Thursday 19th September 2019

Woke up this morning and it felt like the ship was not even moving forward it was so solidly calm.  The weather was good outside, cloudy but not raining. This was a good sign, with plenty of islands around us as we cruised down into Ketchikan.  We were not due to arrive until mid morning but it didn’t stop us from going on a morning walk on the Promenade deck. Hell maybe we would see some wildlife.

After our walk we had breakfast in the Pinnacle Grill and then stopped by the Neptune lounge to arrange some stuff for dinner that night.  I wasn’t sure if they would have enough time to get my dinner prepared in mind for my allergies, but we would see how it went. After coming back to the room and finding Jas still cleaning, we hurried to get through packing up our stuff, but in the end I had forgotten a major thing.

We pulled into Ketchikan as the ship was the last of the 4 ships to arrive.  We pulled into Port with two Princess ships (Golden and Ruby, our Skagway neighbors) and sister ship Eurodam.  It was a beautifully calm morning and the best part was watching the seaplanes take off right next to the ship. I even saw a Hovercraft leave the waterfront area.  While we took time to get aside I watched as the bits and pieces all came together. The moment they got the gangplank set up, it was as if someone opened a spigot and all the crew just flowed out of the ship on to the dock with all their gear.

Soon enough we were off the ship and headed out into town on a walking tour led by my wife and her phone.  She had downloaded an app that showed all of Ketchikan local landmarks and how to get around. This few dollar app cost us less than a walking tour led by the ship and would have covered much of the same information if not more.  Saving us hundreds! The one activity we had planned today was the Lumberjack show but this was not until the afternoon.  

So while doing our walking tour it was now that I had realised I had forgotten something important.  I had forgotten to strap my foot. This was not going to be good. One little mistake and my foot would be in pain for all the day.  But I soldiered on, even being a bit of an ass to my wife at times, Sorry honey!. But I still tried to keep going as best that I could.  We ended up back in downtown right as my foot was giving me problems, so we made our way back to the ship for some lunch and I fixed up my foot ready for the afternoon.  

We hit up some of the stores we wanted to see, as well as the ones for all of our freebies.  The best part was the fact that our limited time meant we could skip out on the hard sells. Awesome!  We made it to the Lumberjack show and had a great time. While very similar to the woodchop displays I had seen every year at the Ekka back home, this was a very well done version.  Lots of humor, lots of talk of history and skill and how Ketchikan was not always just about the Salmon and the tourists, it was once about timber as well.

The show ran about an hour and when we came out it was as though someone had turned on the best way to finish an afternoon.  The sun was out and shining and best of all the town was calm and quiet for our walk back to the ship. We stopped in one final shop a few blocks from the ship but made it onboard for a quick snack and a rest on the balcony. 

The ship began to pull away right after 530pm as the Captain came on for his evening briefing.  He let us know that there may be a little bit of movement but it was unlikely to be much compared to the night before.  We had a dinner reservation for 6pm and knew that we would be taking a while to get out of the narrows around Ketchikan.  We sat down for dinner just as we finished pulling off the dock and headed out of the city, so as we cruised out we watched the city disappear.  We saw one whale off to our side out the windows of the dining room, and the Pilot boat come out to collect our pilots (who will somehow get back to Kake in a day or two for pick up.

We watched the illusionist on the stage show, who was really good, and finished off the night watching BB Kings Blues Club for the Orange Party (celebrating dutch heritage).  We made it back to the room to watch TV and finish off a movie before falling asleep as the boat cruised south towards British Columbia.