July 2 & 3 - Ketchikan

Dolly's House, Ketchikan's oldest riverside house of ill repute "where the men and the salmon come upstream to spawn"

Ketchikan's downtown shopping area can you see some cruise ship passengers?

Our Royal Caribbean neighbor in Thomas Basin, Ketchikan

We left Foggy Bay in surprise, surprise fog. We had to wait until the tide rose somewhat as the 20 foot tides which are common in Alaska played havoc with our exit from the anchorage which has about 12 feet of bottom clearance at a nil tide. Our low tide this morning however was about minus 4 feet so we waited for a bit of h2O to slide in before we left. The guy on the Grand Banks called me on the radio as I was leaving and said "if you make it through alright without hitting bottom let me know and I will follow". All was well however, and the fog began lifting as we set off for Ketchikan.

We arrived in Ketchikan and on the advice of a fellow boater in Lagoon Cove, we headed into Thomas Basin as we arrived in Ketchikan harbour. It is right beside the cruise ship terminal and three cruise ships were right on our doorstep. We cleared customs with a US officer (he actually apologized for being late, but I am used to Canada so I thought he was early) He was very friendly and helpful.

I discovered a technical problem today concerning my Telus internet access card on which I do this blog. The butheads at Telus have not negotiated any agreement with the major data provider in Alaska so my Telus access card will be useless now for the next month till we return to BC. I spoke to a Telus technician today who reassured me that if I had been in almost any other state but Alaska I would have no problems. Thanks Telus, love ya.

My update today is on a local marina hot spot so I will try to keep up to date entries on the blog as we hit cities with wireless access. We will try our best to keep our readers up to date but it may be a bit of a struggle for the rest of our time in Alaska.

We did some sightseeing today and plan to spend tomorrow in Ketchikan which is interesting but kind of"junky cruise ship passenger stuff". They have at least 3 cruise ships in most days so downtown Ketchikan kind of looks like deck B on Holland America.

We had a fantastic meal tonight, my first Alaska King crab of the trip. It is so much better here where it has not had to travel thousands of miles. I really pigged out. Nance had the best halibut meal of her life so all is well.

More to follow when we can next sneak on to someone's wireless network.