We’re on the trip of a lifetime, traveling the country. What do we dothat’s special for our anniversary? A ferry ride up the Inside Passage ofAlaska!!
We woke this morning with the announcement of one hour notice to our firstport, Ketchikan, AK. We landed in Ketchikan at 7am and we have about 3hours in port. Andrew and I jumped off and shared a taxi into town withsome other folks. We found a place for breakfast and walked around townfor a little while. Ketchikan is always rainy and today the weather isgood, it’s only overcast. The town’s had 192 inches of rain this yearalready! The town has several totems that have been carved by the localtribes of native peoples, different designs and symbols from the differenttribes. We hiked back the 3 miles to our ferry. We got back just intime, 10am to leave port. Our departure was delayed slightly by a bigcruise ship, the "Summit", coming into port. While she wasslowly making here way in, a sea plane flew in right in between the"Summit" and our ship the "Malaspina", with only a fewhundred yards in between the ships. The Coast Guard was also right runningright behind the plane. I don’t think they were supposed to fly in betweenlike that.
We were back at sea. Even though Ketchikan is overcast and rainy, ourweather overall has been great. We went by some other small villages wherepeople waved a the ferry. Many waved towels, so we can see them.
We had a very short stop in Wrangell, AK. The ship sounded it’s hornshortly after we got off, signaling we had five minutes beforedeparture. Everyone was supposed to be back on board by then, theship was leaving. When we asked about a person we saw walking her dog awayfrom the ferry at the time the horn sounded, we found out she made it, but 3others didn’t. Their Alaskan Adventure just took a new twist!
Our next port is Petersburg, AK. We went thru some beautiful narrows to get there. We only had two hours inport and the town was a mile from the ferry, so people were in a rush to get offthe ship. We were told about a pizza place, Papa Bear’s, that had prettygood pizza and was near the dock. Well, we found out as we went ashore, ithad moved into town. As we were walking the mile to the restaurant, wecalled to order our pizza so it would be ready when we go there. We gotahead of the crowd of others from the ferry and had a great pizza!