A Day in the Life of your Dock Rep

I have been writing about what Dan does; flying the Misty Fjords tours, the George Inlet Lodge Crab Feasts, and freight. But, as I look back over the blog postings, I see that I haven't really explained fully what I do.

I work for Experience Alaska Tours and the George Inlet Lodge. We book three kinds of tours with the different ships that come through Ketchikan. We have the Wilderness Exploration and Crab Feast and the Exclusive Flightseeing and Crab Feast. Sometimes we call them something a little different depending on which ship we are dealing with.The Wilderness is also known as the George Inlet Cruise & Crab Feast (as seen here) and the Exclusive is also known as the Mountaintop Flightseeing & Crab Feast. We have our own shortened terms; Wilderness is a drive/drive and Exclusive is either a drive/fly or a fly/drive. Let me explain the differences. Drive/drive: "Welcome to Ketchikan and Thank You for booking your tour with us. xxx is your bus driver and he will be taking you out to the George Inlet Lodge where you will walk down 79 steps to the lodge. And the really fun part is, when you are finished, you get to walk those 79 steps back up to the road to catch your bus back to town. Once you get to the Lodge you will board a nice new boat that is fully enclosed with lots of windows. It is heated and also has a bathroom on board. You will take an hour and a half tour on the boat where you will learn how to catch crabs. Then back at the lodge you will go into the dining room for All You Can Eat Dungenous Crab! (here everyone cheers) So, is everyone having crab today? We also offer chicken or vegetarian pasta". (Most everyone has the crab and I tell them that's good because I hear the chicken tastes just like crab - lots of laughter).

Meeting the passengers

I'm giving the speech to the drive/drive group

I've got them in stitches, they're having fun

Bye Bye! Eat lots of crab

The drive/fly and the fly/drive are the same tour, just reversed of each other. The first group goes out via bus (they get the first part of my speech), is shown to a private dining room where they have drinks, hors d'oeurves and all the crab they can eat. When they are finished, they board a Taquan deHaviland Beaver for a flight seeing trip back to Ketchikan. Meanwhile, the fly/drive group boards a Taquan van, goes out to Taquan, gets on a deHaviland Beaver for a flight seeing trip out to the George Inlet Lodge (then they get the similar speech as the other group). So the planes go out with passengers and come back with different passengers. (none of these people get the boat trip)

But first, I check with each ship's ShoreEx (Shore Excursion Officer) to make sure the number of passengers on the tours are correct. I also check with the Transportation Managers from the bus company to get which bus is mine.

            This is a ShoreEx, Janis (in red) and Transportation Manager, Estella (in blue). That's me in yellow.........

Laura and me

For the fly/drive, etc tours, we have to manifest the people. We get their names and body weights for the Taquan pilots. They need that information for weight and balance on the airplane. This is a tricky part as some of the people are going north, just starting out on their vacation, but some of the people are going south, finishing up a week of cruise ship eating, and no one is really quite sure how much, exactly, they weigh. I have them give me a good estimate. It's fun when I have a group of 2 or 3 couples. First I get the husbands weights, then send them off to the bus or van, out of ear-shot of their wives. The ladies like to whisper their weights in my ear. One crafty hubby thought he'd sneak around behind me to peek at the manifest, but I had it covered up! This is a picture of Laura, who works for Spirit of  Alaska, a Taquan company. She takes the manifest and texts the information in to Taquan so the pilots have that information ahead of time and are all ready for their passengers.

Mostly I work in the rain. This day it threatened rain all day (note the rain coat and pink rubber boots in previous picture). And when it is cloudy and windy it can get quite cold down on the docks. But when the sun is out and the wind is calmer, it can get down right warm. Well, but that doesn't happen that often.

We do have fun. The ShoreEx on the Coral Princess always has some kind of contest every other week up and down the inside passage. This week was "Sash Week". That's Peter and me displaying our sashes. His sash is made from the touring tickets. At least when he holds a contest, he joins in. He also has a regular newsletter that he emails us with all the cruising goings on. It's really funny as he is from New Zealand and has a different sense of humor. Here are some pictures of the Ketchikan Dock Reps in their sashes:

I'm with Candi (my boss) Our sashes say "Miss Crab Feast"

Candi and I made our sashes that morning between tours. It says "Miss Crab Feast" on hers (although it slipped off her shoulder) and mine has an embroidered crab in place of the word "Crab". Around the embroidered crab it says, "To Taste Me Is To Love Me". We're so clever. We also are wearing tiaras with rhinestones and pink boa feathers, while holding wands that twirl and light up.

This is Jill from the Lumber Jack show. That's a fish on her head and she is holding the axe that the dock reps hold to identify themselves. She was waaay decked out.

Candi, Peter, ??, Monique

Amber, Spirit of Alaska

Joyce, Spirit of Alaska

Derrick (the Aleutian Ballad crab boat tours), me, Peter

Well, that threatening rain finally got here. And it was a downpour. It rained like this for the next 4 or 5 days. Yesterday (6.21.2011) it was a downpour all day. That's okay, when you are a dock rep you have to be prepared for any weather.