Ketchikan Alaska 1/8/18

Drove down to Stef’s on Saturday, admired his new Pomeranian pup (Dash) on Sunday, then he kindly drove us to the Newark airport at the crack of dawn on Monday.  After zipping through security, we enjoyed a relatively pleasant flight aboard Alaska Airlines to warm and sunny Seattle where we were met by cruise ship personnel.  We collected our bags, caught the cruise ship shuttle to Seattle harbour and boarded our home for two weeks, Holland America’s MS Zaandam.

Our luggage turned up as expected and we set sail.   Supper in the dining room was enjoyable, and then we crashed for the night.

There followed a day of somewhat foggy but smooth cruising up the coast of BC,  surrounded by cavorting whales and dolphins (which we somehow missed), culminating in our early Wednesday morning arrival in Ketchikan Alaska, our first port of call.  A large part of Ketchikan, a former mining town, is built on wooden pilings ala Amsterdam which surprised us all.  We took a bus tour of the quaint town (which exists mostly for cruise ship tourists and empties out in the winter), including a visit to the Totem Park.  Three cruise ships were in port that day and the town was happy to see them.

Stopped into an internet café on the dock before returning to the ship to change for dinner.  The sun came out and removed a lot of the mystery from the surrounding mountains, at least one of which still had some snow on top.

Set off through Tracy and Endicott Arm towards Ice Bay and up the fjord to see the glacier tomorrow.