Ketchikan – Riveted

We Made it to Alaska!

Laura Domela — Fri, 09 Jun 2017 16:55:33 +0000

We didn’t leave Prince Rupert on Wednesday until about 2:30pm to cross Dixon Entrance because the weather wasn’t cooperating until then. (More info on our Dixon Entrance crossing here, if you’re interested in the details.) We made a very good choice in our timing, and we rewarded with relatively calm seas (just a few lumpy swells in a couple spots) and little wind.

We anchored in beautiful Foggy Bay for the night…a gorgeous spot, and it cuts up the 80 miles from Prince Rupert to Ketchikan into 50- and 30-mile legs instead of one very long day. (You must call Customs to get permission to stop when heading north from Prince Rupert, but from what I hear, they almost always give it.)

We left Foggy Bay late in the morning on Thursday and made the calm cruise up to Ketchikan, arriving around 2pm. We cleared U.S. Customs easily, fueled up, and headed for our slip at Bar Harbor North.

We walked into town and did some grocery shopping, picked up a few packages from Frontier Shipping (Slowboat T-shirts for everyone!!) and then stopped in at the Arctic Bar.

Paula’s famous “Arctic-Style” spicy Bloody Mary (aka, one of the only Bloody Marys I like)

We had a fun, celebratory dinner with the whole flotilla at the Bar Harbor Restaurant, and yesterday was a (rainy) lay day in Ketchikan for chores and work and exploring. Today, the adventure continues as we head up to Meyer’s Chuck, then Wrangell, Petersburg, LeConte Glacier, Pybus Bay, Red Bluff Bay, and so on.

Here’s how far we’ve come on the flotilla:
19 days, 686.9 nautical miles, 94 hours 17 minutes underway

Ketchikan | Waiting for Weather

Laura Domela — Tue, 06 Sep 2016 14:47:08 +0000

As (non)luck would have it, Dixon Entrance was completely calm during the two days we stayed to go to Kasaan for the Chief Son-I-Hat Whale House rededication, and now it looks like it’s supposed to be crappy the rest of the week. Tomorrow MAY be a window to go, but we’ll see. No need to push it.

In the meantime, we’re taking advantage of the good internet in Ketchikan to take care of a bunch of work things. We got some groceries, we met our boat neighbor, we shopped, I edited some photos, and we washed the boat (okay, more like rinsed the boat). So here’s a mish mash of all that.

Here’s a quick portrait I did of Haida Chief John McAllister in Kasaan:

Our boat neighbor, Jesse:

Jesse was great…super nice guy. He told Kevin all about his favorite fishing spots and showed him the tackle he liked best…he brought over some bourbon so we could do a shot together, and he enthusiastically let me take photos of him on the dock.

Let’s see, what else? Oh yeah…since last year I’ve been eyeing the work of Gene Chilton, a native Tlingit artist. I looked at a few bracelets last year but didn’t buy anything. This year, after meeting his nephew over in Kasaan, I decided to revisit the work, and saw a ring I’d seen before online…one that I really liked. The design is called Love Birds — an eagle and raven in gold, overlaid on a carved silver ring. We walked over to look at it in person and it was just as beautiful in person. So beautiful, in fact, that we both got them. Here’s a close up:

Native American Alaska Jewelry by Gene Chilton

" data-medium-file="https://i2.wp.com/www.riveted-blog.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/lovebirds_chilton.jpg?fit=300%2C225&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i2.wp.com/www.riveted-blog.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/lovebirds_chilton.jpg?fit=541%2C406&ssl=1" loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-21359 aligncenter" src="https://i2.wp.com/www.riveted-blog.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/lovebirds_chilton.jpg?resize=541%2C406" alt="Native American Alaska Jewelry by Gene Chilton" width="541" height="406" srcset="https://i2.wp.com/www.riveted-blog.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/lovebirds_chilton.jpg?w=541&ssl=1 541w, https://i2.wp.com/www.riveted-blog.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/lovebirds_chilton.jpg?resize=300%2C225&ssl=1 300w" sizes="(max-width: 541px) 100vw, 541px" data-recalc-dims="1" />

Meanwhile, it looks like this outside:

We’re going to grill outside anyway. I’ve got some chicken wings marinating (in a mixture of Frank’s Red Hot, honey, cayenne, paprika, Worcestershire, melted butter, and salt). I made some homemade blue cheese dressing to go with some celery sticks and wings (mayo, sour cream, blue cheese, apple cider vinegar, salt, pepper, Worcestershire) and some of Deke’s wing sauce for dipping (Frank’s, olive oil, sugar, cayenne, garlic powder, Worcestershire, and pepper).

6am Tuesday morning update: Conditions look good (and like they’re the best they’ll be for the rest of the week), so we’re heading out. We’ll make the call at Foggy Bay whether to go all the way across Dixon Entrance to Prince Rupert. Will keep you updated!

Windy in Ketchikan

Laura Domela — Wed, 24 Aug 2016 18:25:22 +0000

The wind picked up quite a bit last night and Airship was rockin’ and rollin’ so much that it even woke me up several times. (I’ve checked the lines and fenders multiple times…they’re still good.)

This morning it’s blowing about 15+kts and we’re in the least protected spot here at City Floats (it was the only spot left when we arrived), so we’re getting tossed around quite a bit by the 1-2 foot waves as they come straight into the harbor. The wind is an on-dock wind, too…so I hope it lets up by morning so we can get outta here nicely! (Video taken from the galley.)

The nice thing about this spot, however, is the sunsets. Can’t beat the unobstructed view (once the cruise ships leave). This was taken yesterday before the wind picked up:

Kevin gets back from his business trip today (with the granddaughter!)…we’ll have her (and her cute little Xtratufs) with us for 5 days. We’re hoping to go back to Walker Cove in Misty Fjords and do some crabbing and fishing and bear-watching (her requests). The weather looks great, but the wind will likely remain, so I hope she’s okay with a wet and bumpy ride!

Ketchikan, Cruise Ships, and Laundromats

Laura Domela — Mon, 22 Aug 2016 01:37:59 +0000

This was our view last night from Airship:

And this is the view this morning from the same spot. Quite a difference! It’s still fun to be right down in the middle of all the hubbub.

This morning we had nice surprise. Some fellow boaters we met on Thanksgiving in Friday Harbor last year, Connie and Chuck, are also in Ketchikan on their boat and found out we were here so they came by to say hello. So cool! We chatted a bit and they offered to give us a ride to the laundromat. (We’d pretty much talked ourselves out of schlepping our laundry all the way down there today…so this was very helpful. It’s so much nicer to have it done!) Nice view of Bar Harbor marina from the Highliner Laundromat:

While our laundry was going, we walked over to Tongass Marine to get some more dinghy patch supplies, and this afternoon we removed all the old glue and patch(es) and did a much better job. We hope. We were able to pull the dinghy up on the dock here and so it’s drying/curing in the sun and it’s not raining, so the temperature and reduced humidity should help with Patch 2.0.

This morning I tried a breakfast experiment. I mixed two ripe bananas, four eggs, and two teaspoons of vanilla and then used that batter just like pancake batter and made some little pancake thingies. They were thin and delicious, a little like banana crepes (served with a little bit of syrup). I think I might prefer them less sweet, but they were pretty great (and really easy)!

The cruise ships are gone now and the Arctic Bar is rockin’ up there on the boardwalk. I’ll do something with crab for dinner tonight and then I think Connie and Chuck are going to stop by for a glass of wine later.

Happy Sunday!

Meyers Chuck to Ketchikan

Laura Domela — Sun, 21 Aug 2016 03:30:05 +0000

We arrived in Meyers Chuck just after 5pm last night. We just docked and made dinner (OMG the BEST crab pasta recipe…I’ll share it below) and watched a movie. Well, 3/4 of a movie. It was 310 to Yuma, and we had it on our external hard drive, but it abruptly ended before it was technically over, so we’ll need to find it and watch the last quarter of it sometime. No big.

This morning was another minus tide at low tide (-2.6 I think). Meyers Chuck is the place where you can call Cassy and order up some freshly made cinnamon rolls for morning and she’ll bring ’em right to your boat. We didn’t do that, but at about 7:15am Cassy knocked on the pilothouse door (we were sleeping) and asked if we wanted a couple of cinnamon rolls. Even from a cozy sleep, it’s hard to say no to hot cinnamon rolls. Kevin went up and got them (thank you Cassy!) and we ended up getting up and doing the sugar and caffeine thing right then and there. A bit later, we hiked the trail out to the beach, which was much larger due to the very low tide.

I brought two really cool rocks back to the boat (Kevin keeps calling me “Lucy”)…but man I could outfit The Willows Inn with some killer little rectangular serving rocks from this beach. Picture the perfect amuse bouche bite served on top of this rock! (I’m gonna do it.)

The one above is about the size of a large cell phone (only much thicker and heavier) and this one below is smaller, but shows the cross section pretty well. They look a little gritty in these photos, but they’re pretty and smooth in person.

Back at the dock:

We didn’t leave Meyers Chuck until about 10:30am and had a nice chill cruise to Ketchikan, arriving just after 3pm. We’d planned to take our laundry to The Mat to take advantage of their “Wash and Fold” laundry service, but they closed today at 4pm and aren’t open tomorrow at all, so I guess we’ll do that on Monday. If we get it there by noon, it’ll be finished same day, for $1.75 per pound. Sounds like a deal to me!

We found a spot on the city floats/Casey Moran (the last spot, it seems) behind a big seiner called the Maren E (she’s pretty cool looking with that wooden bow). This spot is one of the least protected spots (and perilously close to that cruise ship dock behind us!), but it’s great to be right in town. We walked over to the Bar Harbor Restaurant for an early dinner tonight, and I took this shot of us on the dock. That seiner’s skiff is about the size of Airship!!

On our way past the Bar Harbor marina, we caught a glimpse of celebrity crabbing boat Time Bandit (notice the little kid fishing right there on the dock next to it):

Oh yeah, we saw this floating in the water on our way to Meyers Chuck yesterday…part of a concrete dock! Pretty nice piece, too!

Once we got to Ketchikan we’d planned to go get more supplies to re-do the patch job on the dinghy (our on-the-fly patch worked, kind of, but was substandard), but the marine store is closed tomorrow. So two of our major chores for today and tomorrow are now off the table. The weather is nice though, so maybe we’ll just go be tourists and look at totem poles. We have our 8 year old granddaughter joining us for 5 days starting Wednesday. We may take her into Misty Fjords, or across to Kasaan Bay, or back up to Meyers Chuck and Thoms Place…we’ll decide based on the weather. I think Misty Fjords is in the top spot right now. She wants to go crabbing, and fishing (though you can’t salmon fish in Behm Canal, but she could tool around with the little rod from the dinghy and probably be pretty happy), and she wants me to make seafood for her (ideally with what she catches).

Right, before I forget, last night’s crab pasta. I used this recipe, and substituted chives for the parsley because I didn’t have parsley and I did have chives. This is definitely one to make again. We both LOVED it. I bed it would be good with other seafoods (or chicken) subbed for the crab, too…yummy!

Working on Berth 3

Laura Domela — Sat, 11 Jun 2016 20:08:19 +0000

I took a few shots of the work being done on Berth 3 in Ketchikan after the cruise ship calamity last week.

Some of the cruise ships have to anchor out and ferry passengers in on lifeboat tenders:

Some arty crane shots:

Brace Yourselves!

Laura Domela — Sat, 04 Jun 2016 05:01:18 +0000

The weather in Ketchikan yesterday was pretty dramatic…but not for Ketchikan. It was raining sideways, and the wind was gusting to just over 40kts. Even “protected” between the mountains behind us and the cruise ship in front of us, we were getting gusts t0 40kts right here at city floats. We’d been working all morning here on Airship and decided we should go get some late lunch, so I thought I’d head down and hop in the shower. The cruise ship that had previously been at Berth 3 (the one right in front of us) had just left, and I noticed another one out in the channel that looked like it was coming in. Something seemed weird with it. I wondered which berth it was going for, because it didn’t look set up for this one…it seemed too far out toward the middle of the channel or something…I wasn’t sure. I just registered that something seemed weird. Maybe it was just the weather.

I showered, got dressed, and was toweling off my hair when I heard and felt a big crash. It was almost like something had hit the boat! I rushed up to the pilothouse and Kevin and I watched the Celebrity Infinity, going way too fast, scraping along the pilings and dock structure at Berth 3, leaving giant scratches and marks along its side. Kevin had seen the whole thing. He said he was thinking “Wow, that ship is coming in pretty fast. I didn’t think they could stop that quickly.” Turns out they can’t. This boat was running its thrusters like crazy…but to no avail (or maybe just to not enough avail.) The wind was not blowing it on-dock either; it was blowing from off the port side bow, more head-on/slightly off-dock…and the current was against it, so there’s no telling what actually caused the botched approach, but it was VERY dramatic. And we had a front row seat right from our bow.

As the cruise ship hit, the dolphin (the set of multiple pilings holding up a platform) buckled and came up several feet, breaking off the walkway between it and the next dolphin (you can see this happen in the video below). Luckily, the longshoremen and women could see that things were going to go wrong and were able to get off the platforms and the dock before the ship hit.

Two other boats were tied to the other side of the berth from the cruise ship side…the Aleutian Ballad tour boat and an Un-Cruise Adventures boat called the Safari Explorer. One of the crew members from the Safari Explorer captured this video of the whole thing:

And this was our view:

The dark blue bow just over our bow rail is the bow of the Safari Explorer. It was crazy!! Scary, because we were so close, but after we realized it wasn’t going to keep coming, super interesting to watch such a gigantic (albeit slow motion) accident at such close range. No one was hurt, but the boat suffered some damage (a big gouge through the hull down the front port side), and Berth 3 is now unusable, and will probably take up to two months and 2-3 million dollars to fix. Berth 3 is the biggest cruise ship berth and for a few of the of the ships that come to Ketchikan, it’s the only Berth where they’ll fit. It’s a big problem.

I hope we get to find out the cause of this catastrophe. Yes, the wind was gusty, but was not blowing the ship on dock…so to our untrained tourist view, it seems more likely that it was an approach gone bad. You can’t really “turn around and give it another shot” in a vessel that large, like you might do if you were having trouble in a smaller boat when dealing with current and wind or whatever. It seemed like the ship’s thrusters were working…but that the boat was going too fast to begin with, and maybe wasn’t set up for a successful docking. Also interesting that there are SO MANY VIDEOS out there of the entire thing…not just from the bad part. People all along the waterfront took video starting pretty early…saying “wow, he’s coming in hot” or “that approach doesn’t look normal” … things like that. Our friends up in Bar Harbor saw the ship in the channel as it was heading in and even way up there they thought things looked odd with it…it was getting abeam to the wind and seemed to be struggling. So something was amiss before they even got close to the dock. (One interesting thing…the previous cruise ship had only just left Berth 3 maybe 20 or 30 minutes prior. Seems to me that they don’t usually cut it quite that close.)

Two tugs were immediately on scene and they towed the Safari Explorer out (their bow line broke during the impact) and then Aleutian Ballad left the dock right after that. (The U-brackets that hold the dock around its pilings broke, so it wasn’t safe to stay there.)

Jennie B., towing the Safari Explorer out of the marina:

Aleutian Ballad, heading out into the channel:

Exciting stuff! Here are some of the photos we took while watching things unfold:

(Notice that this is taken from INSIDE our boat…quite a view!)

The passengers could not get off the boat (since the boat still wasn’t docked, and the dock was basically broken). They eventually moved the ship down to Berth 2 and the passengers were able to disembark and see Ketchikan a little bit. We talked to one passenger who told us all about his experience on the ship as it happened. He said he was super disappointed though, because that meant their zip line excursion was cancelled. (Ketchikan has a zip line??) I said to him “Zip line ride?? Anyone can ride a zip line! This is a WAY better story you get to go home with!”

Seriously? A zip line? Most of the excursions for the day were cancelled though, which for the tour operators is a huge bummer.

We grabbed some lunch and then met friends for a beer at the Arctic Bar. Afterwards, we walked down to Berth 2 to see if we could get a closer look at the damage, but we couldn’t. I did get another angle at Berth 3…of just how front row we were to the whole thing:

Celebrity Infinity, in Berth 2 awaiting repairs. (They left the docks shortly after midnight and by the time we woke up this morning, were all the way down in Hecate Strait…so I guess they patched up okay.)

The weather is MUCH nicer today. Sam and I took Kevin across the channel to the airport (quick business trip) in Sam’s dinghy (best airport shuttle EVER!) and dropped him off at the Small Vessel Float:

On the way back into City Floats we swung by the outer side of Berth 3 to get a closer look. (You can see Airship, right underneath the broken walkway):

The giant fender floating the water above, is how they’re supposed to look. This one is after I think it got squished by the ship and ruptured:

We think this may the corner that created the big gouge down the side of the ship:

Anyway, there you go! Excitement in Ketchikan!

Behm Canal | Helm Bay

Laura Domela — Tue, 31 May 2016 18:00:00 +0000

Airship Goes to Alaska 2016

Yesterday morning we left Fitzgibbon Cove and continued on around the canal. We had the current with us and decided to go all the way to Helm Bay. We’d originally thought we’d go to Yes Bay, but then thought no.

We saw a big black bear on the shore near Bell Island:

We got a spot on the Forest Service float, which is quite nice and has room for several boats. We were the only ones we’d seen all day though, save for a little fishing boat or two.

Our new view:

We took the dinghy out for some exploring, but the wind and waves picked up as soon as we were out from behind our little protector island, so we turned back. Plus, no bears.

Just before we turned into Helm Bay we saw a humpback or two out in the canal, close to shore. Nothing too dramatic, just some spouts and a few humps.

I watched this kingfisher fishing from his spot high on this piling for a while. (It was low low tide, so he was WAY up there):

I made crab curry for dinner in Fitzgibbon Cove, and last night I put together some penne with a crab/spinach/cream sauce. (Yeah, the crab thing’s gonna need to chill out a bit soon.)

Here’s a map of yesterday’s route from Fitzgibbon Cove to Helm Bay: 44.2 nautical miles, 5 hours 55 minutes

The weather sounds like it’s going to turn a bit worse today (20kt wind, 4 foot waves in nearby Clarence Strait) so we got up this morning and headed for Ketchikan on the early side (meaning, we arrived at the city floats in Ketchikan just barely after 9am).

Here’s this morning’s route: Helm Bay to Ketchikan: 22 nautical miles, 3 hours 7 minutes

There are only two cruise ships in port today (woohoo). It’s gray and rainy here and we have a bunch of work to do, so it’s just as well.

The city floats (also known as Casey Moran, but everyone just calls ’em the city floats) are first come first served. The other two main marinas in Ketchikan are Bar Harbor, a ways north, down by the Safeway, and Thomas Basin, a few blocks south, nearer to Creek Street. They both have space for transients, but they hot berth you…meaning that they’ll put you in a spot that belongs to someone else (say, a fisherman who’s out for a few days fishing) and then when he radios that he’s coming back in, they’ll ask you to move to a different spot. So if you’re out doing something or sightseeing or whatever, it can be a little tricky to need to move. Anyway, we stayed at Bar Harbor last year with the flotilla and it was fine. (They actually had a spot for me that didn’t belong to someone so I could stay in it the whole week that Kevin flew to the bay area for a business trip without having to move the boat on quick notice. Downside was that it was a spot right next to the boat launch where all the Duck Tour boats go in and out all day, full of cruise shippers singing along to the theme from Hawaii Five-O and Gilligan’s Island. Can’t have it all.)

Anyway, we arrived at city floats and woohoo, there was a spot! One spot! I spun Airship around and docked her (not quite like a pro, but pretty close), and as Kevin is tieing the lines, the guy from the larger boat that’s behind us comes over to warn us:

Nice yachty guy: Hey there’s been a big fish boat here and he’s apparently got this slip reserved for the month.

Us: Hmmm, these unpainted sections are first come first served, as far as we know.

Nice yachty guy: Yeah, that’s what I thought too, but he assured me that he’s reserved this space for a whole month. He can come and go, but this is his spot. You might want to check on that before you get too comfortable.

Us: Okay! Thanks for the heads up…we’ll give them a call.

Reserved. Heh. We call the harbormaster’s office to let them know we are here at the end of finger 3 or whatever this is, and tell them that the guy behind us said a fisherman told him he’s got this space reserved for the month. They say “Nope, he certainly doesn’t. All the unpainted bull rail spots are open to whoever comes first.” Yep, just like we thought. They said if we had any problems just to call the harbormaster on 73. (Problems? Like big fishboat guy comes over to kick us out of “his spot”? That should be interesting.)

An hour or two later, nice yachty guy comes back to see what the deal is (since we’re still here) and we tell him we called the harbormaster’s office, and we tell him what they said. He says “Well I wonder what that guy’s try’n’a DO!!?” and I said “He’s try’n’a get you to save his spot for him, that’s what!”

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.