Another Rainy Day in Ketchikan

This was a typical rainy day in Ketchikan. There was only one ship in port on this particular Saturday. It was the Silver Shadow - a very exclusive ship. It is an all inclusive cruise where tickets can be as high as $10,000 each. All the excursions are included, and all the passengers have to do is pick which tour they want to go on. But it looks like there isn't going to be many tours today. My only tour is a fly/fly. They fly out to eat crab, then fly back when they are finished. These exclusive ships are the only ones we offer the fly/fly.

Dan had to report for work as usual, at 6:30am. I dropped him off and then decided to run back home to get my camera. My tour wasn't supposed to leave until 11:30am so I figured I had a lot of time to wander in the rain before I had to go back and get ready for work.

This was a pretty nasty morning. The ship had just tied up about a half an hour ago, but nobody was out and walking around the town. In fact, there weren't even any bus or tour people out. I suspected tours would not be happening today.

The Silver Shadow was at Berth 2. This is a picture of the end of Berth 1, with the ship just behind me. We are looking out South toward Mountain Point and beyond is George Inlet. Although the weather may look a little lighter, it was really no better.

I decided to head out South. My main goal, you see, was to see if I could spot any whales - ever my quest.

But first, I would go up the by-pass road which gets you past the docks and into town by our apartment.

This is the road, as it goes up the mountain. Notice the water falls. When it isn't raining, there is no water falling out of the rock. This is just a little sample of how much water was moving off the mountain this day.

Here I am at the top, looking down at the harbor from Schoenbar Road. In the winter, they close the road because it is too steep to go up or down. There is a regular gate that they swing across the road so no one drives on it. I don't know if you can tell from this picture, but it is very, very steep. The first time I took Dan on this road he couldn't believe it - and that was going UP! You should have seen his face on the DOWN drive.  :-)

On my way out South I stopped at Rotary Park. There is a beach there where, on a hot (well, warm) sunny day (last June, I believe) everyone goes to swim and sun themselves. Nobody there today...........

Here are a couple more views from the beach looking out into the Tongass Narrows. That's Pennock Island to the right with Gravina Point behind it.

Turning just to the left we see Annette Island. I am just north of Mountain Point. I'd heard that there had been many whales sighted here before. But I'm thinking that today I'm not going to be too lucky to see one. It is very peaceful here anyway. It's so early on a Saturday morning that no one is up and around, especially with only one ship in.

I drove out past Mountain Point and on to Herring Cove. That's where the Alaska Canopy Adventures with Zip Lines and the Rainforest Sanctuary are located. You can see from this picture why they call it a Rainforest. That is mist coming up out of the trees. And if you look close, or zoom in on the picture you can see the zip lines at the bottom of the picture.






By this time I'd gotten a call from Candi officially telling me that Taquan had cancelled our flight. That made it official - I had the day off. Then Dan called and told me they had ramped the airplanes, so he also had the day off. I told him I would head back into town and pick him up. When I got to Taquan, we decided to go explore out North again. Only this time we had a rainy day to explore in.

We headed up Tongass Highway and when we came to Point Higgins Road, I'd told Dan that some of my friends had gone there on those last nice days. We turned in and found the Point Higgins Park and Beach. We parked the car, grabbed the camera and our rain gear and headed in through the trees toward the ocean.

It was absolutely beautiful. The canopy from the trees kept the heavy rain off of us as we made our way toward the ocean. There were small openings in between the tree trunks where there were areas of small fire pits. But once we reached the beach, there was evidence that there obviously had been some really good-sized bonfires.

We explored along the beach a little bit. However, the wind and rain was so strong, we didn't explore too long. I was hoping to come upon some over-looked sea glass, or other wonderful treasure. I'm sure that the beach is not remote enough to find anything interesting.

I did come away with a pretty little piece of drift wood, though. But I was ready to get going. The rain was starting to come down harder, and you can tell from the picture that the wind was blowing pretty good. I wouldn't mind coming back here at a later date.

So, we turned around to leave. Then we heard this little boat. Between the wind and the current, I couldn't believe that he could make any headway. He must have been at full throttle. He sure was kicking up some spray.

A quick stop at Knutson Cove to watch a fishing boat go by.


Oh well, nothing happening out here. We may as well head on home. Maybe we could make some hot chocolate when we get home and dry out.