June 23

Sunday June 23

Ketchikan: Wilderness Exploration & Crab Feast

What a wonderful adventure we had today! The scenery was amazing and the crab feast was ultra-delicious. And, as I told Sue & Dan as we were in line to board the ship after our adventure, "....as awesome as today was, I am betting that tomorrow morning's excursion into Tracy Arm Fjord to see the Sawyer Glacier will make today's scenery look ordinary....." But let's start at the beginning of the day. 

For some reason I woke up around 4:30 a.m. I looked out our balcony window and the sun was just beginning to creep over the tops of the mountains through the entry channel into Ketchikan, Alaska. I quickly grabbed my camera and clicked off a couple of photographs. I put the camera away and went back to bed. But barely before my head hit the pillow I could tell the lighting outside was changing as the sun came oh-so-close to coming over the top. So I grabbed my camera again, headed out onto the balcony and took some more pictures, and took a video. The colors in the clouds and on the mountains was really special! Again, I headed back to bead. But within minutes the sun had broken through and now it was truly a spectacular sight to behold. Yes, I got my camera and began snapping off images again! 

The best two of the collection are presented above. Obviously the 2nd picture is one of the later ones with the sun behind the clouds in the distance; and the bottom photograph is one of the earlier ones with the sun creating a beautiful pinkish hue in the sky.  I did finally get back into bed and was able to stay there until close to 7:15 am, though I was never completely out of it. We headed up to the cafe on Deck 14 and had our morning coffee and a light breakfast. The vistas of the Ketchikan harbor were just so cool, so I clicked off a couple of panoramic shots (one of which is the featured banner at the top) and then we headed back to the room to begin to get ready for the day. The four of us admired the boats in the harbor after we were ready to go and eventually decided we'd go onshore early and walk a little while around the town of Ketchikan. Not a lot to see, but we enjoyed walking for about 45 minutes and getting a feel for "the local color." Back to the pier where we met our bus which would take us to George Inlet Lodge - the site of our exploration by boat and the subsequent crab fest. At this point came the only "glitch" to the day. The bus driver for our trip out was a young, college-age girl and if I were to guess she was new to the job. Her driving was great as we made it to the lodge quickly without issue. But her narration of the surrounding area and points of interest......well, let's just say that she appeared to very "new" to the position and very, very little to tell us (so much so that when we were on the boat there were at least three times when the boat narrator said, "your driver told you about..... - and all of us shook our head with the response of 'no - we did not hear that!"). We arrived at last and were offered a van ride down to the dock - why? Because to take the stairs meant descending down seventy-nine steps! Yes, 79! But we were brave adveturers and walked all the way down! The weather was spectacular all day - in fact, on my iPhone it had said rain and 60's for the past several days and for the rest of the week. But today it was in the mid-70's and sunny! I debated - as did everyone else - about what to wear, but we all settled on something warm, figuring that the open-air while on the water would be chilly. And indeed it was! We travelled out on the water for about 30 minutes - made one stop where we saw whales! (see the video) And then we arrived at the location of where the crab pots were submerged. Two brave souls volunteered to pull them up!  The girl who volunteered did a great job, but the guy who went second pulled his cage up the nearly 70 feet in a mere 32 seconds - so impressed was the boat guy that he asked to have this information posted on the lodge's Facebook page! Our tour narrator/guide pulled live crabs out of the cage and showed everyone how to hold them - did you know that if you are holding a crab and lay him on his back in the palm of your hand he will instantly fall asleep? Me neither! Happened over and over again as most took turns holding the crabs (this didn't appeal to any of the four of us!). All the way out and back in the scenery of snow-capped mountains, forests, and water everywhere was just gorgeous. I knew as I snapped off photograph after photograph that (a) I had W-A-Y too many pictures and (b) that in the end I wouldn't be nearly as impressed after the spectacular vistas I was expecting for the day at the glaciers tomorrow. You can see the spectacular shots of the amazing Alaskan countryside below. When we got back to the lodge we were seated and then we got a brief demonstration on how to "attack" the crabs. Then out they came with one set of crab legs after another. We all had at least four rounds of delicious Dungenous crabs.....so easy to get to the big, juicy pieces of delictable meat! And the meal was topped off with a small slice of blueberry cheesecake. Although props to all four of us for not having more than a couple bites!

We climbed back up the flight of 79 steps and boarded the bus to the ship. We had to wait a while to get back onto the ship as it seemed all 3,000 passengers were coming back at the same time! We relaxed through the late afternoon and didn't head up for pre-dinner drinks until about 6:30 pm, with dinner to follow at 7:30 pm. We had such a great conversation at dinner that we didn't even notice it was after nine o'clock! I'm sure part of that was due to daylight still lingering on (it's been light until close to 11 pm!). We quickly headed down to the theatre and saw an amazing muscian perform on his self-invented electric xylophone of sorts. He was truly astounding to watch! It was close to 11 by the time we headed back to our cabins....but we all set our alarms to be up and at 'em before 5:30 am when we are scheduled to make our way into Tracy Arm Fjord and what promises to be a spectacular morning of sight-seeing!