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Sunday, June 15 was the first full day on the cruise and it was a sea day. It was also the first formal night. We were on the cruise with several friends who were celebrating the graduation of one of their family members, and had dinner with them that evening. There were a total of 14 of us across three tables (the recent graduate was the only single person among us, and one couple brought their year old daughter).

During the day, the naturalist aboard gave a regular running commentary about various islands we sailed past and the geography and history of the area. We spent most of the day just puttering around the ship reminding ourselves how awesome cruises were and enjoying the relaxed feeling. The last vacation my wife and I took where we actually went somewhere "vacationy" was December 2004 when we took a cruise in the Western Caribbean. We went to a presentation by the shopping lady about recommended places to visit in the various ports, caught a comedian's act (can't remember his name but it's some guy who's been on either Letterman or Leno more than once), and watched a presentation by the naturalist about Alaskan wildlife.

I didn't bring my camera with me at all that day until dinner. And then I only took a couple of pictures. My wife's birthday is July 15, but cruises will let you have early/late celebrations if events like birthdays or anniversaries happen within a month either way of the cruise. So we did a birthday gig for her at dinner for the first formal night. Here's the special dessert she got, complete with candle and Princess logo (and my leet lack of focus skills):



And here's my dessert, just because it's almost the best dessert anywhere period:



We were in bed early because of the schedule for Ketchikan the next day. The ship docked at 6AM on Tuesday, June 16, and started allowing passengers to disembark at 6:30AM. We had a 7AM excursion, so between getting ready in the morning and doing the breakfast thing we were up quite early. I didn't have much breakfast, because of what our excursion was - a crab feast and flightseeing tour. And we're not talking Alaska King crab. We're talking Dungeness. The best possible crab you can get.

Unfortunately, this is what we were greeted with when we stepped out onto our stateroom balcony:











Fog = bad when you're doing a flight tour. Southeastern Alaska is in a temperate rain forest, which I mentioned in the last post, so clouds and rain are quite common. Annual precipitation in Ketchikan averages 160 or more inches, which means clouds are pretty much the norm. An entire week without precipitation is considered a drought. Normally the morning clouds/fog will burn off or lift rather quickly, but this didn't start lifting until after 11AM. Our tour was over at 10:30AM, so no flightseeing for us. We still got to eat crab though, and see a pretty neat hunting lodge/resort, the George Inlet Lodge:



The fog is more obvious out here near the water. In the lodge, we were greeted with this:





A spread just for us! The lodge is apparently a popular place for hardcore fishing tourists, and some were staying there. We didn't see them, though, because they had gone fishing by 4AM

The aftermath of brunch:



Everyone got half a crab. I was still hungry so ate an entire crab. Notice the bits. We went at it old school and let the juice and stuff fly wherever it would, which was encouraged by the staff. The owner of the lodge said that occasionally someone gets stuff on the ceiling, but none of us managed that. No high-fives for our group!

Even 1.5 hours later, you can see the fog still hadn't lifted much:



Despite the huge volume of food that we ate over the course of this cruise, at least we got some exercise. We only gained about 8 pounds total even with all the food. This is where the lodge/shoreline is located compared to the road:





So we got a decent workout both coming down and then going back up

We returned to the ship very briefly. Here's the loading/unloading area from our balcony, as well as Ketchikan itself:







We then set out for our second excursion of the day - a lumberjack show. I'd been looking forward to this with great anticipation, as I hadn't seen one of these shows in person in over 25 years. They didn't disappoint. The show was set up as a "US vs Canada" competition, with two on each team. Many a "Yo ho!" was yelled by both the lumberjacks and us during the course of the show. I only snapped photos of some of the things they did.





I always liked this even the best, the one where they make a cut to jam in a board to stand on and chop from:



The guy on the right was FAST. He's supposed to be fourth best in the world at climbing.



And the old standby log rolling



Here they are up close afterwards. I didn't feel like waiting in line to get photographed with them, since we wanted to do some shopping before the final boarding call at 2PM.



On the walk back to our ship (the one in the picture isn't ours, three others were there at the same time) we got to pass by the infamous bald eagle statue in Ketchikan. It's positioned such that it's mooning Juneau, the state capital



And of course Burger Queen:



Despite its appearance, Burger Queen is a high quality restaurant. They have burgers but also stuff like oriental salad or seafood. I highly recommend their halibut.

Here's our ship the Sapphire Princess from the outside as we got back to it:



And the city as we departed:



One neat thing I noticed as we departed was the escort. Every time we left a port there were Coast Guard boats pacing us on both sides for a while until we were a couple of miles away.



Notice the guy manning the deck gun. When a local pleasure craft was approaching, the Coast Guard boat turned around to put itself between us. The deck gunner even kept his weapon trained on the other boat until it was past us.



A few shots of the cruise ship itself from the highest observation deck in the middle. Forward view:



Aft view:



And a better view of the open air pool down below:



Note how almost everyone aboard has on a jacket. Then note the people in the pool. Insane, I tell you. My wife and I went soaking in one of the hot tubs at the rear of the ship on the night we sailed from Skagway, but the open air pools are only a normal temperature. Which isn't enough for this, I tell you. There's a second large pool aft from where I took these photos, in an enclosed area called The Conservatory. The walls and roof are transparent and can be opened, which the ship does when it sails in a warmer climate. It stayed closed the entire time on this cruise, for obvious reasons

We listened to the departure commentary for a while and then relaxed until dinnertime. After dinner we went to bed early again because our scheduled docking time in Juneau was 7AM the next morning and we had another early shore excursion.