Day 17 - 09/05/25 - Ketchikan, Alaska

 Today was our last port stop on this trip. We were not scheduled to arrive until 11:00 AM so I slept in until around 8:30. After a leisurely breakfast in the Lido, we found a couple seats up in the Crow's Nest to watch the sail in.  Sailing down the narrow passage to Ketchikan is rather pretty.  Just before reaching the city the Alaska marine highway has a repair shop. There were two vessels there. Our assigned berth was number one, which is the southernmost one. The Coral Princess, which was on a northbound route, berth number two. Celebrity Solstice took berth number three and RCCL's Enchantment of the Seas number four. 

The crew skillfully brought our ship into the berth. At this point, I was on deck number three and watched the seamen make three attempts to throw the lead line to shore. The fourth time was the charm. It's fascinating how these ships can be docked without feeling anything.

About 10:45 AM passengers began to flow off the ship using gangways on deck one and deck two. We gathered up our things as we would be out the whole rest of the day. We walked toward Creek Street where the salmon were to be found. We strolled along the boardwalk and watched the salmon and also the seals at work. The boardwalk continues on up the hill alongside the waterfalls and fish ladder and continues along the creek where salmon which have navigated the falls or fish ladder were trying to spawn in the gravel beds. Alittle further up the creek is a salmon hatchery, but we didn't walk that far.

We took the city streets back through town and ended up down at the waterfront and did some shopping and found a 2026 Alaska calendar. I also purchased some spicy caramel popcorn. Sue came by and chatted with her until our tour started. We learned that the Bering Sea crab boat tour started at dock three, which was the other end of town. So we hustled our way there and boarded the Aleutian Ballad which is a former Bering sea fishing boat featured in season two of the  Deadliest Catch TV program..

The ship has been modified to have stadium seating facing the demonstration area. We chose seats on the top deck and had a good view of that area. Our captain. on this voyage was an over 40 year veteran of fishing in Alaska and was full of stories. A former chief engineer tried to give a briefing about the tour and what to expect but a nearby Hoover craft virtually drownded out his talk and made it unintelligible. Once we were on our way, and there were no vessels surrounding us the audio was quite listenable. As we cruised south on the opposite side of an island that faces Ketchikan we encountered  a humpback whale and followed it for 15 or 20 minutes. It was just doing shallow dives and people were quite enamored with it.

We eventually reached a buoy that had a fishing line attached to it, and they demonstrated how they would retrieve the line and their catch for the day were two rockfish. We continued on to a little bay where the crew threw fish into the water to lure the eagle to come down and fetch them. It was pretty spectacular to watch, and I got a few photos. The ship continued on to another set of bouys where they demonstrated how crab pots were retrieved. The first pot contained a species of king crab that is not commercially viable to fish for as they're not in sufficient quantities or size. However, they were easy to hold and the legs all scrunched up, and once you held them and squeeze the abdomen they would extend the legs. They were a pretty crab.  The second pot was a demonstration pot of what a King crab pot would look like when retrieved from the Bering sea. The crabs in the pot were plastic models.

The last part of the tour was a slow cruise back to  Ketchikan where the crew told stories and reminisced about fishing in the extremes of Alaska waters. On balance, I would say it was a worthy tour and it was quite impressive that this small vessel had many years of service in the Bering Sea.

We were back at the pier at 5:30, which left us only an hour before we had to be back on board. We did a little shopping along the way, but didn't purchase anything. Back on board we disposed of our traveling items and headed up to the Lido for dinner. It was a seafood dinner and I enjoyed blackened salmon along with boiled clams and mussels.

Our evening entertainment was the repertory company's  production of Raising the Curtain, which was all about Broadway type musical songs. It was pretty good and Angela went back for the second showing while I stayed at the pianist/singer in the Billboard Onboard area. 

We are losing an hour tonight to get back on Seattle's time.  Tomorrow is a sea day.