Ketchikan, Saturday, Sept 23

Last night the fog horn sounded off and on and it was thick as pea soup. We love the sound of the water and the horn so we turned off the AC and opened the door. Absolute bliss!!

Ketchikan is named for Ketchikan Creek which flows through the town. The area near the mouth of the creek developed a bad reputation during the first half of the 20th century. It became a red light district with brothels lining either side of the creek. As the saying goes...Creek Street, “Where men and salmon go up stream to spawn!”  Now it is an interesting historic district with a salmon stream running through it. Ketchikan also has the largest number of standing totem poles found through out the city. There are four sites where one can see totem poles but many are recarvings of earlier poles. The Totem Heritage Center displays preserved 19th century poles rescued from abandoned village sites near Ketchikan.

We arrive in Ketchikan at 7AM to pouring rain. No surprise...it seems to always rain at least for awhile when we visit here.  We have a lazy morning with our usual Eggs Benedict in the restaurant for breakfast. Carolyn gets the blog for the first two days written.

It is about 11AM when we give up on the rain letting up. We bundle up in our rain proof gear and walk around. It isn’t cold just wet. According to the Visitor Center this is the wettest year since the early 1950's. But, it hasn’t beaten the all time record of 204.5 inches for one year, yet!

Dick needs some glue to fix a small plastic part that broke and we want to walk over to Creek Street. It is the famous Red Light district of old, now just a fun tourist area. We like to see what is swimming in the creek. Today there is a juvenile harbor seal lolling around the rocks beside the bridge.  Of course there are salmon and several gulls feasting on dead salmon.

For future information there is a free shuttle that stops at various stops near downtown, including one near the Visitors Center.  You can get a map at the Visitors Center. It takes less than an hour to make the loop. We walk to Creek Street and ride the shuttle back to the ship. A good choice to get around to the in town sites.  We also learn there is a Silver Line Bus that is $2 per person that goes out to the end of the road in both directions and gets you to the totem pole park and other outlying sites.

We get off the shuttle at the dock and make one last stop for a Jack pin at a tourist shop beside the ship and then head to the ship to dry out. Carolyn spends the last 45 minutes before sail-away posting, getting the blog up to date and checking her email while she has access to Dick’s cell phone “hot spot.” We have some free internet, but haven’t logged on to it yet. Sail-away is in the rain and fog so we decide to go to Seabourn Square for some hot chocolate and a light lunch.  Seabourn Square is our favorite space on the Seabourn ships.

Books and food in hand we find two recliners and settle in, front and center facing the rear windows. After a couple of hours of napping and reading we head back to the room to get dressed for dinner and then go to the Observation Lounge for cocktails. The lounge is crowded tonight.

It is a Japanese theme in all the restaurants tonight. The Colonnade is offering lobster tempura, Carolyn’s favorite.  So we go there right when they open. Good timing as it fills up very fast. Fortunately, they have the record of Carolyn’s allergy to soy and are willing to make a special main dish size of the tempura and stir-fry vegetables without any soy, so she has Caesar salad and tempera. Dick has the full meal deal with Sushi, Miso soup and Teppanyaki style beef tenderloin. We finish off the very good meal with chocolate pots, YUMMMMM.

Well, we are definitely not night owls. It is 20 minutes to 9 and we are in bed.. Too much good food and wine!

Tomorrow Sitka at 8AM.