That's the brainstorm of Neil Bauman, self-proclaimed "captain" of GeekCruises. Neil's goal was to put high-ranking speakers/authors/developers such as Larry Wall, Randal Schwartz, Mark-Jason Dominus, Tom Christiansen, Lincoln Stein and others into a friendly environment with conference attendees. Neil... mission accomplished!

PerlWhirl departed from the beautiful city of Vancouver, Canada. James (my then-fiancee, now husband) and I stayed at the gorgeous Waterfront Hotel, which has a view of the docks.

GeekCruises sponsored a cocktail party the evening before embarkation. Many conferences attendees were there and everyone was introducing themselves to the people they were sharing the next week with.

Afterwards, Active State sponsored a party at their new offices. Complete with leis and loud music, the festive mood was complete.

How, with all of the wine, liquor and beer served that night, they expected us to embark the ship the next morning, I don't understand :)

Embarking the ship was akin to a cattle herding. After customs and boarding, we went to our suite and was amazed to see a wedding gift awaiting us. Leave it to Neil to make sure that there were no pre-wedding jitters!

Once we were settled into our rooms, we went up to the Lido deck (the pool deck) to seek out our newly made friends. Quickly we ran into Randal Schwartz, Bill Harp (Randal's Director of Special Events), Glenn & Morrie Killian and others. Bill set the tone for the the non-seminar events by jumping into the pool, fully clothed and yelling "I'm in!".

Attendees ranged from system admins, very advanced programmers to the PerlWhirl being their first introduction to Perl. This range offered not only diversity in company, but offered the attendees the ability to converse and offer their own experience and talents to the mix. I learned a lot from other attendees as well as the speakers. With this much time to mingle, sit back and talk during sunsets, the mood was ideal for this transfer of ideas.

Next day... the conferences begin...

And of course, I got sick. I tried focusing on Tom Christiansen's "Multitasking: Managing Processes and Threads" seminar, but the cough medicine worked too well for anything to sink in.

Regardless, later that night, Randal, Bill and Glenn and Morrie arranged for bachelor and bachelorette parties for us. It was great fun. Thank you!

Juneau was it... the wedding day. What better way to thwart pre-wedding nervousness than attending Mark-Jason Dominus' "Regular Expression Mastery" seminar? Mark is a very effective speaker... he was clear, concise, and I walked away with a firmer understanding of how regular expressions work.

After the seminar, I was off to get married.

James, Steve Silberman (our witness and "photographer") and I headed to get our marriage license and then to the airport. After a purely breathtaking helicopter flight, we landed in awe of our surroundings. We were married on Herbert Glacier, one of the most beautiful and serene places on earth...

Next day, Skagway. A beautiful city nestled in mountains. Everyone, attendees and cruise staff alike, seemingly flocked to the internet cafes in Skagway for some serious email checking.

That afternoon, I attended Randal's "Practical Web Programming" seminar, where he presented some very cool tips and tricks. I particularly like Randal's teaching style -- he effectively presents his material with humor, which lends itself to more active participation and attentiveness.

Partway through the seminar, we heard "Look, WHALES!". The shipped seemed to tip to port as everyone flew to the windows to see the breaching whales. A very happy orca enchanted us by full breaching 6 times in a row. Bet that was the first time Randal's class was interrupted for a breaching whale.

Next day, Glacier Bay. After taking a group picture of all speakers and attendees, we waited in anticipation to see the glacier calve (that is, for a chunk of the glacier to break away and fall into the water, creating icebergs).

Ketchikan was our next port. We'd taken one of the many shore excursions available -- this one to an Indian village, where we saw the makings of totem poles. It was a quiet and peaceful excursion.

A very fun treat before dinner... Larry Wall guest hosted Jon Orwant's Internet Quiz Show. If ever you get a chance to participate in the Quiz Show, do it! Don't be afraid of looking ignorant... the variety and diverse topics of questions (especially the bonus questions) make me kick myself for not registering. The grand prize was 50% any future GeekCruise for the entire quiz team... excellent!

Later that night, some of the cruisers participated in a lip-synch gala show on board. Notably, Randal Schwartz once again showed his comedian side by donning a towel, goggles, the mandatory scrub brush and lip synching a funny aquatic tune (was it "Splish Splash"?). Bill became "the King", and "sung" an Elvis tune.

After that, the final Geek Cruiser party. Everyone was in attendance in their formalwear, and we just enjoyed each other's company on this last night.

All in all, the PerlWhirl was a fantastic experience. Lingering on the pool deck with newly found friends, discussing everything from Perl to previous travels; one on one talks with the Perl wizards; and a wedding/honeymoon to remember, this trip has made many fond memories.

It was sad to depart, not knowing when anyone was going to meet up again, but who knew how soon it would really be?

I would encourage anyone with an interest in Perl to join us at PerlWhirl 2002 in Hawaii... Yep... we're going!

PerlWhirl::Hawaii::Scuba, anyone?

Update - 9/15/2000: PerlWhirl 2000 (and our wedding picture) made Wired magazine's October issue. There's an online version without pictures, but if you want to see the whole thing, you'll need to pick up the print edition of Wired for October 2000.

Update - 1/12/2001: Unfortunately, there wasn't enough time at sea for PerlWhirl 2002 to be held in Hawaii, so it is being planned for the Eastern Caribbean.