Alaska Cruise--Sitka!

We are back from our trip and it was awesome! Unfortunately, my memory card with most of my pics accidentally travelled back to Idaho with Carolyn, my mother-in-law! Whoops! Our trip started in Seattle, then we cruised for a day, got to Juneau the next day, then to Sitka, but this memory card began in Sitka as I'd nearly filled the other by then. :) Sitka is a beautiful little fishing town, and it's very proud that fishing is their main source of livelihood, NOT tourism, unlike so many other cities in Alaska now. The people of Sitka had an opportunity a few years ago to vote to decide if they should build a huge dock for the cruise ships so that more than 2 a day could tour the town, and there was a huge outcry and it was very strongly opposed because they like that they're not overrun with tourists. So, as there is no dock, we anchored in the harbor and "tendered" ashore. This means we got in the lifeboats and went to shore that way! At least we know they work! Here's a picture of one of the lifeboats

Here we are waiting in line to get off the ship onto our boat to "tender" to shore!

we passed a TON of bald eagles on the shore!

the harbor in Sitka--the mist on the mountains is so pretty!

Sitka has a huge Russian influence as evidenced by a lot of their architecture--this church in the middle of town was especially neat

These old steps were pretty impressive and the view from above was great!

This was on the dock where we came in at... I just thought it was so funny!

We went on a wildlife-watching trip on a boat around all the outlying islands in Sitka and saw a lot of otters, one whale up close, a ton of bald eagles, and a sea lion

They had nice binoculars for us to use, and as you can tell, it was chilly so we were bundled up! It was actually a beautiful sunny day until about 12, and our tour started at 1, at which point it was pouring hard, but luckily we were prepared with our gear and the boat had covered seating upstairs and down--the better views were definitely upstairs, but no one else was willing to brave the weather so we had it all to ourselves! Sitka is typically a very rainy city, getting 200+ inches of rainfall a year, so we were grateful to have that sunniness in the morning at least!

Bob and his mom looking for wildlife!

A view of our ship, the Zaandam, from our boat

Every night when we came back there was a cute towel animal on our bed, and in Sitka it was this very cute bear!

There was a movie theater on board--here we are enjoying it! We saw Australia (really good!), The Other End of The Line (cute romantic comedy), and W (eh)

We ate a LOT of really good food!

Bob and I at dinner the night before Sitka

There were 2 formal nights on our cruise, but the pics from the 1st one are on the other card! Here's the 2nd one though--it was the night we were in Sitka. We got back from our adventures and went to dinner only to discover it was a formal night, which we had missed, so we ran back and changed and were all ready in about 20 minutes! Not too shabby, huh?
Bob and his mom

Bob and I on the stairs by the old dutch organ which had these really ornate figurines on it that played music a couple times a day

This was one of the many nights I had 2 desserts because I just couldn't decide! This was chocolate mousse inside this white chocolate chef's hat with berries. SO GOOD! The head chef for our ship was Rudy, hence the signature on the hat

I'd never had baked Alaska before this cruise, but I had it at least 4 nights there! They couldn't set it on fire due to fire codes on the ship, but it was really good anyway!

This was the best one--Baked Alaska with caramel sauce! There was chocolate chip ice cream inside on top of a chocolate chip cookie

We had dinner with several strangers every night which was kind of fun to chat with people from all over. This guy next to Carolyn really looked like the old guy from Ocean's Eleven, and he was traveling alone and was very secretive. Everyone else was very open with where they lived, what they did, you know, basic getting to know you stuff, and he was pretty guarded, only mentioning that he was living with his daughter in Kentucky. I also wanted to get a shot of Carolyn's dessert so here it is!

Very impressive ice sculpture--it's a seahorse!

Ok, that's all from Sitka--we had a lot of fun there! I will post more in the next few days of the rest of our trip but here's a start!

~Cathy