29 May 2026
Good morning, inner passage!
We’re still en route to Ketchikan
We’ve still got a ways to go, so we ate some breakfast then hung out on our balcony:
Eventually, civilization started showing back up:
Including 2 not-so-well-hidden cruise ships:
I appreciate that there are 2 airports here:
Look at the little planes!
Dry dock:
I wonder how many of those shipping containers contain vehicles:
Our 3 friends were waiting for us:
We’re usually asleep or at breakfast when we get to dock, so it was fun watching the process:
Building our gangway:
Guys, I promise I know how to work a ship toilet. I’ve been using them successfully for years. But I broke ours, again:
(Gross, but I promise the chunks did not come from me)
This time it just kept filling and filling and filling until it overflowed. So I found our room steward, who called maintenance and told me he’d get everything cleaned up. Definitely going to tip him well!
Fortunately there are public bathrooms near enough to our room, we’ll be off the ship for most of the day and we just got the OK to disembark:
That’s a lot of ropes on our ship!
Misty Fjords & Wilderness Explorer Cruise
Meet our next boat!
We’ll be spending the day cruising around Misty Fjords National Wilderness, but we made the mistake of sitting on the same side of our table and another family joined us:
Fortunately, they moved shortly after we left dock and we quickly redistributed and took our table back!
Coffee/hot chocolate and donuts!
We absolutely lucked out with the weather- look at those blue skies!
I mean, maybe not the vibes the Misty Fjords are going for, but…
Hey look- mist!
This is the remains of an old volcanic eruption:
They told us that normally they can’t see the top of this mountain!
We navigated away from the mist:
Toward gorgeous blue skies:
Pictures do not do this place justice!
I like how the trees just end partway up:
The white stone along the shoreline isn’t salt- it’s granite!
We found a seal!
Isn’t she cute!?
Another peak that isn’t usually visible:
See that black blob?
That’s a bear!!!
Isn’t he cute just sitting there!? He was pretty far away, so I couldn’t get a great shot, but I’m pretty happy with this one 🙂
I like this stripy rock:
Heading back toward Ketchikan:
The waves picked up a bit, but the captain deemed seas calm enough to let us up into the wheelhouse for a tour:
This boat started its life in the 80s as a ferry, and moved around a bit before coming back to Alaska and running these tours. She can reach speeds of like 40-50 knots, but is limited to 26kt by the company. Probably a prudent choice as it’s usually pretty foggy here.
Back on shore, we went for a walk and I found this fish bench!
Welcome to Creek Street:
A row of super-cute houses on stilts!
This was one of the few “must see” things on my list:
I wish the water was still- these pictures would look so much better with actual reflections:
A very ornate fish bench!
Our ship absolutely dwarfs the rest of the boats in this marina:
Farewell, Ketchikan:
Hello, inner passage:
After dinner, our routine has been to settle in for a movie- we’re partway through the Mission Impossible series, which I’ve seen, but Matt hasn’t, so I can half listen but mostly watch out the window for whales and mountains. Tonight’s movie included mini stroopwafels:
No whales tonight:
Onward, toward Vancouver:
