It was pretty rough in the open sea last night, so the ship’s captain tried to keep to the channels and fiords. We look forward to his announcements, but he often bears bad news. This morning he told us that we were unable to to ‘discharge’ in the open sea because of the 5-6 metre waves, so we’ll need to do that tonight, which will add a bit of time to our voyage.
We had breakfast at Compass Rose again and our favourite server, Felymar took care of us. I had the eggs and lamb chops, while Deb had swedish pancakes, that looked a lot like a crepe. We arrived in Ketchikan on schedule this morning and the weather wasn’t bad, so no excursions were cancelled.
We had a boat trip to Neet’s Bay planned, which is an opportunity to observe some black bears hunting and eating salmon. It took us about an hour to get there of a fairly high-speed boat. In this area they also farm oysters, but because the water is cold it takes them about 3 years to reach eating size. We also saw some whales on the way, further underlining the richness of the wildlife here in Alaska.
At this time of year the bears are eating as much as they can as they will soon start hibernating. Once the salmon finish running, the bears will head up to 1000m plus to find their spot for the winter. The signal for the hibernation to begin is 3 or more days when the temperature remains below 50 degrees Fahrenheit. They need to find a place that will be covered in snow, so in some parts of Canada they now need to climb higher.
Our return to Ketchikan was a little fraught and took well over 90 minutes as we battled through 3-4 metre waves that slowed us down considerably. The sound of the water slapping against the hull of the boat was loud. On another day, they may have well decided to turn back in the morning.
We also wanted to head into downtown Ketchikan to take a few photos, but were rapidly running out of time. Once back at the cruise terminal we caught the last shuttle to downtown at 3:30, giving us maybe 30 minutes to take some photos and get on the last shuttle back at 4:30. One of the challenges is that Ketchikan can only accommodate two large cruise ships and these spots are taken by the bigger cruise lines, so our ship berthed in a secondary area that used to be a big lumber mill, but is 15 minutes drive away. The shuttle bus to ‘downtown’ doesn’t actually get passengers that close to downtown, so it was a bit of a rush to take a few snaps and get back for the shuttle.
Dinner tonight was at Prime 7 which is a steakhouse-themed restaurant. I had a scallop and pork belly starter, followed by a rib-eye steak, while Deb had a prawn cocktail and the surf & turf (Steak and Lobster). For dessert Deb had a popcorn-chocolate concoction whie I enjoyed some key lime pie.
We have a day at sea tomorrow, so we’ll see what the weather brings, but it does seem this low pressure system loves our ship, so likely more of the same.
Until tomorrow!
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