Alaskan Marine Highway

Waiting for the ferry! Here it comes!

This is our berth! I got dibs on the top bunk!!!

Some chose to camp out on deck!

The only sunset we have seen since Washington!

Petersburg, Alaska (one of the stops we made, but where we never got off the boat)

The sun shone only on the flag! How would you like to live here? Notice there is no road in or out.. Boats are the mode of transportation, and there were a lot of houses built out and away like this!

I had been looking forward to the ferry ride since we made the decision to do it. And now the time had come! We got in our designated lane, #7 at 12 pm and the wait began. Boarding was scheduled to start at 3:30 pm and the ferry to leave at 5:15 pm. While we waited we talked to people around us doing the same thing. We had met a family from Thousand Oaks yesterday at the Laundromat and they were parked right next to us in lane 6. They received a lot of attention because they had a puppy with them, Buddy, a 5 month old beagle mix and as cute as could be. Steve had rented their Motorhome to take the kids on a road trip. Henry, the only son and Buddy’s owner is 21. He had a bad skateboard accident 5 years ago and still shows signs of his injury. He was in the hospital for 6 months and has decided smoking pot is better than taking all the medications needed to control his seizures! His family disagrees. Lindsay at 24 is the older of two girls and was on vacation with her family after having just completed the Calif. Bar exam. She flew to Anchorage to meet the family. Then there is Merced, a senior in High School, who is aspiring to be a photographer. We talked to them the most. It just seemed like everywhere we went we would bump into them. We met Hal, from Oregon and his son, Eric from San Diego in line. They were traveling together because Hal’s wife could not make the trip and didn’t want Hal to do it alone. So Eric who was in between jobs decided to put off the job hunting to go on a road trip with his Dad. Then there was Ken and Karen from Oregon. They had ridden their Harley though out Alaska. As the ferry was being boarded vehicle after vehicle went before us and then it was finally our turn. Chip drove the motorhome and I drove the Jeep. Chip had been a little nervous about driving our motorhome on board, just wondering how it would feel to drive onto a boat and would it fit through the door plus we had to turn our side mirrors in so that we were not over the limit for width. Those mirrors are a lifeline to the rear of the coach. As Chip drove through the open door the ferry seemed to just swallow the motorhome like the fairy tales of whales swallowing ships. Chip said backing up without the side mirrors and only the steward guiding him from the front was freaky. He did an awesome job and when all was said and done he had a foot on each side! They backed me up right in front of him. Piece of cake! Hahahaha Once we boarded the ferry our first stop was to get our berth. When we opened the door and saw the bunk beds we laughed and I immediately call dibs on the top bunk. I don’t usually get up in the middle of the night but Chip does and I didn’t want him falling off the bunk while he was half asleep. When we went exploring the other decks it was interesting to see where people were setting up to sleep. I had heard you didn’t have to purchase a berth and could sleep anywhere you could find a spot and that was starting to become evident. There were tents being set up on one of the decks at the stern of the ship. And from the remnants of the duck tape on the deck it appears this is done all the time. Next we went up one deck to the Solarium. This is where we ran into Hal and Eric again. They were surveying the situation here with all the plastic lounge chairs. If they could not obtain a berth they would be sleeping here on “rented” bedding. Yes the ferry rents bedding just for this occasion. This made our $50 berth fee look like chump change, EVEN with the bunk beds. Our next destination was to see where we would be eating dinner. There is a cafeteria and dinning room aboard. We would eat in the cafeteria the first night and the dinning room the second. Once we were underway that is exactly what we did. It was now after 6 and my tummy was yelling at me to feed it. I did, with a yummy, very unhealthy cheese burger and fries. ~~ slurp~~~ so good!! Mostly because I didn’t have to cook it! Hahahah Chip had BBQ chicken, mashed potatoes and peas! I wonder if cafeterias always serve peas with mashed potatoes. Our first stop was in Haines. We were there about 2 hrs unloading and loading passengers. We saw our first sunset there since leaving Bellingham, WA over 2 months ago. Until recently we have not even seen a true night! It’s been daylight when we go to bed and daylight when we get up. And you know we really liked it! During the day on Tuesday, our only full day on the ferry we enjoyed the scenery. The inside passage is beautiful. There are acres and acres of trees, beautiful little islands with a rock foundation covered in trees and the water, when the sunlight hits it just right, is a turquoise blue. The ferry stopped in Sitka for 4 hours so we took advantage of the opportunity and got off the boat. There was a walk/trail about ½ mile away. On the way to the trail we crossed over a salmon spawning inlet. That is what I am calling the area just beyond the bay where the salmon swim into a fresh water stream. There were hundreds of fish. The walk was just beyond this inlet and it was a boardwalk about ½ mile long. It skirted the edge of a wetland where we saw 3 Blue Herons fishing and you could tell from the trampled grass that bears come there to fish. We didn’t see any bears though. We got back on the ferry and said good bye to Sitka. I think next time we come to Alaska we are going to spend some time here. If we had thought about it earlier we may have gotten off the ferry and stayed a couple days. We got up early on Wednesday so we could enjoy the morning scenery before we disembarked in Wrangell. That was a good decision! Seeing the port of Petersburg and the houses that lined the straight along the way made setting our alarm worthwhile. We are both so excited, tomorrow (Thursday) we get to go to Anan Creek Observatory and bear watch! Can't wait to share those pictures!