Rescues, Juneau, and Sitka

A couple days ago, a crew member became ill. The crew lowered one of the small rescue boats on the ship. They boated the sick one into the closest town where a plane had agreed to delay take-off for our sick person.

Saturday, our ship heard a distress call, lowered the rescue boat and we sat still in the water while our crew towed the distressed boat in near a town where a town boat came out took over. I got a picture of our guys, in the rescue boat, being hoisted up and back on the 7^th deck.

Sunday, September 17, 2017

We arrived in Auke Bay again and drove our rental car directly to the Mendenhall Glacier. The moose we heard had been hanging out there swam across the lake two days before so we missed him but Nicki, one of the local bears, was hanging out. We were there a couple of hours and she slept on a ledge, and walked along the beach and on the human trail. Rangers followed, kept a watchful eye, and mostly insisted the humans remain quiet and still as Nicki had the right-or-way.

There was also a porcupine in a tree above the path.

We walked to the base of a waterfall and fairly close to the glacier. It was awesome. 

There is another longer trail leading to where one could walk into an ice cave that is part of this glacier but it caved in a few weeks ago. We didn’t go there. If you want to see pictures of what it looked like, go to davidlienemann.com and click on The Last Frontier.

We visited The Shrine of St. Terese. In addition to a little chapel, there were a lot of bald eagles flying around.

We stayed at the Silverbow, a boutique hotel in Juneau, recommended by Sydney. We loved our hostess, Jill, and her quirky modern/traditional taste and the yummy breakfast and the hot chocolate and cookies.

Monday, we took the Taku Lodge trip, our big splurge of the trip, and also recommended by Sydney. We rode a float plane over multiple glaciers up to a 1920s hunting cabin on the Taku River. The Taku Glacier is one of the few in North America that is advancing. We had wood fired, grilled salmon, hiked around the grounds, and rode the plane back to Juneau.

I went to the state museum. The local peoples were among the few North American native peoples who lived a life of plenty. They had abundant sources of food and a relatively temperate climate so they had plenty of time to engage in the arts. The baskets are so fine and beautiful. The clothing, paddles, homes, also so beautiful! And the little kid clothes were so cute!

I then toured the state capitol building, stepped into the tiny octagonal Russian Orthodox church and the gin distillery, walked by David and Sydney’s old house, and ate the cauliflower taco David recommended. It was a lovely, sometimes drizzly day.

Tuesday, we were on the ferry by 3:30 am, stopped in Sitka where we joined a Roads Scholar group (the old Elderhostel bunch) for a tour of the Russian Orthodox Cathedral and admired amazing local art in little Sitka galleries. Sitka was the old Russian capital.

This morning, Wednesday, we were up at 2:40 am on bad advice but by 4 am we were moving through a very narrow strait with red lights blinking in the fog on the left and green ones on the right. It was a little magical, maybe not up to the hype, and we slept in late this morning.

We are docked in Ketchikan for a few hours, our last stop and wireless opportunity until Friday in Bellingham, WA. I am so glad I have lived a frugal life so as to be able to do this trip, and so glad I gave up a bit of my cheapness to pay for it.