain Simon’s Parka Party to be held by the pool on deck 5 aft, with Olivia as the DJ.

So after dinner we went back to the cabin, grabbed our now dry parkas and headed over to the party.

Although it was cold, we all had a fabulous time with lots of dancing to great music. Olivia had put together a wonderful dance party play list with very danceable songs and so for the next hour there we all were – guests, officers, room attendants – dancing nonstop and having a wonderful time. Despite the frigid weather it was the best dance party ever. Even captain Simon joined in the fun. Peppi, the hotel manager, seemed to have a great time dancing.

The party was meant to end at 10:00 but as we were all having a great time, the music, drinks, and dancing went on until nearly 11:00.

The night was yet young as far as we were concerned so we dumped our parkas in our cabins, and continued the party in the Constellation Lounge, with music provided by Charlie.

The sun could be seen as a speck on the horizon on the starboard side of the ship

And the moon was rising on the port side.

It had been a great day. I was sad that this was our last port of call. No more Zodiac rides. But we still have 3 sea days ahead of us. I mean to make the most of them. I wish we didn’t have to disembark in Anchorage.