Ketchikan, AK

When J and I went on an Alaska cruise a month ago, we looked forward to seeing the wilderness, the wildlife, and the history. We saw some of that, but not much, unfortunately. I love cruising because it is an effortless way to travel. You don't have to worry about getting yourself from place to place, or finding hotels or transportation or places to eat. You don't have to figure out what the "must see" sites are because the cruise line has done all that research for you. The downside of cruising is that you get a very limited amount of time in each port of call, and most of the shopping is either jewelry or "touristy crap." The other thing I hate about cruising is that I forget to take my camera everywhere I go. Or I take it, but forget to take pictures. I thought we had a ton of awesome pics, but it turns out there are not nearly as many as I had hoped.

Regardless, we had a blast. Our cruise was scheduled to make 4.5 ports of call: Ketchikan, Skagway, Juneau, Tracy Arm Fjord, and Victoria, BC. (I say 4.5 because Tracy Arm is not a place you get off the ship - it is an amazing, scenic area.) It'll take a few entries, but I'll blog about all of our experiences in the different ports.

We boarded the ship in Seattle on Sunday at about 1:30 p.m. We had spent the weekend at my dad's house (Friday night we went to see Wicked, and Saturday night we went to Teatro Zinzanni for my step-mom's birthday), and Sunday Dad fed us breakfast then he and Mel took me, J, and my sisters and all our luggage to the cruise docks. It was beautiful - Dad lives about 15 minutes from where we had to go. We didn't have to get up early, or worry about traffic or anything. Stress free!

The ship pulled out of Seattle around 4 p.m., and we were on our way. After a full day and a half of travel, we made it to our first port of call, Ketchikan, AK. J and I did a lot of cool stuff there! The Bering Sea Fisherman's Tour was probably our favorite. Then we walked around town for awhile. We saw the famous "Creek Street" (which as far as I can tell is a wooden sidewalk over a creek, and a bunch of buildings on stilts over the same creek), the Totem Pole history museum (not worth the 3 mile round trip walk, much of it uphill, or the $10 for the both of us to go in, but it did get us out of the rain for awhile), and a Lumberjack Show my dad told us to check out. (Dad and Mel took the exact same cruise - same ship and everything! - about a month before.)

Here are some pictures from Ketchikan.



As we were getting off the cruise ship (the Star Princess in case you were wondering!), they took our pictures then practically shoved us off.



This first picture was bright and early at 7:30 a.m. on the Aleutian Ballad. J was excited for our tour, but not thrilled about the time we had to be there!



Have you ever seen the show The Deadliest Catch? About crab fishing in Alaska? This boat used to be on that show. It was during the second season, and it was the boat that took a rogue wave that nearly capsized it. Well, that was the second rogue wave it had taken in less than ten years.



Here's a video of that rogue wave. It was caught on camera for The Discovery Channel. It's a rare video - not many rogue waves have been caught on camera.



After the second rogue wave, they moved it to another area of Alaska to fish for awhile, and the new captain ran it into the side of a cliff, nearly sinking it. After that, they retired it from crab fishing. They fixed it up, added seating and heaters, and then started giving tours to cruise line passengers. Sounds like an unlucky boat to be on, right? Well, I figure if it's survived two rogue waves and a cliff, this boat is pretty lucky! We had a FANTASTIC time on this tour. It was 3.5 hours, but felt like just minutes. We got to see all sorts of crab pots and a variety of crab species.









We even got to see an eagle up close and personal (they threw bait out on the water to get it to come close), and this 25 pound octopus.



In this next picture, you can see the octopus had reached out and grabbed on to "Kiwi's" face. Yuck!! (He's called Kiwi because he's from New Zealand. He was actually on the show for a season, but it was on a different boat.)



When we left Seattle, it was a gorgeous day. I was wearing jeans and a t-shirt. Probably didn't need the jeans - shorts would have been better! But when we got to Alaska, it rained the entire time we were there. Mostly it was just a drizzle, but it was a constant rain. With all the rain and the humidity, my hair was a perpetual mess of frizz and curls. Even on board the ship. I didn't bother trying to tame it as I had better things to do.



These next pictures were taken while we walked on Creek Street. There was obviously a creek right there, and we were amazed at all of the salmon in the creek. Ketchikan is known as the "salmon capital of the world" and it's true! There were so many fish, it appeared you could have walked across the creek on top of the water. It's hard to see in the pictures, but trust me: it was a solid mass of salmon. They were packed in (are you ready for this?) like sardines! There were two sea otters having lunch in the creek. J and I stayed to watch for awhile, then continued on our way. While the sea otters were cute, I'm from Washington, and J's lived here for a long time...sea otters are something we can see at home, so it wasn't terribly thrilling for us. The two women we passed, on the other hand, were ecstatic. I appreciated their enthusiasm, and didn't have the heart to correct them when I overheard one tell the other "Let's go look at the seals again! Those seals are so cute!"





J and I thought we might like to check out the totem pole museum. So we headed off looking for it. It was mildly entertaining, but like I said earlier, not really worth the money or the effort to get there. Perhaps I'm a little jaded, but I grew up in a state where there are coastal Native American tribes...the totem poles and all the heritage stuff at the museum is very similar to what I see at home. I did particularly enjoy the first totem pole we ran across, though. J was a good sport and posed for me, even though he didn't really want to. Well, he wasn't opposed to it until I said, "NO! Don't stand next to it! Stand right under it like you're part of it. Won't that be funny? You know, because you're so tall!"

But he did it anyway. Good man. His willingness to pose is probably the reason I agreed to walk up that darn hill for that museum.



After we went to the museum, we were headed back down the hill and we heard the cheering from the lumberjack arena. We still had two hours before we had to be back on the ship, so we decided to just go for it. It was so campy! But lots of fun. J is one of those closet geeks who has been known to watch lumberjack competitions on ESPN (or whatever channel they show up on), so he even knew who some of the lumberjacks were! That's right, ladies and gentlemen, my husband is a wealth of random knowledge. Sometimes he surprises the heck out of me with the random crap he knows.

Anyway, it was a "competition" between two different lumberjack camps, and they split the audience in half to cheer for "their" teams. We were cheering for Dawson's Creek Camp. Or was it Mill Creek Camp? I don't remember, and I don't suppose it really matters. It was neat to see them do the different events. I think my two favorite were the log rolling and the pole climbing. I think I could use a chain saw and cut a tree. I know I can use an axe to cut a tree. I also know there is no way I could do the log rolling or climb a tree that has no branches (it would be iffy even if it did have branches!) so I was particularly impressed with those two events. The team saw cutting was cool too, though. They cut through that big tree in a matter of seconds!



I think Ketchikan was a great place to visit, and I would like to go back again sometime when we have more than a few hours. I especially want to eat at this restaurant. Their sign intrigues me.



This was just the first stop...more to come!