Thursday, August 29, 2013
We had planned to sleep in but Clay had gone to bed at
7:30pm and we were both up before 7am again. That is fine, it makes for a calm
and quiet start to the day. We ate our breakfasts and got packed and ready to
fly again.
We wound up leaving the hotel about 8:45am instead of the 9
to 9:30am we had originally planned. We walked about 5 minutes in the famous
Seattle rain. Heavy enough to know it’s raining, but not hard enough to put on
a rain jacket or get out an umbrella. It was actually much less humid and
cooler out today, so it was really quite pleasant. Still glad for our 2 warm sunshiny
days and hope for clear and dry in Alaska! Fingers crossed!
We got our tickets and had just arrived at the platform when
our train arrived and we were first on and got our rolling bags stowed and got
front facing seats nearby. So, all good and we sat back for the ride until we
got on the elevated portion and Clay’s spinner bag kept escaping from the
luggage area. We were through security with little delay or trouble and rode a
little train to our gate at N10. We were settled in there by 10am and they should
start boarding by 11:30am for our noon flight to Sitka. We had a fairly empty
flight. I would say only 1/3 of the seats were taken. We could all have had our
own row of 3 seats. Clay and I sat in one row with an empty seat between us.
The flight lasted about 1.5 hours which was less than the almost 2 hours
projected. The amazing thing was that only maybe half a dozen passengers on this jet were NOT going to Sitka to attend a wedding. Everyone else all knew each other and they were all going to the same weekend wedding.
The Sitka airport is pretty tiny. One gate. One baggage claim
carousel. We had to go to it to find the courtesy phone to call the Shee Atika
Totem Square Inn for our ride to the hotel. It is about a 5 minute drive. The
hotel is just across the bridge from the airport. It overlooks a dock and
marina and is right on the corner of the main street across the waterfront of
the town, Lincoln Street. We are in room 406 on the corner so we have 2 water views.
It is a nice room with 2 full sized beds, a table and 2 chairs, a chest of
drawers, TV with HBO, one nightstand, a mini-refrigerator, microwave, and
coffee maker. The bathroom is small with a shower over tub. It is clean and ok.
There is no AC and it is hot in our room. The windows open but one side is
directly over the noisy vent fan of a ground floor restaurant. Oh well. We’re
only here for 2 nights.
Alaskan Dream Cruises had a welcome packet waiting for us.
It contains 6 filled out luggage tags, our name tags on lanyards and a letter
of instructions for us about embarkation day. They will meet us here at 10:30am
Saturday and take our luggage to the ship while we have a walking tour of some
sights in the center of town. We’ll leave those ‘til then. I don’t remember if
I’ve talked about booking this cruise. We had heard of Allen Marine because
they are very popular providing cruise ship day excursions in SE Alaska. After
Cruise West went bankrupt, Allen Marine bought sold of the old CW ships and
started Alaskan Dream Cruises. 2013 is their 2nd season running
their own cruises. I hadn’t heard anything negative and when I checked out the
prices and itineraries on their website, we picked this one; August 30th
for 8 days on Admiralty Dream in cabin 202. I called ADC on July 25, 2012 to
get an early booking discount before it expired on 7/31/2012. I guess we wound
up with a better price because of some wrong information on their website about
cabin categories because the quoted price was higher than what was online and I
objected. Joanna agreed that she saw online what I was talking about and put me on
hold. When she came back the website had been changed and ADC was willing to
honor the price I was calling about. We appreciated that and paid $4216.48 for
the 2 of us in a category AA cabin #202 on deck 2. Joanna told me that wine and beer were not included and some
paperwork up to final payment said they were included and some not. In the end, beer and wine were included with lunch and dinner. It turns
out that while you could buy drinks, we were more than happy with the included
with lunch and dinner beer and wine. The only other cost we expect that is not
included in the fare is tips.
We spent the afternoon in Sitka walking since it was warm,
bright and sunny today. We saw about a million salmon spawning and dying in a
few hours. It is epic! We walked across town to the Sitka National Historic
Park. We walked the trails around the Totem Park and the site of the Battle of
Sitka 1804. We crossed the Indian River
and then turned back. We found a grocery store on the walk back and bought some
drinks, yogurts and muffins for breakfasts. We had dinner at The Pub. We had
nice views from the 2nd floor window seats but that was the best
thing. Clay liked his fish & chips and ate most of my chicken tenders and
fries, but I can’t say I liked it. It was probably good for fried food, but it just seemed too greasy to me. It was very busy though. We have another
full day here on our own and Saturday we join Alaskan Dream Cruises.
When we got back to our room, I was standing in front of the
TV taking off my jewelry and watching a fishing boat with people cleaning its
nets when I noticed a ruckus in the water in the next set of boat slips. I
scrambled for my big binoculars that I had left in the chest of drawers. It was
a big seal or sea lion of some kind. It was very light colored with some darker
spots and it was just thrashing a big fish to kill it. It had it in its mouth
just shaking its head back and forth, whipping the thing. Then it swallowed. It
looked around some and then dived and did the same thing again. It dived and
swam around the whole marina area and finally swam off to the east away from
the sunset and under the bridge. (We later learned it was probably a Harbor
seal.) We love having the corner view, but the problem with these windows is
that there is no where you can sit and really look out. You have to stand up to be
able to see anything other than sky.
