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Ketchikan was the last port we visited on the cruise. In this city, where it rains about 200 inches/year, we actually had reasonable weather.
Here, Merle is checking out the city view from our ship's balcony.
Here are some nice homes with great mountain views.
Perhaps this is Alaska's version of suburban sprawl. Actually, in Ketchikan, all of the homes were at the coastline, with very little development up the mountain.
We briefly visited Creek St., when it started raining, and we hung out under a balcony for a spell (Treo cameraphone picture).
And we watched even more salmon. Apparently, the rain just doesn't bother them.
We went on a wildlife tour where we saw tons of salmon swimming upstream for sex and then death in and area called Herring Cove (no picture), then went on to see this waterfall. Look! It's sunny!!
On the way back, our tour bus got a flat tire, so we hung out by the ocean's edge for about 1.5 hrs, where we watched some people taking snorkelling lessons in the very cold water.
The ocean water was, however, very clear.
We stopped at a place called Saxman Village (founded by a Jewish guy?) where they make totem poles (no, probably not). Justin, our tour guide, who remained fairly cool during our delay with the flat tire, despite being told every 15 minutes that someone would be there in 15 minutes, explained some of the stories behind these poles. Some poles were meant to honor people, and some were meant to embarrass someone who didn't pay respect to some chief. That's about all I remember.
Oh yeah, and this totem pole is eating a monkey's hand.
Flightseeing
Since we couldn't take the helicopter ride to the glacier in Juneau as we had hoped, we took a float plane for a flightseeing tour in Ketchikan. I had already prepared my will....
This plane actually seats 8 people. However, one guy who had signed up for this flight, who the pilot put in the co-pilot seat, weighed easily 350 lbs. It was a challenge to squeeze him into the alloted space. Everyone else leaned to the other side, and we only took 7 people. I guess we lived. (picture with Treo cameraphone...my regular camera battery was dying).
Here's a picture of our ship, the Coral Princess, as we fly by it (regular camera). You can tell I sat on the right side of the plane.
The pilot mentioned that these mountain lakes are filled with trout and nobody ever goes fishing there, unless you have a float plane to get there.
As we climbed higher, we could faintly see a rainbow in the distance.
As we climbed higher, we could see patches of snow and even some small glaciers (didn't get my camera focused in time).
We saw fiords...
and a lake high in the mountains with a waterfall for the spillover water from it.
This picture was taken with the door open after we landed in an area called Misty Fiord, about 30 miles from where we took off. The pilot got out and smoked a cigarette as he stood on the pontoon (the things the plane was floating on) while Mr. 350 lbs also decided to get out. While on one hand I thought it might be funny if 350 fell in, I'm glad he didn't, since we'd all likely have been drowned trying to save him. On the other hand, he might actually be a good float himself... (Treo cameraphone).
Links to other pages from Alaska '07
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