Ketchikan can

What a difference a day makes.  We woke at 6.00 (new US time) just as we were tying up. It was cold and overcast, but nothing like yesterday. The good news was that we could see the weather clearing in the north.  Sure enough by the time we eventually decided to disembark at 8.00 the sun was shining. Our "duck" tour was not until 10.30, do we accidentally found the free shuttle bus into town and had a great driver who told us where to go.  We got off at Creek Street, which was the red light district and visited Dolly's establishment at Vivian's behest.  The 2 women on the street were most entertaining and told some great stories.

We wandered back to the ship as I had not bought either hat or sunnies and by then it was bright, although still chilly.  There were 3 other ships in port and this will apparently be the norm until the middle of September.  The population is 14,000 and they expect over 10,000 visitors each day.  Outside of the season, almost all the shops in the old town close and they have less than a couple of dozen visitors.  Another interesting fact we learned is that the annual rainfall is 13 feet.  They had 5 inches yesterday, so we were really lucky with today's lovely weather.

Our trip on the amphibious vehicle was really good and we went around the old town and saw where the salmon come up via the salmon ladder to spawn, but we are too early.  The view from the water and commentary were excellent.  We were back I'm time for lunch and went up to watch our sail away from the balcony.  We were surprised to see that the Norwegian line ship behind us had gone and was replaced by a Celebrity ship.  So it seems that they have upwards of 6 ships a day in port for half a day.  We are currently heading north towards Juneau and going through a pod of whales - but we can't tell what type they are, but there are plenty of blowholes.

The Captain's Cocktail party last night was a pretty tame affair and even the Captain did not attend as he was on the bridge because of the weather. However we had an hilarious evening with a Real Estate Agent from Texas and a former Australian Cabinet Minister.  As always, such fun that we missed the show (again), so we plan to do the show before dinner tonight.  Our trip tomorrow I'd not until after lunch, so we can look forward to another lazy morning.