Day 15: Vancouver and back to Seattle

Early Saturday there was a beautiful sunrise as we entered Vancouver Harbor.  The rest of our companions were spending a day in Vancouver, but Harry, Linda, Sue and I were back to Seattle for the day and catching a 6:45 flight back home.

 

We took another bus back to Seattle, and since on this trip we had experienced every other mode of transportation known to man except a light rail, we took the Light Rail back into Seattle.

 

Chili Dogs on the street, waiting for our Duck Tour to begin 

 

Getting on the Duck Boat 

 

Quackers 

 

Our Duck Guide, who was probably an interesting guy if he wasn’t doing the Duck Tour shtick.  He grew up on Cape Cod building boats, and after school moved to Seattle to be a carpenter and shipwright.  He was living on a 1920s rum runner that he had restored and running duck tours to pay the bills. 

 

But we did see a lot of the points of interest in Seattle in a very short time, including, the studio where many 70’s classics and grunge classics were recorded. 

 

 

World’s first automated car wash 

 

Then on to Lake Union for a tour of many of the 500 floating homes, which are distinct from House Boats since these are not boats but floating platforms with houses on top.  The number of homes is limited to 500 since the 1890s when Seattle doubled in size within a few months during the gold rush and all the loggers, pushed out of available housing, lashed logs together, pitched tents on top and used the lake as a sewer.  The subsequent limit of 500 living units on the lake has stood up to today.  This floating home has a hatch in the middle of the floor so you can actually go fishing from your living room couch.  It also has 2 kids that like to pelt the Duck Tours with water balloons and super soakers as they pass by. 

 

Many of the Alaskan King Crab fishing fleet, including many features on the show “The Deadliest Catch”, come to dray dock in Lake Union during the off months in the summer. 

 

The floating home featured in the movie “Sleepless in Seattle”.  Kinda hard to see, but it's the dark colored one just to the right of all those sailboat masts

 

The Seattle Skyline

 

Somewhere back in there is a floating home (with a basement!) owned by Tim Burton.

 

The home with the columns recently sold for a couple million dollars.  Like 6 million. 

 

Back on land, we the Edgewater Hotel where the Beatles stayed when they played Seattle and took that famous photo of them fishing out of the window

 

 

 

The shop where Jimmy Hendrix supposedly bought his first guitar.  Now it's, what else, a coffee shop.

 

So that's about it.  We had dinner in the Tap house, the one with 160 beers on tap where we started our trip 2 weeks ago.  We boarded an early flight the following day and now we're home getting ready to get back into the working world.  I hope you enjoyed the blog.  If you're thinking of a trip to Alaska, and in particular a cruise, give me a call and I'm be happy to share some suggestions with you.  Thanks for reading!

Day 14: Ketchikan to Vancouver

The next day was a full day at sea while we travelled the inside passage down the coast of Canada.  It was a beautiful day at sea and we spent most of it packing, in the spa, or soaking up some sun on deck.

 

The ship's bridge

 

This is a picture of the ship’s “black box”, which is actually orange and strapped to the deck so it will be easier to find if the ship goes down.  I guess that’s part of what they used to convict the captain of the Costa Cortia this past week. 

 

The highlight of my day was when I won the “Clean Sweep” and had my entire bar bill paid for the length of the cruise.  (this is me accepting the prize up on stage).  Unfortunately my bar bill wasn’t the largest of the group, and I did put a fair amount of the tab back on later that night, but after this trip my credit card can use all the relief it can get. 

 

We ended the night, and the cruise, at the disco on top of the ship.  What happens in the disco will stay in the disco, but suffice it to say all 14 of us had a great time welcoming new people into the disco with the new skills obtained from the Great Baldini and getting everyone up on the dance floor.

Day 13: Ketchikan

 

Our last port of call before Vancouver was Ketchikan.  Ketchikan is the first Alaskan city you hit on your way north to Alaska (or the last one on your way back south) and so was an important stop for steam ships during the gold rush.   Ketchikan gets and average rainfall of 150 inches a year.  And we were there to see quite a few of those fall. 

 

 

We went on what was billed as a “Rainforest Sanctuary and Crab Fest Tour”.  Well, the rain forest sanctuary part of the tour pretty well sucked.

 

The trail through the part of the Tongass National Forrest that this particular tour company had access to was probably 50 to 100 yards long. 

 

The “points of interest looked staged (like this bear's den that happened to open up right on their walking path), and the bad jokes were delivered by a guide that sounded like he was reading from a piece of paper.

 

After the forest part, we emerged on a boardwalk overlooking a tidal estuary and a salmon hatchery, where we saw

Glaucous Winged Gulls 

 

 Mew Gulls

(again the guide was no help here. the called them all "Sea Gulls, also known as rat with wings")

 

A Harbor seal

 

And the butt end of a Black Bear disappearing unto the brush

If you can’t see the bear butt, I’ll give you a little hand

 

To fill out the tour (which only would have been about 20 minutes without them) they tacked on several other things they had clustered around their gift shop, including

Some reindeer in a pen who were rescued from a sausage factory in Fairbanks (I kid you not)

 

A broken down old sawmill 

 

A raptor rehab center where they took us in a gage and we saw an injured Great Horned Owl and Bald Eagle

And a native totem pole carver

 

After a brief tour of their gift shop, we were off to the Crab Fest of the tour, which was in a water-side cabin.

 

Harry making like a Pirate 

 

On the way back we picked up a fishing tour that had their boat damaged in the strong winds that had developed while we were eating crab.  They had to abandon their tour and put ashore at the nearest dock, which happened to be where the crab shack was.  The fishing tour and the “Misty Fjord” tour that our companions were on were both called off due to strong winds and high seas.  The rain and wind were too strong for us to our the town, although some of our hardier friends ventured to the Creek Street area which is a street built in pilings over the river that used to be famous for rum running during prohibition and houses of ill repute.  It’s now lined with stores and gift shops.  As Harry and I had a few drinks in the hot tub on deck, our ship’s departure was delayed by winds strong enough that our side thrusters could not move us off the dock.  But eventually we were on our way, and the seas were a little rough that night.