Inside Passage – Riveted

Flotilla to Alaska | Update from Sitka

Laura Domela — Thu, 22 Jun 2017 07:18:54 +0000

Well, the last thirty days have flown by. We could not have asked for a better group of competent, fun, interesting participants. We made some incredible new friends on this adventure, and we’re thankful to have had no mechanical issues at all. We arrived in Sitka on June 19th and have spent the past couple days sightseeing, doing chores, and eating out. This group still wants to keep hanging out together, after 30 days of togetherness. How great is that??

Tomorrow we’ll leave Sitka and all boats (minus Sam on Safe Harbour, who has a flight to catch out of Juneau in a few days) will continue on together back out Peril Strait to Appleton Cove. From there two boats will head south and two will continue on with us as we head north up toward Hoonah and Icy Strait, and then around to Juneau eventually.

If you haven’t been following but want to catch up on the flotilla’s daily posts, head over to Slowboat and see what we’ve been up to.

In the meantime, here are a few visual highlights since we last posted from Ketchikan:

Petersburg

LeConte Glacier

Le Conte Glacier seals

Le Conte Glacier

Kayaking at LeConte Glacier

Kayaking at LeConte Glacier (bottom of the photo)

The glacier ice cocktail bar, after a day at Le Conte Glacier

Heading up Chatham Strait

So many humpbacks in Frederick Sound

…including this one we had to stop for! Whoa!

Anchored in Cannery Cove, Pybus Bay – on Admiralty Island

Pybus Bay/Cannery Cove anchorage

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Pybus Bay/Cannery Cove anchorage

Mama brown bear on the hillside while cubs play in the snow near the waterfall (Pybus Bay)

Brown bear on shore, Red Bluff Bay, Baranof Island

Kevin fishing for trout, just above the falls at Warm Springs Bay, Baranof Island

Warm Springs Bay, Baranof Island

Rafted two deep at Warm Springs Bay, Baranof Island

Warm Springs Bay dock, from the drone

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Warm Springs Bay dock and falls

Takatz Bay anchorage

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Takatz Bay anchorage

Takatz Bay anchorage (we love this place!)

Takatz Bay, Baranof Island

Coming through Peril Strait

Deep Bay anchorage

The Safe Harbour/Airship raft, Deep Bay

Sunset at Deep Bay

The flotilla coming through Sergius Narrows on our way to Sitka

Eliason Harbor, Sitka

Thompson Harbor, Sitka

Walking home from dinner, Sitka

Sitka sun (for another minute)

Wires, with a raven on top

Here’s how far we’ve come:
Roche Harbor, WA to Sitka Alaska, flotilla total: 30 days, 1,061.6 nautical miles, 145 hours 37 minutes underway

Flotilla to Alaska | Update from Prince Rupert

Laura Domela — Tue, 06 Jun 2017 14:07:13 +0000

Day 16 of the Slowboat Flotilla to Alaska and we’re about halfway to Sitka. We’ve had some fantastic adventures since I last checked in, and we’ve documented all of them over on Slowboat, but if you aren’t following the flotilla over there, here are some highlights:

Otters at Cape Caution

Orcas outside Fury Cove, in Fitz Hugh Sound

Akeeva (Nordhavn 50) with orca

The flotilla (plus a few extras) anchored in Fury Cove

The dam at Ocean Falls BC

We had a great visit to Ocean Falls that included catching about 10 big Dungeness crabs between us (some of which ended up as crab enchiladas for the whole group the next night), as well as exploring the spooky insides of some abandoned buildings.

North Beach by drone, Pruth Bay, BC

We visited Butedale, an old cannery in various states of ruin (with plans for restoration), and hiked and bushwacked a very muddy, overgrown trail up to the lake.

Butedale, BC

Butedale Lake

We’ve had about a solid week of rain and gale warnings, but this morning in Prince Rupert we awoke to this:

Our plan is to head out in a bit for a Dixon Entrance crossing, but we’re waiting to see if a few weather reporting stations report a trend of lessening winds…we’ll stop over in Foggy Bay tonight if we go, and then on into Ketchikan the next day. So far, conditions might be favoring another night in Prince Rupert, so we’ll just wait and see. Always nicer not to get tossed around out there if you don’t have to, and we’re in no rush.

Taiyasanka Harbor, St. James Bay, Swanson Harbor

Laura Domela — Fri, 22 Jul 2016 01:25:12 +0000

Our steam train returned to Skagway on Monday around noon, and we headed for Haines (again) because Haines is great! But at the last minute we decided to stop and anchor in Taiyasanka Harbor. We still want to go back to Haines, but thought we should try a new place. Taiyasanka Harbor was pretty and we had a nice view of Ferebee Glacier from our anchorage in one direction….

…and several gorgeous mountain ranges in the other directions. (The water in here is so silty you couldn’t see more than two inches past the surface.)

In the morning we continued south in Lynn Canal, thinking we’d stop for the night in William Henry Bay, but the conditions were so good we decided to go all the way to Swanson Harbor, where Lynn Canal meets Icy Strait and Northern Chatham Strait.

However, as Lynn Canal tends to do, conditions worsened and were not as forecast. When we finally got out of it, waves were about 4ft and pretty close together and sloppy. The fisherman were complaining all over the radio. (“I’m not buying fish in this crap. If you wanna go into William Henry I’ll meet you in there, but not out here.”) We ducked out in St. James Bay which wasn’t all that protected, and had about a zillion crab pots, but we managed to weave our way in past most of them and found an open enough place to anchor for the night. I made crab risotto with the crab we caught last night in Taiyasanka, and we put the traps out again.

In the morning, Kevin collected pots and we had one big keeper Dungeness (I made crab cakes with it and we’ll have them for lunch or dinner). We left St. James Bay around 7am and headed for Swanson Harbor. It was still a bit windy (10-12kts) and it was more choppy out than the wind should have it. Not sure why, but overall it wasn’t too bad a cruise down to Swanson.

St. James Bay to Swanson Harbor:

We opted to anchor in Swanson, rather than stay at the state float. We worked for several hours after we arrived, and eventually put out the crab pots again. Dinner, more work, etc. etc. kind of boring. Swanson was fine…nothing remarkable about it in my opinion, but fine.

This morning we pulled the pots (two Dungies) and then headed for Hoonah. It was calm and foggy on Icy Strait.

And now, we’re in Hoonah!

Swanson Harbor to Hoonah:

We put a load of laundry in, then walked up to Hoonah Trading and got a few groceries. We had lunch at Chipper Fish (we split a Sriracha Burger and some salmon tacos and both things were really good!)

After more laundry and washing off the boat, we’re cooking the two Dungies we caught this morning and we’re not sure what we’ll do with it yet….eat it for dinner, or eat the crab cakes (which we haven’t cooked yet) and save today’s crab for tomorrow. #alaskaproblems

Some Hoonah dockside still lifes:

White Pass and Yukon Route Railroad

Laura Domela — Mon, 18 Jul 2016 22:32:48 +0000

We left Airship in the marina this morning and headed for the train station.

I called yesterday to make a reservation for the 8:15am ride up to the White Pass summit, but the ticket seller talked me into the steam train excursion that went a bit further out to Fraser Meadows, BC, and…well, steam train!! (This particular steam train excursion leaves at 8am on just 7 Mondays over the summer…and today was one of those Mondays.) We’re so glad we stayed and did this. The chances of getting to Skagway again with weather this perfect, well, I don’t know what they are but it seems like it could be kinda rare.

Here comes our train!

We rode in Car No. 216, one of the earliest cars built. The White Pass and Yukon Route railroad was constructed between September and December 1898. [See the “History” page on their website for more details.]

The original Klondike Trail of 1898:

They don’t allow anyone to hike this trail anymore because this area is all a protected park now, but there are spots where you can still see the narrow remains.

The old trestle bridge that we did not take:

White Pass Summit:

The United States/Canada border:

Up in subalpine land:

Remains of an old snow drift fence:

The views are just spectacular.

You can see all the way back to Skagway in this shot:

A map of the railroad route:

I really wanted (and expected to find) this t-shirt in the gift shop, but apparently they don’t make a shirt like this, which is really a shame, don’t you think?

The logo looks so great on the black train car…how could they NOT have designed a shirt to match?

Pybus Bay to Tracy Arm Cove

Laura Domela — Mon, 20 Jun 2016 02:19:20 +0000

Hey whatdy’a know? Our crab traps had crab in ‘em this morning. Cannery Cove does not disappoint. Three keeper males, and two females. One of the males was HUGE. He was so big that I thought the smallest male might not be big enough, but when we measured him, he was off the scale and definitely big enough. My calibration was totally thrown off by this guy:

Kevin cleaned the crabs while I made breakfast and then we headed out into Stephens Passage. Stephens Passage is notoriously thick with humpbacks so we figured today would be about humpbacks.

We saw two humpbacks while still in Pybus Bay, and then as we came around the corner out into Stephens Passage, we noticed a brown bear sow and two cubs on the shore, so we went in to get a closer look.

As we were passing Gambier Bay and approaching Point Hugh, the area was just THICK with whales.

Spouts everywhere, tails everywhere, and then we noticed some serious splashing a ways away, toward the point. We binoc’d it and it was a whole lot of tail slapping. Like, maybe 20 times in a row…and then all over again! Crazy!

Pretty soon we were distracted by about 10 Dall’s porpoises who came zipping over to surf our bow wake. They are SO. MUCH. FUN! They were with us for about 15 minutes, doing somersaults and corkscrew rolls…it was a blast to watch (all the while with tail slapping humpback in the background). Those porpoises peeled off, only to be replaced 10 minutes later by another group. And then repeat, several times over. It seemed like we had porpoises playing in our bow wake ALL DAY. Seriously. It was nuts.

Kevin took some video and made this very cool (and totally mesmerizing) compilation:

As we approached Tracy Arm/Endicott Arm, we decided to stop and fish for halibut for a little bit. We anchored near the opening to Endicott Arm and Kevin put two halibut lines in the water. I was uploading photos when he said (about 15 minutes after putting the lines out) “I think something’s biting on my line. Come feel.” So I went out and yeah, you could definitely feel the fish chomping on the bait and pulling on the line. We knew better than to do anything, so we just waited until the fish started to swim away with his snack all eaten, and then started reeling him in. Whoa…it was a big one. It felt like an “uh oh, how are we going to get this in the boat” big one. I was right. I took a few quick photos just as Kevin got him to the surface, and then grabbed the gaff. But when I whacked him with the gaff it just bounced off his head (oops) and then after about 30 more seconds, he got loose. We could tell that the hook was just barely in his lip, and he was able to shake it off. Well dangit. But it was super cool to see…and to get him all the way to the boat. We’re estimating it was about 48” long….and maybe 70 pounds. Hard to tell on the weight, but I’m certain of the length. It was big, and the first halibut we’ve almost caught. I think we need a longer gaff, and a harpoon. (You can’t even tell how big it is from this photo, but trust me, it was, well…too big for the boat.)

We are now anchored in Tracy Arm Cove with several other boats. Apparently Tracy Arm hasn’t been navigable to the glacier all season, not even by the small tour boats. From the looks of all the icebergs way out here at the entrance, I can see how that might be. From what we hear the glacier is having record calving, and the icebergs in Stephens Passage are moving north, when they normally move south. So…things are wacky with the glacier this year. View from our anchorage:

Melting ice:

Sumdum Glacier:

Our plan tomorrow is to maybe fish for more halibut, and then go into Ford’s Terror for a day or two, and then to the end of Endicott Arm to check out Dawes Glacier (which we haven’t seen before). For dinner tonight, we cooked up some fresh Dungeness crab and ate it as-is, with a side salad I made from shredded brussels sprouts, crushed almonds, olive oil, and a little bit of my homemade caesar dressing. It was so good!

Here’s today’s track from Cannery Cove at Pybus Bay to Tracy Arm Cove (44.9 nautical miles, 6 hours 10 minutes):

And here’s a photo of many icebergs in the distance, quite a bit north from the entrance to Tracy Arm:

Portage Bay and Pybus Bay

Laura Domela — Sun, 19 Jun 2016 18:04:24 +0000

We got away from Petersburg Saturday morning on the lazy side (10am or so), stopping at the fuel dock on our way out to fill up. We thought maybe we’d go all the way to Pybus Bay, or maybe we’d fish and stop in Portage Bay … we ended up doing the latter and fishing our way along the shore from Petersburg to Portage Bay and caught a big Chinook, so it totally paid off!

First keeper king salmon at 32 inches! (Our scale rusted out, so we don’t know how much it weighed, but we DO know that we got 10 beautiful filets out of it.)

We anchored Saturday night just inside Portage Bay. Portage Bay is a scenic, open anchorage…well-protected and room for many boats. We took the smallest salmon filets and grilled them for some salmon tacos, and I made a brussels sprouts/cucumber/scallion slaw. Yummy! Portage Bay last night:

Our route from Petersburg to Portage Bay (23 nautical miles, 6 hours 52 minutes (includes fishing time):

This morning (Sunday) we popped up early and decided to take advantage of the calm water in Frederick Sound.

Portage Bay this morning:

We fished a bit more but didn’t catch anything, so we eventually pulled our lines in and headed for Cannery Cove at Pybus Bay.

Like I said, it was calm calm calm in Frederick Sound today.

The weather was perfect, and exactly what you want for Cannery Cove scenery.

We anchored in 60 feet or so, put a couple halibut lines out, then went to set out our two crab traps.

We’re pretty certain of the crab sitch, less certain of the halibut sitch. We grilled some of our freshly caught chinook for dinner (with caesar salad and rosemary garlic potatoes) and after dinner I noticed one of the halibut lines doing a little dance, but I think we tried to pull it in before the guy had enough time to really get a good taste of that salmon belly. Lesson for today (we’re learning): let them enjoy their meal before trying to reel ‘em in!

More around Pybus Bay:

The moon Sunday night in Cannery Cove:

Today’s route from Portage Bay to Pybus Bay: 38.0 nautical miles, 7 hours 53 minutes (includes fishing time):

Helm Bay to Meyers Chuck

Laura Domela — Mon, 13 Jun 2016 05:22:58 +0000

It rained for a while this morning in Helm Bay, but when it stopped it was so still and quiet.

After a little while, the sky cleared a little bit, the sun popped through, and it was just spectacular.

Kevin fished off the dock a little bit with the new collapsible fishing rod with spinning reel that his mom bought him at Tongass Trading in Ketchikan while I made breakfast and coffee. We all oooh’d and ahhhh’d at how beautiful it was here and then left the dock heading for Meyers Chuck. We weren’t very far when I thought “Wait a second! We should get some drone photos!” so we turned around and did a quick flight for some aerial photos. Don’t know why we didn’t think of that before we untied, but whatever. We got some really nice shots!

Just before we turned into Clarence Strait we came upon some humpbacks hanging around near the shore.

A mother and calf:

Humpback fin slapping near Bittersweet Rock:

A few more random fins:

While we were watching whales, we noticed a couple Pacific white-sided dolphins splashing up ahead, so we sped up and went over to play with them. Or, went toward them hoping they’d come play with us, and they did! They always do…I LOVE these guys.

They surfed our bow for about 20 minutes. Kevin’s mom was out on the bow with me watching them too…such a great show!! I hope they know how much we love them.

We continued on to Meyers Chuck and arrived around 2:30pm. We walked up to the gallery and looked at (and bought) some of the cool stuff in there, and then hiked the rest of the way out to the beach. Gorgeous!

Up these stairs is a little house! What a spot, huh?

After we got back to Airship, Kevin took the drone up and we got some aerial photos of Meyers Chuck. Weather doesn’t suck, does it?

The conditions forecast for today in Clarence Strait were NW wind 15 knots, seas 3 feet, but we had none of that. Wind was maybe 5 knots and waves were none.

Tomorrow, it’s on to Wrangell!

Today’s route: 31.4 nautical miles, 4 hours 21 minutes:

Another Day in Ketchikan

Laura Domela — Wed, 25 May 2016 21:52:58 +0000

Airship Goes to Alaska 2016

Last night's sunset from Airship:

We originally thought we'd leave town today and head around to Misty Fjords and Behm Canal, but we got focused working for quite a few hours this morning here on the boat and decided we'd wait and leave tomorrow morning instead. Around noon we took a break for lunch and a little exploring, and headed across the street to a very well-liked local spot called Burger Queen. It's tiny, and doesn't look like much from the outside, but whoa! What a great burger! (The fries were perfect as well.) All the tables inside were filled by noon, so we sat outside. This'll give you a feel for the unglamourousness that is the Burger Queen outdoor seating (two picnic tables on the side of the road):

No one cares. The burgers are amazing. We both got Sriracha bacon burgers and shared some fries and…well, just go there if you're in Ketchikan and you want a burger. You'll be glad you did.

Next we thought we'd hop on the bus and go down to the Saxman Totem Park to look at some totems. I went to Saxman last year while I was hanging in Ketchikan and Kevin went to San Jose for business, and I thought he should see it. Plus, it'd be a nice outing…the weather was mild…gray but not raining. We missed the bus by about 5 minutes, and the next one wasn't due for another hour, so we decided to walk (about 2.5 miles further down the road). This was fine, since we'd just had burgers and fries for lunch.

By the time we arrived, the guy at the booth where you pay your $5 entry fee said they were just closing up (there was no one in sight) and that we could wander around for free. Sweet! I only took a couple photos, because pretty soon two tour busses full of people showed up.

The clan house:

Aw, I didn't mean to cut off the halibut's head:

We caught the bus back downtown (I'm breaking in my new tennies at a frantic pace!) and are now back at Airship doing…you guessed it…a bit more work. We'll cook up some salmon for dinner tonight and head out in the morning.

Oh yeah, this was a funny scene yesterday morning. This is the Ruby Princess (the giant cruise ship the Orange County couple was from)…that yellow/orange vehicle backed up to the entrance is the Duck Tour.

If you were following our trip last year, you might remember we were docked RIGHT next to the boat ramp where these babies launched, playing (loudly) the theme from Hawaii Five-O and then Gilligan's Island…over, and over, and over again. Anyway, they pull RIGHT UP TO THE CRUISE SHIP DOOR. How perfect.

Today in Ketchikan

Laura Domela — Tue, 24 May 2016 21:37:11 +0000

Airship Goes to Alaska 2016

This is a story about a bus ride.

Here’s us today: coffee, work, work, work, breakfast, more work, go to the grocery store, back to the boat, more work, watch cruise ships leave, more work. Later we’re going to have dinner over at the Bar Harbor Restaurant.

We rode the city bus down to the Safeway near the Bar Harbor marina, but we decided to grab the bus going the other direction. The city bus has a free shuttle that does a loop from the end of downtown to the plaza where the Safeway is, so we got the whole loop in by catching it going the opposite direction.

Our bus driver was a native…totally cool Tsimshian guy with great jewelry and a super dry sense of humor. We chatted with him about his family, where he lived, the woodwork/artwork he does, the silversmithing tools he gave to his grandson and how he’s going to pay for art school for him as a graduation present, and some other random stuff. We told him we’d stopped in Hartley Bay (the Tsimshian village in BC where we stayed on Day 14), and he said many of his relatives live there.

He asked us about our boat, and we talked about some places up here we have and haven’t been. Then, this cruiseshipper couple got on and asked the bus driver if he’d take them to the Ruby Princess at Berth 4 (just next to the City Floats, the stop where we got on). He said yep, he’d have them there by 4pm. (It was around noon.) They laughed and sat down in front of us, in the seats that face the center of the bus. They remarked how much larger this bus was than the one they took from the ship into town…that one was just a tiny little bus…and then they noticed they were going away from the ship. I said “This is a city bus, but it’s free, and it’s a loop, so you’ll get back to the ship” and not to worry. “This is a city bus?? Oh, okay? But it’s free? Well that’s nice!” Kevin asked them where they were from and they said Orange County, which is funny, because it was as if they expected people would know the name of their county. Not their city. Not their state, but their county. Now, I grew up in Orange County, so I did know their county, but I imagined someone (in Alaska) asking me where I was from. And what if I replied “Multnomah County” as if they should know where the hell that was?? Anyway, I digress.

They followed “Orange County” then with “Huntington Beach. California.” as if they’d been given the blank stare after the county name before. I said “Nice. I went to Huntington Beach High School. Grew up in Seal Beach.” Small talk ensued…”nice place to grow up…” “so close to the ocean…”

Then, they asked the bus driver, “Where are you from? You look to be of some Indian descent.” He said “I’m a Native.” They said “A native what? An Indian?” He said “No, I’m not from India. Columbus was lost and confused.” He patiently told them the name of his tribe, Tsimshian, and that he was also part Tlingit, and it was like they had no idea there were even any indigenous people here. It was crazy. They chatted amongst themselves a little more and he continued his conversation with us about different places to see, traditional canoes, etc.

Next, I asked the couple in front of me “So, what all have you guys seen since you’ve been in Ketchikan?” (even though I was pretty certain I knew how this would go). The wife answered with a chuckle, “Not much! Mostly the jewelry stores.” (OMG seriously??? Why on earth do people come to Alaska on a cruise to shop for stupid gemstones that no one has ever heard of, and that have nothing whatsoever to do with Alaska? It baffles me.) I’m totally cool though and ask her “So, is it a better deal to shop for jewelry here than where you live?” (Kevin was so proud of me.) She said yes, that whatever stone she bought earrings of was maybe a hundred dollars less than where she could get it at home, and they got a really good deal because they were from the cruise ship. I said I heard that all of those stores were actually owned by the cruise ship companies though…and she said, “Well, some of them, like Diamonds International and the Tanzanite places.” But apparently she thought she was shopping in a Native-owned jewelry store. She said “We’ve been here before though!” as if to excuse the fact that she’d only seen cruiseship-owned jewelry stores during her visit. I asked if they’d been down to Totem Bight State Park, or the Saxman Native Village before. Nope…like they’d never heard of those places. (Oh, but her husband just LOVES Alaska. That’s why they keep taking cruises up here.) I told her those places were definitely worth visiting and that you could get there by bus.

The bus pulled into the stop at the Totem Heritage Center and stopped. I told the cruiseshipper couple that if they had time sometime when they were here and didn’t want to leave the downtown area, they should check out this museum. There are some great exhibits with tons of interesting information. The husband noticed the totem poles out front and asked the bus driver if there was time to get out and take a quick picture. The bus driver said, in a loud booming voice “Nooooooo” and then smirked. The lady asked how long they’d be stopped here and the bus driver said “This is my 3 hour break.”

The husband got out and took a few photos the totems out front, and the lady said to the bus driver “We’re quite a ways away from our cruise ship!” and the bus driver replied, in the same loud booming voice, “GOOD!!!” (I could feel him winking at us as he said it, even from behind his dark aviator shades.)

At the next stop, another cruiseshipper couple got on the boat and the women immediately compared jewelry shopping stories, the woman in front of us moving her hair to show off her whatever-ite earrings.

We got off at the Safeway and thanked our cool bus driver for the ride. I shook his hand and he asked how long we’d be in town. I said we’d be bopping around for another day, then gone, then back for a week or so and that I was sure we’d see him again.

As we were moving to the front of the bus, the lady looks at me and asks “This’ll take us to our ship, right?” I said, “Yep, next stop.”

Best bus ride ever.

Airship to Alaska | Day 16 | Prince Rupert to Ketchikan

Laura Domela — Mon, 23 May 2016 21:38:45 +0000

Airship Goes to Alaska 2016

Last night's Prince Rupert view from Airship:

We set our alarm for 4am this morning to check the 4am weather and forecasted conditions for Dixon Entrance to make the final call about whether to go or wait. At Dixon Entrance East, waves were 1-2 meters. Hard to know what that means without the period of seconds between waves. At Buoy 46145, which is smack in the middle of Dixon Entrance, north of Haida Gwai (so quite a bit further out to sea than we'd be), they were 6-7 feet high at 9-10 seconds apart. So as they got closer to land they'd likely be quite a bit smaller than that. The Green Island lightstation report said "Partly cloudy, visibility 4 miles, fog, wind calm, seas rippled." (Foggy usually means calm.)

Here's what the 24-hour surface forecast looked like:

The high pressure system and the really wide/far apart isobars…? That's good for us!

Side note: It's occasionally difficult to make the decision to "Go" at 4am from a soft cozy bed while it's mostly still dark. The decision, however, is made easier when you know the weather window might not be open for all THAT long. Here's the 48-hour surface forecast:

Here we are passing the Green Island lighthouse:

Fog….check! Light wind…check! Seas rippled…check!

We took turns napping, and then I made breakfast for us (bacon and eggs underway!). Once out in Dixon Entrance we had some swells (about 6 foot swells) but they were far apart and gentle and it was all no big deal, really. (Still, I'm glad I wasn't cooking breakfast at that point.)

And just like that, we're in Alaska again!

I think the worst/choppiest conditions we had were in Revillagigedo Channel on the way into Ketchikan, because we had wind over current (wind against us, current with us), but it was still fine.

Arriving in Ketchikan is always a bit of a shock when the cruise ships are all there along the shoreline. One enormous cruise ship (as opposed to a small cruise ship) was just leaving (we watched as it headed north out of the channel) so there were only three when we arrived:

Hey, Ketchikan…I know you're in there somewhere….

The city floats are just around this cruise ship's stern:

Oh hey big guy:

We called the US Customs office in Ketchikan while we were about 4 hours out (but hey! cell service!) to let them know our ETA and give them our information. Super friendly! They told us to give a call when we were about 10 minutes out, let them know where we were going, and they'd send a customs officer down to meet us.

I called when we were just outside the cruise ships and said we were going to Casey Moran/City Floats. She asked if we were there yet, and I said "Nope, I'm just coming around the last cruise ship though." She laughed, said to call when we were docked, and she'd send a guy down. We docked, I called, the guy came down. He hopped on board, checked our passports and customs decal, asked if we had anything on board that we shouldn't have, and then wished us a great trip and was on his way. Super low key and easy.

Last year with the flotilla we started out north of town at the Bar Harbor Marina (close to the grocery store and laundromat), and then moved over to the city floats at some point. I like it down here. It's closer to town, there's a lot going on, and yeah, it's in the shadows of the cruise ships during the day, but they're mostly gone by 6pm (and there are still hours of daylight left at that point!). Plus, the city bus that runs up and down the main road here goes right to the grocery store, which is still in the free zone. Score! We'll do that tomorrow after Kevin's conference call. We need some milk, eggs, fruit, veggies.

Airship and cruise ship, for scale:

For a late lunch/early dinner (like 3:30pm early dinner) we went over to Alava's Fish-n-Chowder to get some fish and chips (only instead of chips, we got asparagus and zucchini, done fish and chips style…so good…we had some last summer and wanted to c) and then walked around town a bit. We stopped back in at the Alaska Eagle Arts gallery (where I got my salmon necklace last year) and…well, I got another Marvin Oliver necklace. This one is a salmon egg, representing the salmon in egg form, as well as the circle of life…it's really nice and I love it. I'll get a photo and post it…but for now, this is one of the art cards, showing the red salmon, as well as the salmon in egg form (the embossed image…that's what my pendant looks like):

We wandered around town a bit more and then headed back to Airship to relax a bit. Today's route was 83.7 nautical miles, and took us 10 hours and 52 minutes:

I think next we'll head around into Behm Canal and check out Misty Fjords. A new place!!