Alaska Yukon Trip 16
Day 6
September 27, 2009: 7:00 AM Rough seas! We were awoken by the slamming and swaying of the boat. It reminded me of being on a speed boat when it slams down going across the wake of another boat. I had never experienced such a rough ride on a large ship before. I tried to get up to peak out the window. Thankfully we had bunks on either side of the room or I would have fallen over. Waves were coming over the front of the boat onto the deck. I couldn’t see much besides grey and water. I tried to make my way to the bathroom….fun!
We fell back asleep until 9:00 am and were this time roused by the PA announcing we’d be arriving in Ketchikan in half an hour. We were scheduled to have a few hours in port so we wanted to get off the boat and do a small tour. We quickly got dressed and went up for breakfast. We docked at 9:30, left the ship and hired a taxi to take us out to Totem Bight park.
It was a pretty quick tour since the cab was waiting and there was a large group from a tour bus right behind us. The poles were interesting, but I enjoyed viewing the interior of the longhouse most. As with the native sites we visited in BC, this site had a presence to it. The rainforest surrounding the park was magical as well. I could have easily spent a full day photographing just the forest.
Our cab driver was an interesting fellow. He was a native – the son of a politician; and according to his entertaining stories, he had done a lot of everything so far in life. I would liked to have talked to him at greater length about native medicine and traditional diet. Obviously I know fish and berries is the staple, but what else. He had talked about his father developing health problems (cholesterol and heart) from eating a western diet, and that within a few months of returning home and sticking with the traditional diet he was better.
We got back to the docks and went across the street for lunch. We left Ketchikan a little later than scheduled because they had to load a vending machine by crane. A large group of high school kids boarded the boat, which put an end to the quietness of the boat. Where at breakfast we were able to walk right in, order, and eat; at supper we had to stand in a long line of teenagers. Chaos! The food onboard is typical cafeteria food. It’s not good!
The sea is still very choppy, the wind is howling, and rain continues to pound down, which makes the time on the ferry a bit monotonous and boring. We read, we snoozed, I knit and wrote. We’d wander around the boat for exercise. We stopped at Wrangell Island at 8:30 PM – docking took awhile because of the rough water and gale force winds. I would later learn this weather was the remains of Typhoon Vamco.
We are scheduled to dock at Petersberg at 12:30 am and Kake at 5:00 am. I didn’t plan to be awake for either of those stops.
In: Travels · Tagged with: alaska, ferry, fishing boat, native, ocean, people, totem pole, town, USA, water
