Today we are in Kodiak which was the capital of Russian Alaska. Population is about 5,500. Once a struggling fishing port, World War II turned the island of Kodiak, the second largest island in the USA (bonus points if you can name the largest US island – NO googling! Answer below somewhere), into a major staging area for North Pacific operations. At one point Kodiak’s population topped 25,000, with Fort Abercrombie built as a defense post to protect the naval base that was constructed in 1939. Today, the old naval base is the site of the largest Coast Guard base in the country.

We are docked. Also here: the Silver Nova from Silversea Cruises.

For breakfast today, we ate at Mamsen’s which is part of the Explorer Lounge. They specialize in Norwegian waffles topped with brown cheese and sour cream. Uhm, that doesn’t sound appealing but it supposedly is very good. I passed and opted for a waffle with raspberries, blueberries, blackberries, and lots of maple syrup. It was delicious.

Our excursion today is Scenic Kodiak. We took a bus that made four stops.

First Stop: Kodiak History Museum

The Kodiak History Museum is a small site housed in the oldest and only surviving (I think) Russian built log cabin. Located on a rise, it came within inches of being destroyed in the 1964 earthquake and tsunami. Most of downtown was destroyed.

Maybe the best thing about today is the weather! This picture of a plane flying over tells the story. Gorgeous sunshine that made carrying our rain jackets a waste of time. Stunning day.

Second Stop: Kodiak Natural Wildlife Refuge

Well, the Kodiak Natural Wildlife Refuge is actually not another stop. It’s right across the street from the History Museum. One great thing about this place is the exhibit of art work by area school children. It’s part of the junior duck stamp program run by the US Fish and Wildlife Service.. The “best in show” is marked by a purplish ribbon. The age group winners are the three (or 2½) drawings in one snapshot. The whale skeleton is on the second floor. I didn’t go up, but I snapped it from the ground floor.

Third Stop: Kodiak Fisheries Research Center

Nice color in the maple trees outside.

Fourth Stop: Fort Abercrombie

The story of the military history is better told in this link to the Fort Abercrombie Military Museum. Fort Abercrombie now an Alaskan state park with miles of hiking trails through a sumptuous rain forest with moss covered trees and home to a private military museum in a bunker and run by volunteers. Great scenic vistas too. The museum (and its resident dog) was brilliant. It has still working telephone systems and teletype machines from World War II.

Dropoff: Downtown Kodiak

We walked around the harbor and had a great lunch at Henry’s Great Alaskan Restaurant. I had a delicious tuna steak perfectly cook (rare). Elaine had a fish sandwich. We shared a pitcher of Alaskan APA (American Pale Ale) and a basket of onion rings.

The largest island in the USA is the big island of Hawaii.

Kudos if you knew that.

Dinner was in the World Cafe and cocktails in the Explorer’s Lounge with a great sunset to watch out the windows. These were taken with my phone as I didn’t bring the camera to the lounge.

Tomorrow is a sea day en route to Dutch Harbor, our last stop in Alaska. Maybe some ship pictures. There won’t be much else to see.

One week on board now complete. Weather has been OK. A little rain, but not enough to make us miserable. Seas have been calm. There are have been a few interludes where you could feel the pitch and roll, but it was never bad. Food great. Drinks great. We’ve made a few friends. All good.

Today we are in Seward, named as you might expect for William Seward, the US Secretary of State, who negotiated the Alaska Purchase from Russia in 1867 for $2.7 million. That would be equivalent to $129 million today – still a bargain.

Click on the galleries below to bring up scrollable windows with full size pictures – the gallery previews may show just thumbnails of the pictures. By the way, the pictures look much better on a tablet or a computer than they do on your phone. Just saying.

Our excursion in Seward was to the Alaska Sea Life Center (aka an aquarium that also specializes in marine rescues). It was interesting and enjoyable with the usual collection of sea life. My favorites: the blue moray eel and the puffin who let me get about one foot away from him for a picture.

The Sea Life Center stands on Resurrection Bay. It’s a beautiful sight.

Thought you’d seen all the fish? Nope. Back inside the Sea Life Center. That’s one big sea lion swimming!

And some random shots from around Seward.

Back on the ship it was cocktails as usual in the Living Room Bar and then dinner at the Chef’s Table Restaurant, the other specialty dining venue (i.e., not Manfredi’s). It features a set themed menu with different wines to match each course. Tonight the theme was Xiang (Chinese). Poor quality photos of the menu follow. We get the premium pairing wines as we have the Silver Spirits package. Picture of the dessert and of the restaurant below including one of another cruise ship going by as we ate..

Finally, some random snaps from the previous night in the Restaurant and in the Explorer Lounge with our friends Don and Donna. And finally finally a slightly blurry pic of the moon from our balcony as a slightly blurry photographer goes to bed.

Today we are in Valdez for a short port call. We are anchored, not docked, so we will be tendering ashore. We were here back in 1985 on Sitmar Cruise Lines Fairsea. Sitmar was bought out by Princess some years later. 1985 was before the Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989. (Bonus points if you remember the name of the captain of the Exxon Valdez whom Exxon blamed for the grounding of the tanker. He accused the corporation of making him a scapegoat. In a 1990 trial he was charged with criminal mischief, reckless endangerment, and piloting a vessel while intoxicated, but was cleared of the three charges. He was convicted of misdemeanor negligent discharge of oil. – His name is below. No points if you got his name by clicking on the link above.)

After breakfast we tendered ashore and visited two museums and one store before reboarding.

Approaching Valdez

Maxine & Jesse Whitney Museum

The Whitney Museum is a really well done small museum with extraordinary taxidermy. (Sue and Jeff would love it.). We beat the crowds and really enjoyed our visit. It’s part of the Prince William Sound Community College. The mosquito is a fake. Everything else was real.

Walking About

Nice color in the trees. That weird looking thing is a section from the Alaska pipeline.

Valdez Museum

The Valdez Museum was packed. All the people from the big Carnaval ship in town seemed to be here. We had a brief look, especially at some old fire engines.

Then we visited the The Prospector Outfitters store. I bought a better set of binoculars (Nocs Binoculars) than the ship provides in the room. Elaine bought a sweater. Then back to the ship.

Dinner was in the Restaurant, the main dining room, with Don and Donna, our new friends from Atlanta.

The name of the captain of the Exxon Valdez was Joseph Hazelwood.

The weather was a little better today as moved north a bit from Glacier Bay to Yakutat Bay. Yakutat Bay is the home Hubbard Glacier. Mighty impressive. No bright sun but the odd patch of blue sky. The face of Hubbard is 300+ feet high at the water line plus another 200 or so feet below the water. That’s a lot of ice. And we able to get very close – just 200-300 feet from the glacier as the ice in the bay wasn’t bad enough to deter getting close. We saw only one other cruise ship during our 90 minute stay near the glacier. A Carnaval ship was approaching as we left. While at the glacier, the ship did two complete 360º turns.

Approaching Hubbard Glacier from Inside Explorer’s Lounge

At Hubbard Glacier from An Outside Deck

More from Inside

And a Panorama or Two (click to enlarge)

Which is better – Glacier Bay or Hubbard Glacier? Well the weather was better here and Hubbard looked more like a glacier than the ones we saw in Glacier Bay. Still, it’s all mighty impressive. Here’s some opinion on the subject with some more good pictures in sunlight.

By the time we left Hubbard Glacier, it was time for lunch, reading, snacks, and an afternoon lecture on the indigenous people of Alaska. The weather cleared up nicely as we sailed. It was warm enough to sit on our balcony and read. The lecture was interesting and well attended.

Cocktails as usual in the Living Room Bar and dinner in the World Cafe buffet. We are now sailing north toward Valdez where we will dock tomorrow for some land time. See you then! (And thanks to everyone for the comments – all are read and appreciated.)

It rains a lot in Sitka (Tlingit: Sheetʼká; Russian: Ситка). So they say. Everyone thanked us for bringing sunshine and blue skies. We had breakfast, as usual, in the World Cafe. Their scrambled eggs are great as is their bacon. What more could one ask for? Tlingit, by the way, are one of the native people from this part of Alaska. As we got up in the morning, surprised by the blue skies, I took a few pictures from the ship as we neared Sitka.

Click on the galleries below to bring up scrollable windows with full size pictures – the gallery previews may show just thumbnails of the pictures. By the way, the pictures look much better on a tablet or a computer than they do on your phone. Just saying.

After breakfast it was onto the bus for a short but enjoyable excursion. We stopped on a neighboring island where I took some pictures of Sitka, which is situated on Baranof Island. (Sitka can only be reached by plane or boat – there are no roads connections to the rest of Alaska. All cars, busses, food, machinery, etc. comes in by barge.) The name Baranof is from the Russian ruler of Sitka, Alexander Andreyevich Baranov, back in the days before Alaska was sold to the US.

I also took a couple of panoramas from the same spot (click to enlarge them).

Next we stopped at the Sitka Community Center for a theatrical performance about the history of Sitka in song and dance. It was very well done, and we enjoyed it.

Then we walked around downtown. We stopped in a few gift shops, but we did no buying. We planned on stopping in at St. Michael’s Russian Orthodox Cathedral, but it was closed today. Damn Russians!

We did, however, decide to have lunch in Sitka. We chose the Coldwater Bar and Grill. Salmon BLT and beer for Elaine. Cod fish and chips and beer for me. Elaine loved her sandwich. Mine was good but not memorable. You can see I was wearing my Nordkapp hat from the northernmost point in Europe that I acquired on our Viking cruise in May.

Then we caught the shuttle back to the ship where we relaxed for the rest of the day. The picture of the eagle below is the only one we saw although the city is noted as being home to lots of eagles.

(Aside: the island on which Sitka is located has hundreds of brown bears, but no black bears. The island on which Ketchikan is located has hundreds of black bears, but no brown bears. Hhmmm, or maybe it’s the other way around – I didn’t take notes.)

I took a few photos with my phone as we were about to sail from the dock (which is located about five miles from Sitka center). Most of the photos are taken with my Sony RX100 V7. At dinner and occasionally other times I use my Pixel Pro 7 phone.

Dinner tonight was in Manfredi’s, the ships specialty (but included) restaurant. It’s Italian themed but is noted for its steak. Click to enlarge the menu

We ate next to a nice lady from Philadelphia who was dining alone. Her husband wasn’t feeling well. I had pasta something or other followed by rib eye steak f=Florentine style and ice cream. Elaine had Caprese salad followed by a risotto and no dessert. We had a great bottle of French wine. I forgot to take pictures of the main courses. After dinner drinks were in the Explorer’s Lounge and then bed.

Glacier Bay tomorrow. No port call. Rain is forecast. Be back tomorrow.

Lots of pictures today, so I’ll keep the words to a minimum. Our ship, the smallest, was one of four ships in Ketchikan for the day. But we arrived first and had the prime docking spot right at the center of town. The weather was basically cloudy all day with a dash of sunshine and splashes of rain.

Here are today’s ship pictures. They are in and just outside the Explorer Lounge on deck seven. I took them in the morning, so the bar is not set up as a bar. The bar opens at noon. It’s a beautiful venue for reading, relaxing, and watching the ocean as it’s right at the front of the ship. I found another Viking sheep picture. And there are Viking type artifacts mixed in among the books. There is no library per se on Viking ships, but there are bookshelves everywhere. There is also a small food counter here that specializes in Norwegian waffles. We haven’t tried it (or them) yet, but we will. You can go outside at the front of the lounge – great spot for pictures. The “fireplace” inside is virtual.

After breakfast and docking, we got off and walked about Ketchikan downtown. It is basically gift shops, bars, restaurants, and jewelry stores. We visited the museum and walked about Creek Street, a street of wooden walkways along a creek that is a salmon run. Lots of fish and seals in the creek which is more like a river. Lots of dead fish too. Not sure what’s up with that. The church that looks Russian Orthodox (maybe?) is actually Episcopalian, Guess what the Star House was? Like the fur jockstraps? And the trash can is probably the only trash can picture I will take in Alaska.

Approaching Ketchikan and Downtown Walkabout

The Tongass Historical Museum

The highlight is the skull and frame of Old Groaner that is described in one of the pictures.

Creek Street

Then we took our excursion for the day – a short bus ride to Saxman Native Village (Totem Park) which houses the largest collection of totem poles in the world. We saw a native dance exhibition and lots of totem poles. The guides were wonderful. Two women from the tour accepted the invitation to join in the dance. We demurred. The last two pictures are of a totem pole that was raised just last week. Elaine posed with two of performers. The downed totem pole in the picture before that new one is the oldest – over 130 years old (I think but maybe it’s even older.)

Then it was back to the ship for a late (2:45 pm) lunch at the pool bar – hamburgers, fries, and beers. Then reading and naps.

Cocktails at five in the Living Room where a pianist was playing. Dinner was in the World Cafe where we sat with a nice couple from Atlanta. After dinner it was off to Explorer Lounge where Elaine joined two other women and one of their husbands in a Name That Tune competition. I chatted up the other husband. The theme was classic rock and, alas, our team didn’t win. I recognized one of the fifteen tunes (Hotel California). Then tired and tipsy, we headed for bed.

First off, here’s a map of our cruise.

Today we are sailing the Inside Passage. No port today, but we have land on both sides of the ship most of the time. It’s quite beautiful. The seas are relatively calm, but we can tell we are on a ship. It’s not like the cruise in Norway when there was barely a ripple in the Norwegian Sea, the Barents Sea, and the North Sea. It was fogged in when we got up this morning, and the fog horn was blaring. But the sun has burned it off, and by 11:00 am it was quite pleasant. Elaine went for a walk on the Deck Two jogging path – four laps to a mile. I wandered around taking some ship pictures and random shots of the shoreline.

Click on the galleries below to bring up scrollable windows with full size pictures – the gallery previews may show just thumbnails of the pictures. By the way, the pictures look much better on a tablet or a computer than they do on your phone. Just saying.

Here’s a couple of pictures from our stateroom – 5088. Always good to have a shot of the toilet!

These pictures are from Deck One. (Viking Ships have ten decks – deck A and Decks one through nine.) The bar is the Living Room where we have our nightly pre-dinner cocktails. The two specialty restaurants are here as well – Manfredi’s (Italian but with a GREAT steak) and the Chef’s Table (set meals with rotating regional themes). Maybe I’ll make it to the treadmills in the gym someday.

Random shots on my walkabout.

Remember this old friend from our cruise in Norway in May?

Lunch was in the World Cafe, the very casual buffet style restaurant. I had BBQ flank steak with German potato salad and French bread. Very international of me. Elaine had delicious looking sea bream. We had beers and indulged in gelato for dessert. After a short nap, we headed to the Star Theater for a lecture on Russia’s conquest of Siberia and eventually Alaska. Russia ended its foray into North America by selling Alaska to the US in 1867 for $7.2 million (or $0.02 an acre), the famous Seward’s Folly. (Interestingly enough, the sale was approved by the US Congress by just one vote.) Russia really had no idea what they were selling to us and we had no idea what we were buying. After the lecture we went back to the room and sat out on the balcony for awhile. It was cool but not unpleasant. We have a complimentary bottle of champagne in the fridge, but we decided to save it for another day.

Cocktails were at 5:30 pm in the aforementioned Living Room Bar. We decided that dinner would be back in the casual World Cafe. They had delicious lamb chops as one of the choices. Amaretto was in the Explorer’s Lounge after dinner.

All-in-all, a very nice day in every regard. Early to bed after turning back the clock an hour as Alaska is one hour earlier than the US and Canadian west coast. There will be lots of clock turning back once we head out to the Aleutians and across the Pacific.

See you tomorrow from Ketchikan, Alaska.

Breakfast in the Fairmont Gold Club – good once again. Then it was time to get the suitcases ready to move to the ship. Fortunately, Fairmont has a complimentary service where their bellhops (do they still call them that?) come to the room and take your bags. They transport them to the Cruise Terminal baggage deposit area, so the next time we see them will be in our cabin on the ship. Oh, here’s a picture of our bathroom mirror at the Fairmont with a TV built into it with its own remote control. First time I ever saw that.

Embarkation on the Orion starts at 11:00 am. But its a bit more complicated than that. We cleared Canadian customs when landing at Vancouver Airport. Now at the cruise terminal we have to clear US customs because our next stop will be in Alaska. We went over to the terminal at 10:00 to start the process. We had short wait as the customs process doesn’t open until 10:30. The terminal is huge and there are three ships embarking today, so we wanted to beat the rush. We did, but there was still a lot of walking to get through US customs. Once complete boarding the Orion was a breeze. We were among the first twenty or so to board.

The cabins are not ready for occupancy until 1:00 pm. They are still being prepared after the previous travelers disembarked on the ship’s arrival at 7:00 am. So we had a couple of beers and some pizza in the Aquavit Bar at the World Cafe. At 1:00 pm exactly we went to our cabin for the onerous task of unpacking and the pleasant task of taking naps. Here’s a picture of the view from where we ate lunch. That’s the Vaandam docked in Vancouver. The “sails” to the left are part of Canada Place, Vancouver’s cruise terminal.

From our cabin balcony we watched Holland America’s Vaandam sail at 4:00 pm. Then we watched Princess Cruise’s Grand sail at 4:15 pm. There’s also a picture of a seaplane taking off. There is a seaplane airport that was visible from our hotel room, and there are constant takeoffs and landings. (Aside: we were on the that very Grand Princess back in the 1990’s on the second leg of three back-to-back cruises with our friends Tony and Kathleen. The sail from Oslo to Southampton was through a Force 10 Gale. Those were the roughest seas we ever encountered. It didn’t keep us out of the bars and restaurants, but we were amongst the few who were not hunkered down in their cabins.)

At 5:30(ish) we walked to the Living Room Bar for cocktails just as we set sail French rosé for Elaine; Grey Goose gimlets for me. There was a pleasant duo (young ladies) playing the piano and a bass violin. At 7:00 we adjourned to the Restaurant, the ship’s main dining room for a nice meal. I had a Caesar Salad followed by delicious sea bass. Blueberry layer cake for dessert. Elaine had duck confit for a starter and some vegetarian dish (yuch!) for her main (she loved it, of course!) and ice cream for dessert. Good meal. Forgot pictures of the mains. Then it was off to the Explorer Lounge at the bow of the ship for after-dinner Amaretto’s. Then bed.

Sorry, no ship pictures. But it’s identical to the ship we were on in Norway in May. I’ll take some snaps tomorrow and as we continue to sail up to Alaska and on to Japan.

Stay tuned.

Weather predicted: mostly cloudy with high of 67º. Actual weather: mostly sunny with high of 76º. We had breakfast in the Fairmont Waterfront Gold Club. Nice layout with great bacon. After breakfast we walked around the Vancouver Cruise Port and observed the docked Ruby Princess. It sails at 5 pm tonight on a round trip to Hawaii. Our ship, the Viking Orion is due in port at 7 am tomorrow morning where it will be joined by the Grand Princess and the Holland America Lines Zaandam.

Right in the Cruise Terminal is the very popular Fly Over Canada attraction, so we signed up for the first (virtual) flight at 10:00 am. It was great fun! All the pictures just below are from that virtual flight where you fell the pitch and roll of the plane and feel the spray of the waterfalls and snow. Imagine we’re in a jet taking pictures as we fly over the land.

Then we walked about four blocks down the road to the Gastown area of Vancouver and observed the famous steam clock (the world’s first). The clock was steaming as usual, but it was also 15 minutes slow. There are a few pics from the Gastown area and a fire truck for my friend Bob.

Next we boarded the hop-on hop-off bus for a ride around Vancouver. We did the whole circuit and got off only once, at Granville Market where we had a delicious lunch at the Vancouver Fish Company. Our wait was Marty who lives half the year in Scottsdale where he works as a waiter at Veneto Trattoria (at Scottsdale Road and MacDonald). Small world. We split a pitcher of Red Truck Amber Ale. (We saw their truck on the way in.) I had six oysters followed by a lobster and shrimp roll with fries. Elaine had halibut fish and chips. Good food.

Then it was back on the HOHO bus to take use back to Canada Place and our hotel for relaxation and eventually cocktails and snacks. After the big lunch that sufficed for tonight’s dinner.

And we’re off to Canada, Alaska, Japan, and Hawaii. 30 days of fun. Today we flew from Sky Harbor (PHX) to Vancouver (YVR) on an Air Canada Bombadier 900 CRJ. It’s a nice small plane. We got a nice meal in first class (unlike the practically inedible food we had in American Airlines business class to and from London). Smooth flight, arrived on time. Our driver was awaiting and took us through pretty heavy traffic to our hotel, the Fairmont Waterfront which is right across the street from where our cruise will board on Wednesday. We have a beautiful suite with a great view. And the temperature is a glorious 69º! Bye Bye 100+!

We had drinks and appetizers in the hotel club which has a beautiful roof garden. We enjoyed the food and didn’t have too much trouble fending off the one sea gull and two crows who were looking for dinner.

A bit later on we went out for a walk and to took for someplace for dinner. We choose a restaurant but left after waiting twenty minutes after being seated without seeing a wait person. Instead we went to the very upscale Riley’s Restaurant practically next door to the hotel. It was grand! Great food, great service. Love the “Wall of Wine”. We shared calamari for an appetizer. I had their signature Steak Frites while Elaine enjoyed scallops. It was all accompanied by a rather delicious bottle of British Columbia pinot noir. (When in BC, . . . ) No dessert.

And then it was home to bed. One picture on the way back.