Petropavlosk - Russia (25th of August)

Damn that was a long time at sea.. 7 days.. and boy does it feel good to get back onto land.

OK - Petropavlosk is a big Russia port near the Bearing Sea (which is very cold btw.. the temperature was really cold during our passage) - it's a very nice port.

Now.. the scenery was excellent, there are three big volcanos overlooking the town, all with snow on the top! They've got some nice nature in this area and our guide told us that in winter they have lots of winter sports and such, we saw some of the ski runs, geeze they're steep!

Unfortunately not everyone who wanted to got to go ashore - the Russian authorities were just a tad slow in their passport processing. NONE of the crew got their passports processed in time to go ashore - and several hundred passengers didn't get to get off the ship!! They had the passports from 5am - and didn't get them processed until 4:30pm!!!! really crappy! And then they had to process them going out - we didn't leave until 10pm! (we were supposed to sail at 5pmish). All in all it was ridiculous, the whole port was so unorganised.. they had guys on jet skis going in and out between fishing boats, and weaving between the tenders trying to move people back and forth from the shore - the Captian sounded REALLY stressed yesterday - even our Cabin Steward said that he'd never seen anything like it in his 20 years in the cruise industry.

Now.. the town.. what a crappy place - I don't think anyone's heard of maintainence.. buildings are decaying, rusting, flaking paint.. it looks like a slum.. there are a few nice buildings, but the VAST majority are aging and haven't been painted since they were built. Dave commented that every building we went into would be condemed in Australia.

Anyway - it was nice to step off the ship, even if it wasn't that nice a place to visit - I shudder to think if that's what the rest of Russia looks like!

Ok - we're back at sea now, heading to Osaka, Japan! We're significantly behind schedule and the Captain is pushing quite hard to catch up (22+ knots).

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