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| Hauling his Blue Truck |
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| Prince Rupert |
The cruise from Baker Inlet to Prince Rupert is reminiscent
of the Queen Charlotte Sound crossing; worse conditions but shorter
duration. Stormy winds kick up ferocious
waves that toss our boat around like a bathtub toy. Nevertheless, no one gets ill and we arrive
unscathed in Prince Rupert four hours
later.
This is the last stop and town in
BC before entering American waters. Like
so much of British Columbia that we have visited, it once
had a thriving economy based on the lumber industry but the pulp mill
closed and its biggest source of revenue is now the large fishing fleet and
some tourism, although locals say the
cruise ships have stopped coming. It has a
population of approximately 12,000 and from what we’ve witnessed, the eagle
population is even greater. They’re like
crows continually swooping above us.
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| Our Last Evening in BC |
Our new boating buddies and cocktail companions, Terry and
Hans & Gay and Wyman are also here in “Rainy Rupert” and so we
have…cocktails, and prepare for our voyage to Chatham Sound and across Dixon
Entrance, the last of the Pacific Ocean waters we must traverse to reach
Ketchikan. A weather front with high winds is moving in
and we have to skedaddle on Saturday May 19th or we will once again
be weather prisoners.
We awake to sunshine (although a local says that sunshine is a light drizzle so I'm not sure what they call this ) and pull out of the moorage
slip at 6:05 AM, full daylight in these northern latitudes. It is glassy
calm trip across Dixon Entrance - Gay later said that we would never see Dixon Entrance that calm again – oh
no, we have to go back home that way. We're elated when we cross the "border" and re-enter American waters, reclaiming our Bill
of Rights.
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| Right side - BC; Left side, US |
Ten hours after our departure, we reach Ketchikan, home of
the cruise ships. The waterfront is
littered with 3 -5 ships every day - 7
days a week. The local paper posts a
daily schedule of the names of the ships, arrival and departure times, and
number of passengers, anywhere from
8,600 people to a mere 2,000 per day.
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| Jim & His First Mate Monitoring Re-entry |
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| The First of the Cruise Ships |
The sun is shining when we arrive, an equally unusual
occurrence in this rain forest that sees approximately 160 days of rain a
year. It could be pouring hail-balls and
we wouldn’t care, we are so astonished that we’ve actually made it all the way
here. And so quickly it now seems.
We aren’t in the San Juan
Islands anymore, we've crossed great oceans.! We're water warriors..
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| Ketchikan |
We mark our arrival with a great dinner at the foot of the
harbor and celebrate with a bottle of Champagne. Alaska at last.
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| Ketchikan Waterfront |
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