Oh, the Games People Play: “What Do You See?”
Well, we are back from our Alaska “cruisetour” (which I found out means, a trip composed of part ‘cruise by boat’ and part land ‘tour by train or coach bus’). We had a great time all the way around. Everyone else we saw there on vacation (or on holiday if you’re from Europe or Australia) was having fun also.
Speaking of fun, I observed vacationing people on our cruisetour playing all sorts of games including four people sitting around a table playing cards (which sort of baffled me with all the great stuff to see and do outside), basketball on the deck of the cruise ship while we were sailing through College Fjord which has the highest concentration of tidewater glaciers in the world (again, baffling) and people playing slot machines in the cruise ship casino all times during the day and night, at least when I was up.
Part of the appeal of cruising on a big ship is there is lots to do and you are free to do what you want – it’s your money and time after all. However, there are way cheaper ways to play slot machines, like if you’re from the Atlanta area driving to Cherokee, North Carolina which according to the radio commercials I hear driving to work at the University of Georgia is only a 3 hour drive away!
So, here is one of the most popular games on a cruise ship, tour train or bus – it’s called “What Do You See?” and here’s how it’s played. Say there are a bunch of people milling around the big, open sun deck (where you can easily move from one side of the ship to the other), and all of the sudden there is a commotion on one side of the ship or the other and you see people scanning the shore or water with binoculars and snapping photos.
So you hurry over (with most everyone else on the deck) to see what everyone is looking at and don’t see anything, so you say “What do you see?” This is where the fun starts as it is up to the person you asked this question to quickly come up with a creative answer. A couple of my favorite answers were, “See that black dot on the shore, it’s a bear!” – “See that white dot on the mountain side, it’s a Dall sheep!” The typical response to these black dot and white dot sightings was “What black dot?” or “What white dot?”
The person doing the sighting would then say, “The one that just moved – see right over there.” Well this back and forth exchange would go on for a while until you indeed were able to zoom in on the dot and see a fuzzy outline of a black bear or Dall sheep – then again, you and everyone else might zoom in a realize the black dot was just an old tree stump and the white dot just a patch of snow.
What makes this game so much fun is the fact that you and your fellow tourists are not expert wildlife guides so you can also make up what you see and see how that flies with the person who asked you, “What Do You See?” For example, I am still trying to decide if one of my fellow “cruisers” (this is what cruise ship passengers call each other, especially the seasoned ones) was messing with me or really saw what he thought he saw.
I was again on the big, sun deck and saw a couple of people pointing their cameras down to the water next to the ship and snapping photos. The type of behavior is the cue for the game to start so I walked over and looked down in the water and didn’t see anything (of course!). So, I asked one of the sighters the opening question, “What Do You See?” He responded, “It’s an Orca killer whale right by the ship!” Now, I’m not expert of Orcas, but I have sighted a few myself (really!) and they have never been next to a big ship. Then, the guy said, “It was under water and I think it was a baby Orca”. This was one of the most creative answers to the “What Do You See?” question and I was duly impressed.
I wasn’t sure if he was completely making it up until I looked a bit in the distance and saw a couple of Dall’s porpoises skimming the surface of the water. Everyone who has gone to Sea World or watched “Free Whilly” knows what an Orca looks like. Dall’s porpoises do indeed look like little Orcas (Google it). I had seen Dall’s porpoises on a previous whale-watching tour we took in Juneau when they swam along the side of the tour boat (they like to play in the wash and waves the boat creates). So, I give the guy bonus points for a creative answer to what he saw – but kind of feel sorry if a baby Orca is really what he thought he saw and his mistake is eventually pointed out to him when he excitedly shares his little Orca photos with the folks back home!
Now, I would like to give you readers an opportunity to play the game. Look at the photos I took on our Alaska trip below and answer the question, “What Do You See?” The answers to what you are supposed to see in the photos (at least what everyone was trying to see) are given below the photos.
Ok, I don’t know what you see in the above photos, but here are the answers. From top to bottom – this first photo is of a mama moose and three baby moose (if the plural for ox is oxen, is the plural for moose, moosen?). We saw these moose (or moosen) right at the entrance of Denali National Park. Our tour bus guide said it is extremely rare to see mama moose with triplets. We saw all four of them, but in the photo you can only see the butts of the mama and one her calves. The next photo is a typical “black dot” sighting in Glacier Bay National Park – this one actually turned out to be a black bear and not a stump! I would be really surprised if you got the next one (third from the top) – it’s the nose of a sea lion sticking out of the water.
What animal do you see in the next photo (fourth from the top)? It is a black-tailed Sitka deer we saw on a wildlife-watching boat tour out of Ketchikan (these deer really blend in with the landscape!). The next photo shows what looks like a shark fin sticking out of the water – it’s actually an Orca fin! The next photo (sixth from the top) has what looks like a black hump of something sticking out of the water – is it a rock? No, it’s a humpback whale (this hump and their tails when they dove was all we saw)!
The next photo (seventh from the top) s hows two “white dots” which after I zoomed in with my camera lens actually turned out to be Dall sheep and not patches of snow (which they looked like before I zoomed in). The next photo, of course, shows Jodi – but what do you see behind her? Well, it’s supposed to be Denali Mountain (formerly Mt. McKinley) – the highest point in North America at over 20,000 feet.
Sighting Denali is as elusive as trying to catch glimpses of wildlife in Alaska – there are a lot of animals in the sea and on land in Alaska, but not everywhere you look! (much to the disappointment of tourists, especially from other countries, who were very hopeful and excited to see North American wildlife). Because of its immense height, most of Denali is usually shrouded in clouds and only “comes out” periodically – about 30% of the time they say (the hotels will give you a wake up call if it comes out at “night” which this time of year in Alaska never is very dark).
We actually did see most of the mountain before this photo was taken, so we consider ourselves fortunate! We also saw a grizzly bear which is also somewhat rare – I wasn’t able to get a photo since most the animals you see are gone before you have a chance to put up your camera (this is another not so fun game!)
Well I hope you had some fun playing along with the “What Do You See?” game. If you look at the “Alaska Trip Photos” section of this blog, you will find better photos of the wildlife we saw along with Denali, “The Great One” (in the local Native American language).
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