Once on board, we wandered around the ship for awhile. Today was warm and sunny, beautiful out. We rested a bit. I’m listening to James Michener’s Alaska. We had a restful night and a full day traveling to Ketchikan, our first stop.
Our cruise ship has 16 dining options, 15 bars and lounges, spay and salon, fitness center, sports courts, 2 swimming pools, 4 hot tubs, casino, Internet Café, Teen club, youth center.
Ship facts: Gross tonnage = 93,558, overall length = 965 feet, beam = 125 feet, daft = 28 feet, engine= diesel electric, cruise speed = 25 knots, guests = 2,402 (double occupancy), crew = 1,037. It’s an old ship. Old enough to have ashtrays for cigarettes built into the bathrooms next to the toilets.
We are on the 9th level in 2 adjoining rooms. I think there are 14 or 15 levels. The rooms are better than I expected, with a king bed, a small sofa, a tiny desk, and a small bathroom. Our rooms have a balcony space with 2 chairs. It’s nice to be next to each other with a door between our rooms.
We woke up in Ketchikan, the 4th largest town in Alaska, where the average rain fall per year is 12.5 feet. Average January temp is 32.6 and average July temp is 57.5 degrees. This was a fun town and we enjoyed spending the day here. There was quite a bit to see and do. We got a map with walking trails and headed out to see what was here. All the sidewalks in these towns are boardwalks, which I really like. There is no shortage of lumber here in these woods.
Ketchikan is called the King Salmon capitol of the world. The town had a few historical streets with fun shops. We walked along Creek Street, right along a river flowing down from the mountain. The old homes there have been restored, including the brothels, now museums and shops right on the creek where salmon come and go. We saw a couple of fellows with their fishing poles there trying to catch the large fish (which were hard to spot in the water). The Creek Walk took us up along the creek to a wooded area that was fun to walk through. There are beautiful wildflowers here–lupine, buttercups, foxglove.
At 11:30 we had tickets to a Lumberjack show in town, put on by a bunch of lumber jacking men who had fun showing off their skills. Some of them are professionals who compete in the different activities. They used to compete between towns. They had one side of the stands cheering for one guy and the other for another while they chopped, climbed, threw hatchets and rolled logs. It was pretty impressive. The show lasted about an hour, then they did it again for the next group, a pretty good business for those fellows in their red flannel shirts and big axes. It was loud and fun.
After that we walked around town some more, then went up the hill to a Totem Heritage site with a museum we didn’t pay to go into, but we walked around the grounds and down a beautiful wooded path back into town. Wild salmon berries were growing on the bushes around us and we picked and ate some. We were off the beaten path, away from the tourist crowds, enjoying the beautiful nature of this place. It really is beautiful.
The homes are all built of wood, and most are old and weathered. Not modern. More quaint and worn. Most are colorful. Wooden steps everywhere because we are on the sides of the mountains. Most of the towns we’ve seen are carved out of the mountains–there just aren’t that many flat valleys or places along the coast for people to live.
