Alaska Summer Solstice Cruise - Sitka, Alaska

Cruise Day 4

Wednesday, June 12, 2024

Today we are in Sitka.  Sitka is located on Baranof Island and the only way to get there is by boat or plane.  There is ferry service available to a lot of these small isolated towns via the Alaskan Marine Highway, but if you bring your car, the only roads are in the town and surrounding area.   Sitka is a very old town and was part of Russia until 1867 when the US purchased Alaska from Russia and Sitka became the first capital of Alaska.  Today it has a population of around 8400, but by total area, it is the largest city in the US.  Its primary industry is fishing, but it is also a very popular cruise ship port as evidenced by the three cruise ships visiting today.  For more in depth information on Sitka here is a link to Wikipedia.

Sitka is located on an island accessible only by sea or air.

When we woke up this morning we were sailing into Sitka and happily, the sun was shining, a nice change from rainy Ketchikan.  This will all be new to us as this is our first visit to Sitka.  The sail in was picturesque with small, forested islands in the harbor area and snow capped mountains towering above the town.

A closer look at Sitka.  In the middle upper part of the picture you can see a bridge that goes to a smaller island from Sitka.  Just under the right end of that bridge is where the tenders docked.

As we sailed towards Sitka we saw a huge Royal Caribbean ship also heading towards Sitka.

 

Today is a tender port which is a little disappointing, but as we found out later it is probably for the best as the docking area is five miles out of town and the tenders will drop us off right in the middle of town.

We have a ship’s tour today, but it doesn’t leave until 10:45, so we didn’t have to rush around to get ready and were able to do our normal morning routine.  Because of having to tender ashore, we had to meet a half hour early in the World Stage (the ship’s main theater) to check in with our tour group.  After a short wait, our tour group number was called, and we headed off to the tenders.  It actually took longer to load the tender than it did to get to shore as it was a very short distance.

This is the area where the tenders docked.

Our tour today is called "Alaska Raptor Center and Sea Otter Quest".  When we got to shore, we were directed to a bus that took us to the Alaska Raptor Center where they take in injured raptors and nurse them back to health and if they are able, release them back into the wild.  The Raptor Center mainly works with eagles and owls, and we saw many of them in an inside area where they were nursed back to health.  There was also an outdoor habitat for raptors that weren't able to be returned to the wild.

Eagles in the outdoor habitat.  These eagles will never be able to return to the wild.

From the Raptor Center, we were taken back to the harbor where a boat was waiting to take us on our wildlife quest.  We expected to be taken into some inlets and along the shoreline, but we actually went out among some of the various islands in the harbor area.  The scenery was very beautiful, but the wildlife was less interesting for us as it was mainly sea otters and sea lions and for us living in the Central Coast area of California, seeing sea otters and sea lions is very common.  

The view from the boat dock.

We're off on our wildlife quest.  You can see the tenders under the right end of the bridge.  The boat dock what a short walk to the tenders.

The Westerdam off in the distance.

Some sea lions snoozing on the buoy.

We did have one exciting time though, as the boat found an area where there was some gray whale activity.  We could see them spouting and sometimes saw their backs or their tails, but no breaching.  We stayed there quite a while, but the word was out and soon there were many other boats in the area, and that, unfortunately, seemed to cause the whales to move on as we didn’t see any more action.

It was time to head back anyway, and on the way back we passed the docks where two other cruise ships were and saw that they were quite a way out of town.  It’s a tradeoff I guess, they had the convenience of just being able to walk off the ship, but they couldn’t easily walk into town, whereas we had to go through the hassle of taking a tender in, but once ashore, we were right in the center of town.  We enjoyed our tour today, but it wasn’t one of our most memorable ones and although we were grateful for the sunshine, it was quite cold out on the boat with the wind blowing and there was also quite a bit of spray when the boat was going fast.  It was nice and warm in the boat’s cabin area, but Val and I prefer to be outside for better viewing  and taking pictures so we did get a little chilly.

Time to head back to Sitka.

 

We passed where the other ships were docked and were glad we tendered even though it was inconvenient as this was quite a ways out of town.  The ship in the foreground is the Royal Caribbean ship we saw this morning.

We got back to the ship around 3:00 and were very hungry so after dropping our things in our cabin, we made our way to the Lido for a late lunch.  After lunch, I downloaded our pictures and backed everything up and then relaxed until dinner.  It had clouded up and even rained a little since the end of our tour, so we were lucky our tour was in the morning.

We sail away from Sitka, the weather wasn't nearly as nice as when we arrived.

Val and I always opt for fixed late dining, and that means we always sit at the same table and have the same waiters every night and have dinner at 7:30.  We like to get to know our waiters and that they get to know our likes and dislikes.  We were less than happy with the table location we had been assigned as it is against a wall quite a ways away from any windows so it is a little dark.  This morning we asked Lorraine, the Neptune Lounge Concierge, if she could get a different table for us closer to a window.  She was able to do that and tonight we’ll see where our table is.

When it was time for dinner, we went to the dining room and asked the maître de where our new table assignment was, and he led us to a table that was almost next to a window.  I say almost because one side is next to the window and the other side is near an emergency door out to the deck, but no complaints as we feel lucky to get this table after everything had already been assigned.  We met our new waiters, Aris and Hendri, and they seemed very nice, and we liked them better than the waiters at our previous table, so we won on two counts.

We weren’t very hungry as we didn’t finish our lunch until after four, so we only had an appetizer and dessert.  After dinner it was off to the casino where I once again went through my day’s allotment quickly.  After her big win yesterday, Val lingered around the casino longer than I did, but she couldn’t repeat her winning ways of yesterday.

One thing I haven’t mentioned yet is the music venue, The Rolling Stone Lounge.  We pass by it every night and sometimes stop to listen as they have a very good band.  They do three sets a night usually with a different theme – funk, R&B, 70’s rock, unplugged, disco, etc.  The theme isn’t always to our liking, but the music is always very good.

Tomorrow we are cruising by Hubbard Glacier, so it will be like a sea day, but we actually have do a ship excursion booked.