Ketchikan Totem

It’s not so hard, being without Internet. The ship publishes a news digest from the NY Times. But I definitely felt out of touch. I have a ton of Emails (mostly trash).

Our first day of cruising was at sea, just trying to get from Seattle to Alaska. Wednesday we had a good long stop in Ketchikan. Ketchikan is the rain capital of Alaska. They have about 15 feet of rain a year. You would never guess it from the weather we experienced. It was warm and sunny, a perfectly pleasant day. The highlights were the totem center and the (very touristy) lumberjack “competition”. It was a lot of fun, and the young men were highly skilled athletes. We were expecting to get internet n Ketchikan, but the library moved several miles out of town. It wasn’t worth the time it would take to ride a public bus out, just to check Email.

On Stage

Back on board that evening, we saw a delightful magic show. Danita was chosen as one of the assistants.

Us

Thursday we went up one of the straits to see our first iceberg. We were scheduled to go up Tracy Arm, but the weather forecast called for strong winds, so the captain chose a wider strait. Of course, we both forgot the name. But we won’t forget the view. We went to the ship’s bow to witness the approach to the iceberg. Then the captain turned the ship sideways, and we went to our room’s balcony for a very good view. It’s difficult to judge distance and size because everything is so large. As we were approaching, we saw another ship near the ice that looked like a dot on the water. While we were “close”, we saw the ice calf. I noticed the sound was 3 to 5 seconds after we saw the splash, so we were somewhere between half a mile and a mile away from the ice. The show was over before 1 PM. It was rainy and foggy for the afternoon. We were very lucky to have such great weather for Ketchikan and the iceberg.

Waterfall At the Mendenhall Glacier

Friday we stopped at Juno. Of course, we had to visit the Mendenhall Glacier and hike some of the trails. The weather was more typical for this part of the world — rainy and a little cool. We were well prepared with good boots and rain gear. There was a little flooding along the trail. It was only a few inches of water, but it made a lot of people in tennis shoes think twice about the importance of walking the trail.

Today (Saturday) we stop at Icy Strait. It was supposed to be rainy, but the weather is cool and cloudy. As they say in Alaska, “It’s only a forecast”. This is an abandoned cannery turned into a tourist stop. I doubt whether anybody lives here all year. We have to use a tender to get ashore. But this place has the first convenient internet we have had yet. (Juno had internet at the library, but I didn’t want to take my busted computer out in the rain. ‘More about the busted computer later.) It sure is beautiful country.

Mendenhall Glacier