June 29, 1996

It hardly has any staterooms, so people just sleep where ever they can. They have a solarium on the stern of the upper deck. It's enclosed on 3 sides, and is heated. There is an open observation deck on the back of that, and you can even set up tents there. So we had a choice campsite on the end of the boat! That's our tent in the foregournd. It was very windy, though, and there was no way to tie the thing down, so we got lots of stuff from the truck to weight it down. It turned out to be a nice place to sleep.

The ferry's like a Greyhound bus or Southwest Airlines on the water. This is a strange assortment of people... or, more appropriately, an assortment of strange people. One guy named Mike from Colorado, who is about 4'11" at the most, with real long hair and a beard. He yammers incessantly. He insists that Clay, who is from Arizona, was on the bus to Bellingham with him. Says Clay claimed his bag was lost and got off in Boise. Clay vehemently denies it, and also yammers incessantly. The "high rollers" and old folks are in the staterooms. I'm glad we are with the masses. Just to revel in the weirdness.

The scenery is great... there are several of hot young babes here, hoping to find cannery jobs for the summer! And I talked to one blonde who is working on a Ph.D. in biomedical technology at Rennaslaer. Her boyfriend was not nearly as interesting. And he certainly wasn't interested in me! Ha!

Oh yeah, the people (Harlan and Denise) who were in the parking lot next to us were musicians that had a 6 month gig at a bar in Ketchiikan. They start Monday, so we won't get a chance to hear them play unless we stay an extra day.

The night went well... after the sun finally went down about 11:00. A mite windy when I went to bed, but it let up after that. The trip through the inside passage has been spectacular so far. Evergreen covered mountains on either side of the passage, and sparkling blue water... like someone spilled a huge box of 1000 flushes! Ha! But, the passage through Queen Charlotte Sound was pretty rough. JT got a little nauseous. I'm glad we don't have much more open water to cross. I guess she is too!

We have met so many people already that it's hard to remember them all. The guy from Houston who caught a 9 foot sturgeon in the Columbia River. A huge lumberjack guy going up to work in Ketchikan. Bob, with long grayish hair and a longer beard, who is going to work in the cannery in Ketchikan (he works there every year). And various other crazies and weirdos. Everyone is very friendly... sometimes too friendly. It would be nice to sit and just enjoy the scenery for a change.

What are the two things you don't want to hear on the PA system?

1. "Ladies and Gentlemen, there is a German shepherd loose on the car deck." Yes, it was Juneau. She has to stay in the truck, and they won't let you on the car deck but 3 times a day for 15 mintues each time. She got through the night ok. But after we visited her, she got apparently got lonely. We had opened the window on the camper a little so she could get some air, and she ripped the screen off, pushed the window open and was running loose. We got her back and closed the window. The window between the cab and camper is open, so she will get plenty of air.

2. "Ladies and Gentlemen, rain and gale force winds are expected tonight." The tent was soaked by mid-afternoon, and the wind was picking up. We packed things up and begin making alternative plans for accommodations.

Even though we got Juneau back in the truck ok, at the next car deck call, she had chewed through the antenna cable on my cell phone and the light cables to the brake lights on the back of the camper. We were not happy campers! But on the next trip down, the damage was less severe. She only ripped up some carpet from our carefully hand-crafted turf carpet floor. Thank god we're almost there.

JT and I ended up "sleeping" in one of the lounges in the vacinity of Denise and Harlan. I'm sure no boats came near us in the night, as there was some guy snoring like a fog horn next to us. Actually he would have drowned out a fog horn. Jason was partying with John and Clay, both of whom had bottles. He stayed on the solarium. I woke up every hour or so, wondering if it was 4:00 yet... we docked at 5:00.

June 30, 1996

Well, we arrived on time and under budget in Ketchikan. Finally in Alaska! We hit the store immediately after unloading. Prices were not as bad as I expected... only slightly higher than home. We couldn't get fishing licenses there, though. But they said we could get them at the Ward Cove store. We were heading for Ward Lake anyway, so that was fine with us. Several of the locals we met on the ferry had told us to stay at Ward Lake. Turns out the Ward Cove store didn't have licenses either and we had to go 4 more miles up the road. We paid through the nose to fish those Alaskan waters, but we are legal now. The license was $50, but the salmon stamp was $35. I guess 85 bucks is not bad for the tons of fish we are certain to catch. Ha!

There had been a deluge in Ketchikan the day before we got there, and the Ward Lake was too full for us to fish. Spent most of the day drving around the Ketchikan area. First we went up to Lake Harriet Hunt, where the store clerk told us we might catch some rainbows, but we had no luck there. We looked for a river that was shown on our map, but it was on a private road and we couldn't get in. Finally we went back to Ward Lake, tried to fish a little, but to no avail. We did see some guys catching some salmon, though, but they had chest waders and it was too deep for our hip boots. So we went to bed fishless on our first day in Alaska.