September 6, 2016

KETCHIKAN, ALASKA

The ship arrived in Ketchikan this morning at 6:30, right on schedule. This is what the city looked like from the top of the ship:

Right off the ship, there was a moose:

See my balcony?

I had scheduled a boat ride out into the ocean to see some Eskimo totem poles and American Bald Eagles in their natural environment. It was a little disappointing. We did get to see both of those things, but we had to use binoculars to really get a good look. I took some pictures, but they are unimpressive, to say the least.

This was the Captain of our boat. He was dressed like Captain Obvious of the TV commercials and he had lots of jokes. About 45% of them were actually funny.

Here is the best picture I have of an eagle.  It was much more impressive looking through binoculars:

Here are some totem poles. Again, they were more impressive through binoculars. However, the stories Captain Obvious told about each of them were very interesting:

Me on the deck of the boat:

Captain Obvious (His real name is Rob Holston):

He played some whale songs on his trombone, but they weren’t interested, so we didn’t get to see any whales:

He asked if anyone wanted to pilot the boat, so I volunteered. I even got to wear a Captain’s hat:

I had to look out for whales:

BACK ON THE RUBY PRINCESS:

Relaxing at the pool while reading Dr. Anna’s book: