Cruise
Day 26
Thursday, July 4, 2024
Happy 4th of July! It doesn’t seem like much of a holiday on a cruise ship, but the ship is having some events for its US passengers. Today we are cruising the Misty Fjords National Monument and are scheduled to enter around eleven, so Val and I planned on having a relaxing morning, but were surprised to find we were in docked in Ketchikan when we got up at eight.
This was an unscheduled stop and as soon as we stepped out on our balcony we could see why, there was an ambulance sitting on the dock. Last night around midnight, there had been a medical alert that goes out all over the ship telling medical personnel to go to a cabin down the hall from us, now we know that is was serious. After a short time, they brought out a lady on a gurney and loaded her into the ambulance with her husband, getting into the front. We found out later it was an acquaintance of ours we met on the Grand Africa Cruise. Any medical evacuation is sobering to see, but it made it even more so for us since we actually knew the couple, we hope it is not something too serious.
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| It was a beautiful day in Ketchikan ... |
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| but sadly we weren't there to enjoy the weather. |
One note here, it was the first time we have visited Ketchikan and seen sunny weather with blue skies as it has normally been overcast and rainy. Hopefully an omen for the rest of the day.
Misty Fjords National Monument covers 2.2 million acres and lies just 22 miles from Ketchikan. We sailed slowly into this pristine area, but we weren’t the only cruise ship in the area as we saw several much smaller ones during the day. We spent most of our time on the balcony watching the scenery going by, but we did take a break for lunch.
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| Ketchikan is the red marker toward the middle left and the Misty Fjords is the yellow market near the top. |
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| We had good view from our balcony. |
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| The National Geographic Expedition Ship the Sea Lion. The first of two we saw in the area. |
We had booked another ship excursion where you get on a small boat from the ship and sail deeper in the fjords. At 2:00 we met in the Rolling Stone Lounge and then were led down to a lower deck where about a hundred of us loaded onto the boat. This tour went through some beautiful areas, but we really didn’t stray too far from the ship. We did get closer to the shore, but it just didn’t feel much different from what we were seeing from the ship.
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| Our tour boat pulls along side the Westerdam to take us aboard. |
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| We leave the ship behind as we sailed around the area. |
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| The second National Geographic Expedition ship, this one is the Sea Bird. |
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| A group from the Sea Bird heading into shore. |
Time to get back on the ship.
We did enjoy it, but probably would not recommend it as it just didn’t seem worth the trouble and money, but others may feel differently. We returned to the ship around five and I downloaded the pictures we took today and relaxed until dinner.
Dinner was good as usual, but the casino was not kind to either one of us, so we came back to the room fairly early. There was a 4th of July party in the Rolling Stone Lounge with many of the ship’s officers attending, but other than stopping by for a few minutes, we didn’t stay. Those large parties are just not our cup of tea anymore.
Tomorrow we are in Prince Rupert in BC, Canada and have to be up early tomorrow for a tour so we called it an early night and went to bed.
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