We anchored in Crescent Bay in Sitka today, so did not have to take the city bus to get downtown - but we did have to take a tender to town, which took about 20 minutes, on top of however long it took to get onto the tender.
We had a relatively late excursion, but our meeting point was inside the ship, so we figured we would stay on the ship until then. So we did a load of laundry (made easy by the fact that we could leave our door open to listen for the crew who opens the laundry room in the morning, so we were first to use it). And then we went to breakfast, then the laundry was done and I could fold it while watching the Germany-Spain game in Women’s Euros semi-final. When Bonmati scored the extra-time winner, it was time to join the excursion.
I’d thought my arms would be sore from kayaking the day before, but they were fine - I only felt soreness in my abs, since I scrunched a lot sitting up on the kayak. The first part of the excursion was whale and marine mammal watching. We got off the tender, walked up the pier, and then turned around and walked down the pier to board the whale-watching vessel. This part was largely the same as Icy Strait point’s excursion - we went up to some buoys to watch stellar sea lions (one tried to get on, but was rebuffed, and briefly considered hopping onto our boat); we went to an area to watch whales (we only saw one, a young one); we went back to an outcropping of rocks where sea otters hang out and watched them, then we went to an area called the “eagle alley” to watch eagles. There were a lot of them flying or sitting around. We saw a hatchling climb out of its nest and test out its wings. Finally we went through an “inner harbour” where expensive yachts docked.
We then went back onto land and boarded a bus that took us to the Alaskan Bear Sanctuary. It’s a shelter of sorts for orphaned bears. The facility was converted from an old wood mill and has two giant circular structures. So each structure holds two brown bears, and the space between them holds 3 black bears. It was nice to see the bears up close, but it felt a lot like a zoo.
Next the bus took us to Alaskan Raptor Rehabilitation Center. This organisation takes in injured birds from all over, and actually tries to release them back to the wild. But some won’t be released back - those that got too used to humans, and those that have wing damage - and they end up being “animal ambassadors”, i.e., exhibits. But it was nice to see the area where the birds get rehabilitated, and it was nice to see the “ambassadors” up close.
By the time the excursion ended back at the tender port it was already 4. The last tender was at 5:30, so I was hoping to walk to the Totem park. But we were delayed by not being sure of the last tender time, so we ended up not walking through the whole trail. Still we took in some beautiful sights in town. It was not rainy, and towards the end the sun even came out a bit.
We got on what I believe was the 2nd-to-last tender… we hopped in at 5:05, and it didn’t leave until 5:20. And it was full - LPCR’s family’s excursion finished at the same time and they joined our tender. After we got back, I dozed off for a while, then had a large dinner - I didn’t eat lunch, just a soft serve in town after the excursion. After that we went to the “grand bar” to write and read, listened to the on-board string quartet having voicing problems playing Andrew Lloyd Webber, and later to the main show by an on-board musician who sounded like Liza Minelli.
The Eagle Alley
Loading comments...