North Pacific Passage to Japan

Once we left Kodiak we had 8 days at sea, sailing through the Gulf of Alaska, past and through the Aleutian Islands into the Bering Sea toward the Kamchatka Peninsula of Russia. We headed southward along the Kuril Islands to Hokkaido. We had been losing an hour every day since leaving Kodiak, and the we lost a whole day crossing the International Dateline.

Tom signed up for a tour of the engine room, which turned out to be a tour of the engine control room, not anywhere near the engines themselves. The control room is where everything on the ship is controlled, except steering, and in an emergency they can even do that. 

Viking ocean ships use four diesel engines to generate electricity to run motors that provide propulsion. Two engines are used in parallel normally with two more smaller ones available if more power is needed. They burn diesel or bunker fuel, depending on the situation. In general, away from land they usually burn bunker fuel; near land and in port they burn diesel. 

As we neared land we started to see birds again.