An off we go.
Friday 23rd August -Vancouver
I started the day off with another massage. Lovely. Then back to the hotel and off to the ship. Boarding was easy. Very quick and straight through.
We dumped our gear in our rooms and then to the lounge to relax.
Andy’s room was amazing. It’s an accessible balcony, one cabin off the elevators. And he has it for all four legs. It is much bigger than a Junior Suite with a giant bathroom and giant deck. Emergency button by the bed and in the bathroom – and much to Andy’s delight a phone by the toilet. (I phoned JD from the toilet – just for fun).
Sail away is beautiful from Vancouver, and the smoke even lifted a bit to give us our first look at Gross Mt in four days. Many people cheered us on our way as we passed under the lovely Lions Gate Bridge.
Met up with people I knew, and people I knew of, in the lounge after muster, then went to dinner at Samba Grill with JD. Excellent. Especially after JD taught us his trick of eating the salad bar then just telling them which of the seven meats you want. Ie the fillet and the lamb chops. So much better than trying to gorge through seven kinds of meat.
Saturday 23rd August.
Relaxing Sea Day with the Pinnacle Suites lunch. Lovely. Great food and drinks.
Some trivia and lounge time, then dinner at Giovanni’s. Great day.
Sunday 24th August.
Ketchikan
I was up at stupid o’clock to go out to the dock and book at bear tour. I got onto a 9 am flight so went back onto the ship and had breakfast. Not a bad way to start the day.
Sadly, I was bumped to the 11am flight, so walked up to Fish Creek to see the salmon. Pretty stunning creek to have running through your town.
Ketchikan is right on the water. Houses were built at the water line so they built the town out on stilts for a road and dock etc.
The creek runs through the town with houses and businesses over it. It was full of salmon. The last few swimming up to spawn and the bodies of the dead floating down. Big fat birds just floating around watching them.
My trip was a float plane trip out to Traitors Cove to see the black bears. The Cove is on the same island – Revillagigedo as Ketchikan, but there are no roads – float planes or boats. The whole area is in Tongass National Forrest and the flight over Tongass Narrows was great.
The flight in was lovely. Over so many island. You could see where the salmon where running by all the fishing boats. Commercial and recreation.
The forest was amazing. The trees were so dense and ran right down to the water. Tongass National Forest. It’s 17 million acres and covers most of the land up the Inside Passage. This area has the biggest black bear population in the states.
But the area is in a terrible drought. Sometimes they go for four days without rain! But seriously it is very dry so many of the normal creeks are not getting fish and therefore no bears.
Float planes are so much fun. You just fly over a lake then drop down and land. So smooth. We unloaded onto a lovely dock and marched up the hill. Then into the van and drove off through the rain forest.
We stopped at a pretty lake for a look as black bear number one ran across the track.
Then down a beautiful track through amazing forest. Back through the trees was a waterfall – with a large black bear fishing.
The old growth trees were great. Hundreds of years old. And massive.
But the mosses. Beautiful. And the lichens etc. Thick and lush and so soft!
This forest was amazing.
We walked down another lovely track to the creek and there were the bears. They came and went, some slept, some fished. Smaller ones would scurry away as bigger ones arrived. Amazing.
We also had a lesson in bear scat.
Black bear poo – dark with berries and fish bones and smells like fish.
Grizzly bear poo – dark with berries and fish bones as well as ‘bear bells’, whistles, pieces of clothing and smells like pepper spray. Ba Boom!
The flight back was just as wonderful. We did a big circle over the edge of town past the “International Airport – We can fly you to anywhere in the world…as long as you go through Seattle”, and landed next to the ship. Like in the water next to the ship. That was very cool.
That night was the C&A do. Was the usual with great live music and drinks. Captain Trim talked for ages and was very good.
He talked about things like the fuel bill in Vancouver. When Royal says “fill her UP”, the tank will last two weeks and cost $1 million US.
On this trip we will be using $70,000 a day fuel and $57,000 a day for food.
Half the ship were C&A members with D – 109, D+ – 25, Pinnacle – 15.
There was also the usual spiel from the Next Cruise person, but one interesting fact was that they have strung a 100 day trip together on Explorer. It’s a 100 day ‘B9B’, going from Australia to Miami. No repeat ports!
Amazing day.
Monday 25th August,
Hoonah (Icy Strait Point).
Sarah and I were here on the last trip and did an amazing Whale trip. So I booked again with Glacier Winds.com
But first we went into town with the gang to The Office. The BEST Dungeness Crab place. A small business that cooks the crabs out the in big pots out the front. And they would be without doubt, the best eating thing to come out of the ocean. Mary comes and pick you up at the gate tot eh dock and takes you back.
They then drove us down to the dock to meet our boat. And not enough superlatives for this day.
We got into the boat – Catabatic, and Andy had no trouble and off we went.
We soon came across Humpbacks BUBBLE NETTING. O.M.G!
They go down deep under a school of, in this case herrings, and swim around in a circle, blowing bubbles. The fish are corralled in a circle f bubble curtain. They will not swim through it. As the bubble reach the top, the humpbacks roar up through the middle with their mouths open wide taking in as much as twice their weight n water. Their giant fluted throat opens up and takes it it. The tongue then forces the water out through the baleen curtains hanging at the edge of their mouths, keeping the fish in. This is a learned skill that is taught by the matriarch of the pod.
And we got to see it happening. How very special. I also got a few fluke photos that I sent in to HappyWhale.com They were ‘new to science’ whales.
This guy is now registered with Happywhale.comand is know as Humpback Whale ID HW-MN0400474. Next time it is sighted I will be notified – could be in Alaska, could be in Hawaii. It’s very exciting.
Damn! What a day. And I got three new flukes registered with Happy Whale from this day. That was excellent.
Hoohan is the town there on Icy Strait. Icy Strait Point is the cruise town.
But I will admit that they have probably the best disability set up. An electric buggy comes right to the cruise ship and drops at 5 stops around the complex – including the front gate. They even have huts with ramps and roofs for easy loading. Good work Royal.
WHAT A DAY!
Tuesday 26th August,
Juneau.
Was wet and miserable looking when I got up. Then it cleared. It was raining by the time I went out but not at all cold. And true to Alaska – if you don’t like the weather wait 5 minutes.
The rain stopped and it got even muggy. But then it rained again. Then it stopped. You get it.
Gorgeous low clouds kept dropping down draping the city.
Juneau is another lovely dock area. Much of it on reclaimed land. Five ships were in town today so ‘lolly pop people’ were working on all the crossings. This place also gets one million people a year on cruise ships but it wasn’t crowded.
The ship was docked under Mt Roberts and the cable car to the top. You couldn’t see the top of the mountain so I didn’t go up. There are 180 miles of gold tunnels under the mountain. Hope it doesn’t collapse one day after an earthquake.
On the dock there was a lovely statue to a dog, Patsy Anne, that lived here in the 1930’s, and although deaf, she would greet all the ships, on time and always at the correct dock. Even if it was coming in to dock one, she would know if there was a change. She originally had an owner, who imported her from the lower 48, but she decided the life of the waterfront was better. The people paid for her licence so she could stay.
I walked around Main Street.
Tracey’s King Carb place is a licence to print money. One crab leg, $28! And huge crowds.
After my walk I went on a city tour and then to the glacier.
Juneau is the smallest capital in the US with 33,000 people.
We went around town, which took a good 7 minutes, then over to Douglas Island across the Gastineau Channel. This is where the million dollar houses are. Pretty nice view. This took as 15 minutes, but that was because we had a 10 minute picture stop.
Sitka Spruces is now one of my favourite trees. Beautiful!
Bear Bins everywhere.
The ski resort was unable to open this year. To warm (and too dry) to even make snow. Our comedian driver called it Indian snow. “A patch(y) here, a patch(y) there.”
There is only 40 miles of road in Juneau. So the tour was quick. But then we headed out to the Mendenhall Glacier.
The Mendenhall Glacier is pretty great. It is retreating and will separate from the lake in the not too distant future. The weather continued to lift and drop so the ice would go from dull grey to intense blue. 
Crazy face!
Fantastic plant life up there.
Same place. Photos 5 Minutes apart. Glacier.
No Glacier.
Wednesday 29th August
Skagway
Today was a bus trip up to Fraser, in Yukon Canada, then the White Rail trail down. This was one of two passes the gold miners took in 1893 to get to the gold in Dawson.
Hideous way to get there.
Not all that hard on the train. LOL
Today was a bus trip up to Fraser, in Yukon Canada, then the White Rail trail down. This was one of two passes the gold miners took in 1893 to get to the gold in Dawson.
Hideous way to get there.
Not all that hard on the train and in a bus. LOL
They called this a One Sided Bridge – to make repair easier after an earthquake.
Snow gets over 40 ft deep. Check out he snow plow guides.
The border.
A visit to Liarsville – a mock up of the original town. When the reporters arrived to cover the gold rush and saw the way to get there, they decided to jut set up camp and wait for miners to return -either rich or as failures. The reporters had a fab old time an still got their stories. Although many were lacking in truth.
The stage show was pretty funny and included a sitting tap dance. Clever.
LOOK. I struck gold. See the flake at 7 o’clock.
And then a tour of the original brothel – The Red Onion. Pretty funny. Every smutty joke you have ever heard rolled into a thrifty minute tour. “Welcome all, oh and nice to see you again”, “this building was erectioned in 1892”, and of cause the final was “hope you all come again”. The tour showed us the original crib rooms and how the system worked.
Each ‘girl’ had a doll at the bar. The barman would place the doll on its back when the girl took a customer up stairs. This showed she was unavailable. 15 minutes later the bouncer would remove the client, the girl would drop the $5 down a copper pipe to the bar man, who would then sit the doll back up. Madam got $2.50, bouncer got $1.25 and working girl got 1.25 – but since he average wage was $3 a day she earned well. Worked hard for it but earned heaps.
Original artefacts found under floor boards
Madams room
Normal room
And a collection of bed pan to finish off with.
Saturday 1st September
Hubbard Glacier.
We sailed into Yakutat Bay, SE Alaska at about 8am and took well over an hour to get to the glacier.
Lovely. Rainy and foggy. Then a clear view of stunning-ness. Watching Andy see glaciers for the first time was exciting. 
After we left the Glacier we had the fancy pants Meal with an Officer. This one was hosted by Philip, the best Hotel Director and was amazing. Like wow!
After that I watched the Parade of Nations. Crew parades for each different country that is represented on the ship. And it’s heaps of nations. The crew get to plan what they do – so some did a dance, martial arts etc. Lovely.
Must be a big storeroom for al the flags. Was so good to see Australia represented by both the normal flag and the Indigenous flag.
Tomorrow is turn around day – so goodbyes were said, and luggage was out in the corridors.
Next page – Leg 2