This morning was very foggy.  We've talked with lots of people on board the ship.  A few from Oregon, Washington and, of course, Alaska.  But we've also talked with a couple from South Africa and another from Australia.  

We grabbed coffee and breakfast in the ferry this morning and our 9am port of call is Sitka, AK.  The town has several tour buses lined up waiting for us (for a fee, of course).  Sitka is 7 miles from the ferry dock, so, for our convenience, we have a choice of buses.  It's also overcast and rainy.  For $8 we can catch a bus to downtown and the Visitor's Center of Alaska's oldest national park, Sitka National Park.  Or we could chose a tour of Sitka for $10.  We took the tour of Sitka.  I remember why I don't really like tours.  Everything is rushed and all the photos have somebody else in them.  Our guide was a native of Sitka for 15 years, moved away and has now returned.  He knew quite a bit of Sitka's history, the natives that first inhabited this area and the Russians that later claimed it as their home.  In the park, we saw several totems, including one that was currently being carved.  It will take two brothers several months to hand carve this totem.  Our tour guide also sang Alaska's state song and told us about the history of the state flag.  The flag was designed by a 13 year old Aleut native orphan, the blue background representing the sky, the sea and the state flower, the Blue Bonnet, the stars in the form of the Big Dipper, or Ursa Major, the Great bear to show strength and the North Star to show the most northern territory in the Union.  Alaska became the 49th state in 1959.  Our guide got us back to the ship in time to leave port.  

The day is overcast, foggy and rainy.  Our captain pointed out a flock of "migrating" pink flamingos that were "nesting" in a tree on a small island. (wink!)   These are rare birds for this area, he continued, and they have acquired a unique plastic sheen on their feathers.  They are about 40 feet high in one tree.  Our captain inquired to the Coast Guard who could neither confirm nor deny any knowledge of such a flock of flamingos or how they came to be here.  The sure have fun on the job here!

We got some bad news this afternoon from my sister Dianne, who is keeping our dog Simon with her three dogs in south Florida.  Her dog Lexie, her baby of 12 years, died in the night.  Simon and Lexie had "words" when he first went to stay there, but they've worked it all out and were now great buddies, always playing together.  Simon's going to miss his play pal.  We were in an area with a very sketchy cell signal, so we couldn't call her back for quite a while.  When we finally were able to call her back, while I was talking to her, our captain reported a whale breaching (coming above the water) off the starboard (right) side of the ship.  It was jumping out of the water and crashing back over and over, the entire time the ship passed.  Our sincere condolences to Dianne.  We'll try to call her again later.

The day has been foggy and rainy.  I think Andrew and I are ready to get off of this ship and be travelling on our own again.  

We have an evening port of call in Juneau, but for only an hour.  We decided not to go into town, because we really had no time to see anything.  Andrew and I just stayed on the ship and got to bed early.  

Our final port is Haines, AK and we arrived at 3:45am.  Our wake up call was around 2:30am.  We have a hotel room reserved for two nights in Haines at the Fort Steward Lodge, so we have a place to get some rest.