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It’s been about a month since Cruise West announced that they were ceasing their operations. In the tail-end of our busy season on the M/V David B, we were surprised to hear that they had gone bankrupt, but we too consumed with our fall operations to really take in what it means to us when a company like Cruise West is no longer around.

For the last few days, I’ve been thinking a lot about next year and how our prospective passengers will hear about us. I know many of our passengers have gone on Cruise West tours in the past. That was their first exposure to small ship cruising and it primed their enthusiasm to find an even more intimate cruising experience – something like the cruises we offer on the David B. The loss of Cruise West also means that there is now an even bigger gap between mega cruise ship companies and owner/operator tour companies. Without the advertising dollars of Cruise West firing up the imagination of prospective passengers, it makes more work for us to educate prospective passengers that there are alternatives to seeing Alaska on an enormous cruise ship.

Many of our passengers began their search for an Alaskan Cruise by typing in “Small Ship Cruise Alaska” or “Small Cruise Alaska” and found Cruise West’s website sitting at the top of their search results. After looking at beautiful, professionally staged photos of smiling, happy people in expedition-style skiffs racing to the face of a tidewater glacier, close-ups of brown bears and breaching whales, our passengers asked themselves, “Hmmm, what else is there?” That’s when we would capture our passenger’s desire for a truly individualized cruising experience in Alaska. Maybe it will be easier for people looking for a quality small ship experience to find us more directly. I hope so, but I wonder without the bigger voice of Cruise West out there promoting small ship cruises, if we’ve lost something valuable. I hope not.

In the coming months we’ll be talking to more people who would have gone on a cruise with Cruise West, and I welcome everyone who had hoped to see Alaska with Cruise West on board the David B. We have admired the cruises that Cruise West offered and we look forward to sharing our style of small ship cruising in Alaska on an even smaller scale.

Capt. Jeffrey and I were given a wonderful gift this year from his sister Cynthia and her husband Craig. It was the Fresh Roast SR500, a home coffee roaster. We had no idea what a great gift it was until we roasted our first batch of green coffee beans.

“Wow!” was the first thing Jeffrey and I said to each other after our first pot of coffee. “We’ve got to have this on the boat,” was the next thing.

What was so surprising about fresh roasted coffee beans was the clean, bright and faint chocolate flavors that jumped out at us. What also surprised us was that the coffee didn’t leave the familiar harsh burn on our stomach linings like so much of today’s popular coffee shop brews.

What’s amazing about roasting coffee at home is that it only takes about 6 minutes and a little fore thought for a medium roast. I roast my coffee in the morning when I’ve used up the last beans from the previous roast. Once the coffee is roasted it’s freshest for the next 72 hours.

While it is true that roasting coffee makes a good amount of smoke, I simply set the roaster next to an open window that lets the smoke out. Cynthia and Craig roast their coffee on their balcony. The more I roast coffee the more I’ve come to love the toasty smell that lingers in the house for a couple of hours after roasting.

For the last three months Jeffrey and I have been roasting beans from around the world and since we decided that we absolutely have to share fresh roasted coffee with our passengers this summer, I just made an order for three different coffees that I”ll testing to see which will be the best to serve on the David B this summer.

The first beans that I bought are the Kenya Nyeri Gathaithi Peaberry. It should be fun to experiment with the amount of time I spend roasting this coffee. A lighter roast should bring out the flavor of red currant, while with a darker roast we should be able to detect more of wine flavors and lemon citrus. For more information on this coffee visit…

The next coffee that looked good to me was from Sulawesi. I picked this bean, the Toarco Flatbean for its aromatic floral and piney flavors which seem like to good match for the ambiance of of wood boat in the Pacific Northwest. For more information on coffee from Sulawesi…

The last bean that I’m experimenting with right now is from Costa Rica. I picked the Guillio Prancesca – Finca El Espino for a slightly darker roasted coffee that has fruit, chocolate, mint and almond flavors. It makes my mouth water just thinking about warm and gooey dark double-chocolate cookies paired up with a nice fresh roasted cup of coffee to bring out the chocolate flavors of the cookies and visa-versa.

So having just dipped my toes into the world of roasting coffee I’ve been trying my best to come up to speed on the terminology used for roasting coffee. I’ve been learning about first and second crack as well as wet-processing versus dry-processing. The best place I’ve found is Sweet Marias. The website is  little hard to navigate, but the information on the site is wonderful for beginner coffee roasters like myself. I also found a book by Kenneth Davids called Home Coffee Roasting. It’s well written and has great illustrations. You can buy copies of this book from our online bookstore or browse through our copy when you come cruising with us on the David B.

One advantage of buying green coffee beans and roasting them yourself, is that places like Sweet Marias list coffee farms where they buy directly from the farmer. To me this as an added bonus because I’m always happy to pay more to help out a farmer directly.

As I experiment more with coffee roasting, I’ll be sharing with you what I’ve discovered along the way. So get ready to drink a lot of great coffee on the David B this summer and experience the subtle flavors of fresh roasted coffee brewed while the beans are at their peak flavor. It will be hard to go back to coffee brewed any other way.

Going on an Alaskan cruise is expensive and it will cost you a fair amount money even if it’s the cheapest one you could possibly ever find. Besides airfare and hotel accommodations you will often be paying for port fees and taxes not listed on the ‘Too good to be true’ bargain-basement rate. Those hidden fees more often than not make your incredibly cheap cruise maybe not quiet as cheap as you thought.

I would like to suggest that maybe it’s time you stopped looking for the cheapest possible cruise that shoehorns you into a one-size fits all vacation package. Please spend a few moments and start thinking about what you really want in a cruise. You have worked long hard hours to earn a well spent cruise vacation and you should get what you want, and not just what big industrialized tourism tells you that you want.

As the owner/operator of Northwest Navigation Co., and the Motor Vessel David B, a six passenger cruise boat that carries people on cruises from the San Juan Islands in Washington state to Southeast Alaska, and the beautiful Canadian Inside Passage, I’ve spent years obsessing over the different types of cruise experiences that you have to choose from.

From my perspective, I truly believe that the owner/operator cruise is the best possible choice for Alaska. You get so much more local knowledge, flexible itineraries, meals prepared especially for you, and the ability to see and experience sights and wildlife that are not accessible to bigger operators. I do however understand (sort of) that the cruises we offer are not everyone’s dream vacation and with this in mind I hope you will spend some time factoring in your own unique personality with the style of Alaskan cruise you are dreaming of.

When I’m taking a reservation or talking with prospective passengers I am able to tell quickly if the person on the other end of the phone is a good fit for our style of cruising. When someone is interested in coming aboard the David B, we want to make sure we are the boat for them since they will be spending their hard earned vacation with Capt. Jeffrey and me. If the person on the other end of the phone  wants a quiet wilderness experience where they can get off the boat and wander a remote Alaskan beach with the hopes of catching a fleeting glimpse of a wolf or if  they want to drift silently among the humpback whales in Frederick Sound, then we are probably a good fit. If the person on the other end of the line is not really as interested in experiencing nature as they are in simply being able to say they’ve been to Alaska and seen a bear, a whale and a glacier, and if that person is looking bigger amenities such disco balls, casinos, and Broadway-style productions night after night, I recommend they try elsewhere.

To help you choose your best possible Alaskan cruise before settling on the cheapest cruise available, I’ve come up with a list of questions you’ll want consider for your Alaskan cruise. If you choose cruise that is right for you, you’ll be rewarded with a lifetime of happy memories. To help you narrow down your list I have divided the cruise industry into four sub-categories:

• Owner/Operator – Usually run by a Captain an 1-4 crew and generally range from 4-12 passengers.
• Small Ships – Usually run by a local corporation and carry up to 250 passengers.
• Medium Ships – Run by both local and national corporations and carry between 250 and 1000 passengers.
• Large and Extra Large Ships – Run by multi-national corporations are carry between 1000 and 6000 passengers.

When you are are trying to make a decision about what size of boat you would like to cruise on here are some things that can help you pick your best Alaskan cruise:

Imagine yourself on each size of boat and which ever one causes you to smile the most is the size you should go with. If you are still having trouble deciding think about the following.

• If you love boats and enjoy the chance to get some hands on experience or just want to have a boat to yourself, then an owner/operator cruise is a good place to start your search.

• If you don’t like crowds, but you want to be on a ship with a few bigger amenities then a small ship would be good for you.

• You are ok with crowds and you want the village like feeling of ship-board life with restaurants, bars and swimming pools, then I’d look at the medium sized ships.

• If you love big, big, big, and want to just blend in with the crowd and you enjoy climbing walls, on-board marathons, dance clubs, swimming pools, gyms, different restaurants, and public address systems, then the large and extra large cruise ships are for you.

Think about what kind of tour you would like to go on.

• Are you interested in first hand wilderness? Try owner/operator and small ships.

• Do you want to feel like you are on the water? I suggest owner/operator and some small ships

• Do you want the boat you are on to anchor overnight in quiet coves and bays? – Owner/operator and some small ships

• Would  you like to go for walks on the shore or in the forest? – Owner/operator and some small ships

• Do you enjoy being around just a few people? – Owner/operator and some small ships

• Do you feel more comfortable with a crowd? – Small ship or large ship

• Are you interested in spending time touring big ports? – Large ship

• Do you like shopping for gifts, t-shirts and jewelery at a number of different ports? Medium and large ships.

• Do you want to book off-board excursions such as helicopter tours and Zip-lines from your ship? Large, medium some small and a few owner/operator.

• Do you want a cruise that is custom? – Owner/operator

• Are you looking for the cheapest cruise? – Large ships

• Are you going on a cruise for the big amenities, such as movie theaters or swimming pools? – Large ship

I sincerely hope that as you plan for you perfect cruise you really do spend more time judging a cruise by more than just its ticket price and I hope this article helps guide you to the perfect cruise. Check out our website if you would like to see more about cruising Alaska on a owner/operator style cruise.

Starting tomorrow, February 18th through February 27th, you can support KPLU-FM and six other western states NPR stations with their online auction. We’ve donated a San Juan Islands Weekend Getaway trip for two. The retail value is for $1390.00 and bidding starts at $695.00 you could win a fabulous weekend on the David B for a steal and support great national and local news and jazz all at the same time! Here’s some more information and a link to our page on the auction’s website for a sneak preview.

http://www.marketwire.com/press-release/Western-States-Public-Radio-Online-Auction-Showcase-Exclusive-Travel-Fine-Dining-Entertainment-1112790.htm

http://www.biddingforgood.com/auction/item/Item.action?id=104638469

Happy Bidding!

Once again this year we are working with Chuck Byrd of the Austin Chapter of the Sierra Club to put together a San Juan Islands outing. This year’s trip will be August 24-27 and will include two days of causal easy to moderate bicycling on Lopez Island and San Juan Island.

On this trip you’ll enjoy beautiful scenery and easy riding on the pastoral islands of San Juan and Lopez. Highlights include a stop at the Lime Kiln Lighthouse/Whale Watch Park and a visit to the Lopez Island Vineyards. You’ll also be going on some great hikes with beautiful panorama views of the San Juan and Gulf Islands. Throughout the trip David B will be your home base while you ride with all your meals and accommodations included. For more information on this itinerary…

Please note this is a Sierra Club members only trip. Contact the trip leader, Chuck Byrd at 512-292-6985 or cbyrd4@austin.rr.com for information, reservations, or how to become a member of the Sierra Club.

If you live in the Austin area and would like more information on this trip, come see us at the Austin Sierra Club’s March 2nd Outings Meeting. We will be giving a presentation on our San Juan Islands cruises and answering questions. For times and directions, read more…