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.

George Inlet Lodge's Boat Tour Around Revillagigedo; 6.8.2011

The George Inlet Lodge has a new boat that we use for the Wilderness Sightseeing and Crab Feast tour. We go to a nature estuary where they pull up crab pots to show the guests how they catch the crabs that the guests will later eat. They all get a chance to hold or touch a live Dungenous crab. I talked about this in a previous blog. Anyway, they would also like to use the boat for special sightseeing trips that go around the entire Revilla Island.

So, the owners invited all the employees from the four lodges that they own; The George Inlet Lodge, The Cedars Lodge, The Clover Pass Lodge and the Silverking Lodge. This was sort of a practice run to see how long it would take and what different sights they could go to. All in all it took 12 hours. That included boating into the Misty Fjords where we had a box lunch and then stopping at the Silverking Lodge for a Seafood Boil, before ending where we began, at the Cedars Lodge.

 
The Lodge had this boat built to their specifications. I'm guessing that it is about 40 to 50 feet in length, holds about 62 passengers and has 3 diesel engines. I can't remember what the horse power is, but I do know that they burn 13 gallons per hour - each. And we could go about 26 knots per hour. It is all enclosed but with lots of windows, is heated and has a bathroom (with a marine-flush potty).

We were able to invite spouses, so, as it was Dan's day off he was able to go along with me. I'm sure it would be cool to see, from sea level, the sights that he normally sees from between 500 feet to 2 thousand feet.

Somebody brought doughnuts. Yum!

 

 

As I said, we started out from the Cedars Lodge about 9am, although they had asked us to arrive at 7:45am. We headed southeast from Ketchikan between Pennock Island, past Mountain Point and along the side of Bold Island. That's Bold Island in the picture on the right. As we headed around Point Alva and into the Behm Canal, the water was more open, so it was a little rougher. But the catamaran hull of the boat took it very well.

Bold Island

Bow spray from plowing through swells

Once in the Behm Canal we passed Rudyard Island on our left, Point Nelson and Smeaton Bay on the right and Smeaton Island on the left. And the water was calmer in the narrower canal. We were coming up to New Eddie Stone Rock, across from Ella Bay.

I have told you about New Eddie Stone Rock in previous blogs. It is the core of an extinct volcano whose sides were stripped away by glaciers. There are trees that have grown out of the rock, and there is an eagle's nest in the top of the tallest tree. The eagle was in the nest as we passed by, but my camera could not get a good picture.

New Eddie Stone Rock

Some of the gang

The big guy is Kirk Thomas, one of the owners

Just after Eddie Stone, we turned right around Point Louise and into Rudyard Bay. Another quick right and we headed into Punchbowl Cove where that 3,000 foot granite wall is what you see on the Mist Fjord Flightseeing Tour. We are now in the Misty Fjords. I have seen it many times from the air when I have ridden along with Dan on a Misty tour, but never from this vantage point. I know that it looks big from the air, but, man it is huge from sea level!

We came out of Punchbowl Cove and turned right back into Rudyard Bay, past Nooya Lake and up into the head of Rudyard Bay. This is where we were going to have our lunch. And it couldn't have been a better, more beautiful location.

It was so peaceful and quiet. And it was a great time to also get to know all the employees from the different lodges. Some of the people I have only spoken to on the phone, so it was great to put a face and name to a voice.

l to r: Jayne, Amanda, Katie, Tess

Jayne, me, Wanda

Time to get going again. We headed back into the Behm Canal going toward Walker Cove. Of course there was plenty of time for some cutting up and goofing around with our new friends.

Jayne is trying to keep balanced with her eyes shut and Wanda and I don't think she can do it. Or is she just nuts standing there with her eyes closed on a very fast moving boat?

I am taking a picture of Jayne taking a picture of Michael taking a picture of the breath-taking scenery..................I'm getting dizzy.............

Asako (center) is singing and entertaining (from left) Tess, Amanda, Jayne and Bob. That's Carstens coming in the door. He is Trish's (not pictured) husband. Trish is owner of George Inlet Lodge and Experience Alaska Tours (who I work for). Hope you got all that, there will be a test at the end.

Michael is taking pictures of Bailey Falls

Our next beautiful site was Bailey Falls. Of course we had to stop and take a ton of pictures. I took pity on you and only included one. The rest look just like this one, except from different angles. But seriously, Bailey Falls are just gorgeous, as you can see. They are big now because of snow-melt run-off. The fact that we have had a lot of rain probably helps as well. Later in the year they are much smaller, so we were lucky to have seen them now.

Just a little way past the falls, along the shore line, we came upon a bunch of seals sunning themselves. We tried to get as close as we could to them without spooking them. We didn't want to disturb them and we didn't want them to slip back into the water. The white one did lift his head to take a look at us. He must have determined that we were not a threat.
(if you double click on the picture, it will zoom in on the seals)

Our next right turn took us into Walker Cove. Ryan, our boat captain had a very good eye. He spotted this bear on the shore and quietly motored into the cove to get close enough to clearly see him, but not so close as to scare him away. He was eating the tasty new grasses and only looked up at us occasionally. When we got too close for his comfort, he kept looking up at us, turned, and eventually walked back into the forest.

You get a really good look at his face if you zoom way in

Bye bye Mr. Bear

Time to get a move on or we would be late for our Seafood Boil at the Silverking Lodge. So it was back into the Behm Canal and a quick run up to Point Wahley. We turned left at Point Wahley then right into Anchor Pass. Here the canal gets narrower. Ryan slowed down a bit. Even though it was narrow, it was still quite deep. It was amazing being so close to both shorelines.Bell Island was on our right, and we turned left into Bell Arm. We were going to go around three sides of Bell Island. On the end of the island is Bell Island Hot Springs Resort. Or, what used to be the resort. It was built in the 1970s and was the swankiest resort around. It was sold a couple of times and the most recent owners just let it go to ruin. That is quite a shame as it probably was beautiful in its day.

If you squint real hard, you can see the resort behind Jayne

We were really going to have to get a move on it. We were supposed to get to Silverking by 5:45pm. So we booked it and were unable to stop in at Neets Bay were there are supposed to be a lot of bears. We also had to by-pass Traitors Cove where I went bear viewing last time we were up here. Past Traitors Cove the canal opens up a bit. Something caught our eye out in the canal on the right. It was long and dark and looked like a whale on the surface. As we got closer, we saw that it was much bigger than a whale. Much, much bigger as we realized that it was a Trident Nuclear submarine! The Behm Canal in that area is over 1,000 feet deep. The navy has a testing facility there where they bring in their nuclear subs to test how quiet they are. They try to get them to be very, very quiet. Then the navy records their signature sound, sends it to the fleet so that the sub can be identified. We couldn't get close enough for good pictures, but the picture below is the best I could do. You might be able to zoom in to see it.

We turned into Grant Island where the Silverking Lodge is located. We were only about 10 minutes late. Practically on time. The lodge is pretty neat. There is a large carving, out of a dead tree, of an old sailor holding a lantern. In fact there are a lot of carvings around the lodge. One of their guests, who was a competitive chainsaw carver, carved a new statue every time he came there.

While we waited for the seafood boil, we were invited to walk along their boardwalk to go see the largest hemlock tree in Alaska. The walk alone was just beautiful. But then we came upon that massive tree. It really was huge! So, of course, with this bunch, we all hammed it up for pictures.

Laura, Asako (center), Mary Ann

Benjy

 

This tree is really big. This is no trick photography.

Wanda

 

 

The dinner was ready for us. And just in time, too, as we were back from our walk and really hungry. We couldn't wait to get our hands on that food. And get our hands on it we did. There were no plates, nor utensils. They covered the tables with heavy duty plastic and then newspapers. And everything was finger food. There was crab (Dungenous of course), large shrimp, clams, mussels, pearl onions, garlic cloves, baby red potatoes, andouille sausage, and small corn on the cob. It was deeelicious!!

What a feast!

How much can you eat?? Trish (owner of George Inlet Lodge)

This is Kirk Thomas with Dan. He wrote a children's book about Grandpa being a bush pilot. Of course you know we just had to get one for Karynn and one for Thomas and Colin. He also is a partner in all four lodges plus he leases two turbine otters to Promech (Taquan's competitor). He's a really nice guy - very down to earth.

Dinner is over, our tummys are full. And it is time to get back to Ketchikan. By the time we got back to the Cedars Lodge, it was 9pm.; twelve hours later. Dan and I slept very well that night.