Day 3 Ketchikan - Sunday 15th June Father's Day

Day 3

Ketchikan

Sunday 15th June – Father’s Day

Ketchikan is the salmon capital of the world, Totem capital of the world and the rainiest place in North America!!  Average rainfall is 162 inches.  The locals call it ‘liquid sunshine’ not so sure of that!  Ok so this won’t surprise you then that it was tipping down, puddles everywhere on deck when I went up to take some photographs at 5.15am to see us approaching port.  And as for Father’s Day we forgot to get a card and present for Colin, woops!! 

 

 

 

Oh yeah, it's Sunday!!

 

Here we are nearly at port

 

Don’t look now but I think there is a cruise ship following us!!

 

Raining, raining and raining!!!

 

Not many people up on deck at this time of the morning

 

Front Street in Ketchikan  (reminds us of Front Street in Bermuda the yellow building in Bermuda was Triminghams store!)

 

The view at the other side of the ship

 

I still think that cruise ship is following us ha ha!!

 

A road right in the middle of the forest!

 

Now we are turning round to dock

 

Our view from our table at breakfast

 

Here is the cruise ship that has been following us!

 

Holy Moly!!!  I really don’t think this cruise ship likes us it is heading straight for us eeek, RUN or maybe more appropriate JUMP!!!!!!!

 

Up the steep gangway from our ship, view from the lifts on board

 

As you can tell it is RAINING!!!  We have been so lucky on our adventures but today not so but we are in the rainiest place in the USA just like Fort William is to Scotland or maybe even the UK I’m not sure!

 

So glad we are not the kayakers (those two little dots in the middle) in the photo that just wouldn’t be pleasurable at all

 

All aboard sign and also a reflection of us hee hee!!

 

Awh how cute all the famous things about Alaska, bears, totem poles and M&M’s?????

 

Really a hat from Alaska I don’t think so!!

 

We are off and our view of the ship from port

 

Here we are in Ketchikan, soggy Ketchikan but we have a Lumberjack show to get to so let’s get going!

 

Front Street, view from land!

 

The famous archway in Ketchikan

 

How cute Amy using Colin’s umbrella!!

 

We have made it the Lumberjack show and they have a wood burning stove well what else would you expect really!  Really miss our wood burning stove but enjoying drying off and warming up with the heat from this stove that is for sure

 

Happy warm, dry face JJJ

 

A sign they were selling in the shop hee hee, love it JJ

 

Thankfully the seats are under cover and they have an overhead heater but the poor Lumberjacks are out in the rain!!

 

Oh you can really see the rain in this photo!

 

The show has started and they have divided the crowd into two to support the guys and make it into a competition our team is the USA Spruce Mill team and the other side are the Canadian side Dawson Creek, it was certainly true competition between the sides, so funny!

 

The dual sawing competition!  Spruce Mill won that point, woop woop!!  Or in true Lumberjack style they say yeeyoho!!

 

This guy Ray is known for axe throwing, wow!!  This was amazing chopping!

 

 

Here is Billy and Jon speed climbing, they had a rope and a spike on their shoes and they sped all the way up to the top of the timber in a few seconds and then sped down again, it was fast and so crazy at the speed!  They went all the way up to the red mark on the timber, WOW!

 

Next they were running over the logs in the pool, so fast and it came to sudden death so they kept on running Ray for our team Spruce Mill and then Mark for Dawson Creek team continuously!  So fast and amazed how they kept their balance but Mark won this one as Ray fell off twice!

 

The finale was the log rolling, Ray and Mark again and boy they were splashing each other and then rocking the log but amazed how they stayed on for so long.  Ray fell off, Mark fell off and then Ray did the sorest looking drop where he said on the microphone ‘one leg went one way and the other leg went the other and then I went down straight onto the log’ in a high pitched voice, looked mighty sore with the wallop he went down and to top it all we lost the points, booooooooooo!!

 

Amy with the Lumberjacks from the show, yeeyoho!!

 

Now we are back out in the rain again L

We are walking around the shops and shopkeepers are at their doors trying to badger you to come into their shop, they haven’t met us and if you badger us we do the opposite and walk away or walk out, tricky customers you’ve got here Mr and Mrs Shopkeeper!!!  Horrible and in the jewellery shops well nothing has prices on and they say we can do you a deal, no just tell us how much it is and we can tell you if we are interested.  We went into one jewellery shop to have a look at the Korite Ammolite jewellery as it is rainbow coloured and is supposed to be rare and precious.  We got shown a beautiful necklace with an oval piece of Korite but this was when he started saying we can do a deal, the price was $4,000 we can tell you now mate there is no deal to be done as we ain’t buying it!!!  So I say I only wanted to see it as I am a diamond and gold girl so the next thing we are being shown is the Crown of Light diamonds which have 90 facets which means they sparkle and spread the light more than the lesser faceted diamond cuts.  Necklace we were shown was $6,000 eh no thanks and then we are then questioned what sort of price we were looking for.  Part of me was expecting Amy to turn round and say we have a daily allowance as that would have been really funny and shut the guy up!!  We walked out of the shop as he was still trying to show us other pieces of jewellery!!

 

Amy has now got her wish a Del Sol t-shirt and necklace.   Since she was little she has eyed up my Cayman t-shirt which changes colour in the sun so now her dream is complete.  Even the bag changes colour in the sun the bag is white inside with no sun but it has turned purple so there must be a few rays of sun coming through!!

 

Colin could be the Sherriff with that hat on!  Maybe a change of career approaching in Australia, mmm maybe not!!

 

This is a statue in the middle of Front Street but the amount of rain that is falling it looks wet enough for a fountain!! 

 

The rain is easing but we head back on board the ship to get warm and dry.  Our cruise ship is at the back of this Princess Cruises ship, Ketchikan has been hit with 3 cruise ships all within one hour of us arriving!!  Suppose they are used to it!

 

Our ship Radiance of the Seas

 

Having a whale of a time that she needs to sit down ha ha!!

 

We have survived the rain!!!

 

This would be the only salmon Amy would be catching for dinner at the salmon capital of the world!!  Amy doesn’t like pink fish!

 

The green glass area is where the five glass elevators go up and down to view over outside and also the Centrum or centre of the ship!

Our time in Ketchikan is over so we head for some lunch, Amy goes to kid’s club and Colin and I go for a wander round the ship when we have departed from Ketchikan.  Amy didn’t really enjoy kid’s club yesterday as she found it too busy but like us she has been used to the Legend of the Seas being a smaller ship and also less amount of children.  Yesterday Amy told us there were 40+ children in the sessions that is a far cry from the whole 40 children in total that were on the Legend of the Seas!!  So Amy hopes with us being at port that the kid’s club is less today!

 

The cruise ships we were parked next to, see you later guys!

 

Looking behind us at the valley, still a few menacing clouds going about

 

Time just the two of us!

 

A beer would go down nicely thanks whilst we watch this beautiful scenery go by!  It is funny I think we have been spoilt with the Norwegian Fjord cruise last month as we are feeling it is a bit samey but less beautiful here!!  We rate Norway over Alaska any day but is it because that was the first Fjords we saw in and would we feel the same about Norway if we had done Alaska first, who knows???

 

Ketchikan port area

 

 Running parallel to the water is the Ketchikan runway so we happen to see a plane landing.  The locals need to take the ferry over to the airport

 

Number 10, 11 and 12 your time is up ha ha !!  They all must have dutiful wives as they all knew when tea was going to be ready maybe?!?!?

 

 

 

The view at the side of the ship

 

That didn’t take long, our travelling companion is behind us again!

 

Our view entails going onto Deck 13, 12 and 11 but then we realise how to get onto …….

 

The helipad out the front of the ship, we just need Leonardo DiCaprio to come and do the music and stand on the railings we don’t want to replicate the Titanic completely though ha ha!!

 

The bridge, here’s looking at you looking at me!!

 

 

 

Enjoying the view!

 

The rolling hills with the clouds

 

The lifeboats and tender boats

 

The crew’s little boat, Col fancies a shot in this!

 

 

Just because it looks cool!

 

And then we go down some small passageways and we are not sure whether we should be here or not!!

 

But it takes us to the very back of the ship and we can see the bubbles coming out the back, so noisy though

 

The view behind us

 

You can see a faint rainbow from our spray

 

At tea with daddy!  Amy enjoyed kid’s club a little better today but I think she is just getting used to the larger amount of children on board

 

We went to the show and saw Craig Dahn an amazing American Piano player, wow it was truly amazing!!

 

Amy met him after the show and got to touch his ring that was given to him by Liberache back in 1978.  There were only 3 rings ever made of a grand piano and he was given one, wow what a gift and what an honour for Amy to touch it too! 

What an end to the day, we are heading to Icy Strait Point tomorrow.  I’m not sure but today we have felt deflated whether it is a crash from the adrenaline rush that has happened in our bodies with doing loads at the parks in Florida, who knows but we are not feeling the love from the Radiance of the Seas or Alaska :O(  hopefully it will get better!