June 18, 2017

The first order of business was to go back to sleep. We had a late and lazy morning catching up with showers and email etc. It was beautiful and sunny and warm again today, so we decided we had better take the most advantage of it we could and go walk around outside! We headed out around 11:30 or so and walked up to the bus stop at the mall. The city provides a free "hop on hop off" bus throughout the downtown area and this marina is at the far western end. We showed up with Bella in Greg's arms and they had no problems with us bringing her on the bus.

It was a "3 cruise ship day" in town and so it was quite crowded. We looked for a "local" coffee shop and were directed to "Frickin Chicken" (yes, really) and we had coffee and bagels for lunch in a lovely patio. Then in was time for a walk. So we walked over to the Creek Street area and walked the boardwalk and looked in the windows of all the shops. Then walked up to the Totem Heritage Center and down to the Fish Hatchery (not open yet) and did the basic walking tour of Ketchikan.

It was 3:30 by the time we made it back into town. It was now a ghost town! One cruise ship had already left and the other 2 ships were "preparing" to leave so all the passengers needed to be on board already. A lot of shops were closed, sidewalks rolled up. We watched while one of the cruise ships was waiting to go, but were still missing two people. The local agent and port security were scouring the area looking for anyone who looked like they were to be on board. Eventually found, we watched the cruise ship leave the dock. Big thrusters moved it sideways into the channel, and then it was able to motor northward. The other cruise ship needed to turn around before it could go northward and we thought it would be fun to watch that, but it apparently waited much longer than we wanted to.

Took the bus back to the boat for 5:00, fed the dog and grabbed a bite, and then headed back out again. There is a race called "Race 2 Alaska" (www.r2ak.com) which is a "no motor" race from Port Townsend, WA to Ketchikan. Human and wind powered vessels only. Winner get's $10,000 and second place get's a set of steak knives. We've seen some of the vessels in previous years of cruising, but this year we are at the finish line. The winner came into Ketchikan on Thursday, the day before we got here. But vessels are still arriving. Although the race is planned out of Port Townsend, Ketchikan has decided to "own" the 2nd place prize. And they had an open "block party" tonight in celebration of all the people who participated. It was free and they had music by Ray Troll and the Batfish Wranglers. Ray Troll is a pretty famous artist and I like his images, so we thought it would be fun to see what his "band" sounds like.

Back on the bus into town to the "logging show" venue. The set totally reminded me of the old PNE logging show we would go to as kids with a pool with logs in it that people would stand on, big stumps that they would climb up etc etc. They had some talks and some rah rah stuff, and then the band. Just after we got there, they had a "special guest" who started the set which a spectacular version of "Major Tom", and then they did a bunch of rock cover stuff including Prince, and then some original stuff which was more folk. It was fun, and as I said to Greg, regardless of the music, the whole event got a 9.5 out of 10 on the people watching scale.

Bus had stopped running by the time we left, so we had to walk back. It's about 1.5 miles apparently, but it didn't take long. The evening was still nice and warm. We got back to the boat around 8:00 and watched the rest of the movie that we didn't finish the night before. (It was just OK).