Ketchikan, Alaska

Today we reached Ketchikan, Alaska. It is a very busy town and we had 2 shore excursions. The first was the Lumberjack show. It was a show that featured 4 lumberjacks. They demonstrated all the types of activities that lumberjacks did back in the old days. It was very entertaining and a sight to see for sure. Then, we headed to a tour bus. We boarded and took a quick tour around Ketchikan on the way to the Bight Totem Pole state park. When we arrived, we toured the grounds and all of the different types of totem poles. We got to see a clan house and the tour guide informed us of who lived there and what the purpose of the house was. It was very interesting and the scenery was beautiful. While standing there, we saw 2 bald eagles fly in front of us. It was a sight to see. At the end of the tour, we bought some books to take back to our classes. We finished the tour and headed back to town. We shopped in some local shops and headed back to the ship. At 12:30, we headed for Victoria, British Columbia. We will be there tomorrow night around dinner time.

Sitka, Alaska

Today was a very busy day. We were up early so that we could get going to shore for two different shore excursions. After breakfast, we headed to the Vista Lounge so we could pick up our tickets. Once they were picked up, we headed down to the gangway and disembarked from the ship. We loaded onto boats that took us to shore. Once we reached shore, we met up with our tour guide and went on our first tour. Our first stop was at the Raptor center. It is a estuary that is devoted to the rehabilitation of injured or sick raptors which includes bald eagles, falcons, etc. We got to see some being nursed back to health. It was very interesting and we learned a lot. After the Raptor center, we headed to St. Michael’s Church; the first established Russian Orthodox Church in Sitka. It was beautiful inside and very beautiful. We continued with a tour of Sitka by bus. It is a quaint and cute little town. We headed downtown to eat and you would not believe where we ate lunch, a Mexican restaurant. It wasn’t too bad but the prices were extremely high. I wanted seafood but we couldn't’t find it. After lunch, we headed back for shore excursion number two.
Shore excursion number 2 was the volcanic coast expedition by ocean raft. This was the best part of the trip so far. We suited up in heavy thermal suits, put on gloves and masks and headed out to a very fast orange raft. We got on and headed out to sea at a very high rate of speed. We went out about 15 miles and stopped to see sea otters, whales, and all kinds of birds. We got to an island completely made out of volcanic rock. It was next to Mt. Edgecrumbe volcano. It was hard to see the whole volcano because of the cloud cover. We got to go deep into the crevices of the volcanic island and see the starfish on the side of the walls. We jetted back and got to see a mama sea otter with her pup playing in the water. It was the most fun and a great day and we are so tired from the busy day. Sitka was beautiful and quaint.

Hubbard Glacier

We spent the entire evening and morning traveling to Hubbard Glacier. Hubbard Glacier is an extremely large glacier that is located in Disenchantment Bay. We approached and immediately noticed the large pieces of ice floating in the water. We got close enough to see the Glacier but we couldn’t get super close because there were too many small icebergs in the water. It was an amazing sight to see and I took many pictures. We got to see a mama seal and seal pup warming themselves on a sheet of ice. We spent the rest of the say listening to a naturalist talk about the glacier and a pair of Native Indians who talked about their way of life in Alaska. It was another busy day and a beautiful experience.

Juneau

Today we headed toward Juneau. We arrived and docked in Juneau around 12:00 noon. We had a leisure lunch and went to get in line so we could disembark from the ship. Once we were off the ship, we had some time to do some shopping before our first tour. We picked up a few things and went to meet our group. The first tour we went on was the Historical Gold Panning tour. We were met by Bryce, our prospector guide. As we drove out to the river, he gave us a brief history of the state capitol city and interesting tid-bits. Once we got to the river, Bryce demonstrated the way to correctly pan for gold. We spent an hour or so panning for gold.
While no one found a huge nugget of gold, we did all find flecks of gold. You could see lots of gold dust in the river but they were too minute to actually gather. We did put all of flecks of gold into a vial and brought it back to the ship. Prospector Bryce drove us back to Juneau so we could meet up with the next tour of the day.
The next excursion we went on was the Mendenhall River float. They drove us out to the Mendenhall Glacier. It was so large and beautiful. We got dressed in waterproof bibs, boots, and life jackets. We got into the raft with 9 other people and our guide. We floated down the Glacier River for about 2 hours. During that time, we went through grade 3 rapids, saw wildlife such as a bald eagle, and visited with the others in our group. We got stuck on a rock at one point and had to rock back and forth to become dislodged. At the end of the excursion, we were driven back to the port and we boarded the ship. We were very tired from a full day and retired early.

Day 3: At Sea

Today, we spent the entire day and night at sea. We headed out into the open Pacific Ocean. Because we were in the open ocean, the seas were much more choppy and rough. We went to the observation deck to watch and saw some whales. That was exciting and fun. While we were up at the observation deck, we also decided to visit the library. We were searching for books while the ship was rocking back and forth. This is where I started to get very nauseated and green! We had to keep busy during the day and there wasn’t much to watch on TV so we decided to go play Bingo. While Coach Montez was playing bingo, I paid a visit to the infirmary to get some anti-nausea medication.
I barely made it through lunch and was trying to rest when we got a call that they had a room cancellation and we could change rooms if we wanted. We decided to go look at the room. It was pretty much the same as ours but had a little larger balcony. So instead of resting, we packed up our stuff again and moved to the new room. It didn’t take too long to get settled again. We went to dinner and because I still felt so badly, we came back to our room and went to bed very early.

Day 2: Getting on the boat

Today we woke up and had a wonderful breakfast in the hotel. We took a taxi to the Seattle Space Needle. We took the trip up to the top and could see all of Seattle. The most impressive part was seeing Mt. Rainier. It is so massive in comparison to all the other mountains around. To the right of Mt. Rainier, you can see the small mound that is now Mt. St. Helen’s. Our guide said, “You had to have a trained eye to be able to see it.”
We headed to the ship via a shuttle. We had to go through lots of security and checkpoints before we could finally come aboard the ship. Once we got on board around 1:00 pm, we went to check out our room. It had a balcony and was pretty good size for a cruise ship. We got settled in went to check out the dining room. The lines were long as everyone was getting onto the ship. We ate quickly and headed back to our room to rest before the Bon Voyage at 4:00 pm.
While we were resting, we could hear directly above us, the sounds of chairs being moved and scraped along the floor which was our ceiling. It was very annoying. We went up to the Lido deck for the Bon Voyage. It was very exciting and everyone was in a great mood. We went back and got ready for dinner. Dinner was very nice and fancy. It took almost 2 hours to get through dinner and all of the courses. After dinner, we went to talk to the front desk about the likelihood of changing rooms since it was very annoying to hear all of the chairs from up above moving. Per the front desk, “They were at full capacity and had no other rooms to offer.” We headed back to our room and watched a movie and relaxed the rest of the evening.

Off we go!!!!

Day 1 - Today was a work day for teachers. We finished up our grades, closed up our classrooms and said goodbye to our four children. We headed to George Bush International Airport and waited for our 6:30 pm flight to Seattle. We will get in around 9:00 pm. We are anxious to get to our downtown hotel and go out for a nice seafood dinner. We hear the seafood is so fresh and good. We'll see.