Day 16 - Anchorage to Juneau

We entertained Gavin & Helen for breakfast in our room this morning, very civilized!!

Checked out of the hotel at about 12pm and then drove to the airport ; dropped off the car after 1,000 miles of touring through Alaska; and then checked-in for our short flight to Juneau.
We boarded on time on a Boeing 727-200 with a cargo/passenger configuration; the milk run - Anchorage, Juneau, Petersburg, Wrangell, Ketchikan and then Seattle. We were greeted on board to the news that we might not be able to land in Juneau due to marginal conditions, low cloud base - guess we’ll see what happens when we get closer to Juneau.

We had amazing views of the Wrangell - Elias Range from the plane. The peak of Mt. Elias was poking up above the clouds, an amazing sight. The glaciers coming down from Mt. Elias and flow into the Gulf of Alaska are huge; one of them, the Malaspina Glacier, is North America’s largest glacier, it is 60 miles long and up to 1200 feet thick, the size of Rhode Island.

I struck up a conversation with someone across the aisle who turned out to be a US Coast Guard stationed in Ketchikan. He gave us a number of recommendations for things to do in Ketchikan when we stop there. He also said that we ever come back to Alaska we must visit Kodiak; he was stationed there for a number of years and thinks that it is the best place in Alaska for scenery and wildlife. He knew of the boat that we will be on, The Empress of The North, and said that we should be able to get excellent whale sightings from this boat, much better than with the larger cruise ships.

As it turned out we were able to land at Juneau, tho’ it was very overcast and the ceiling was very low. The plane came in very quickly ,but we think that was because it needed the speed just in case we needed to abort the landing.

I tracked down the Gray Line bus for our transportation to the hotel only to find out that the bus had broken down! 15 minutes later the replacement bus turned up and off to town we went. Our first impression of Juneau is very favorable, quainter than anywhere we have been so far. There were 4 cruise ships in port when we arrived, in fact we had seen one of them as we crossed Prince William Sound last Saturday.

I spoke with a lady on the coach into Juneau and she said that because of a mechanical problem with their plane out of Chicago that they had missed the start of their cruise and had flown into Juneau to catch it at its second port of call. It pays to leave a bit of flexibility in getting into town for the start of your cruise!

Some of the people on the bus will also be on our cruise. Gavin reckons that if it’s a representative sample we will be the youngest on the boat!

We had dinner at the hotel, the food was good, but the service very slow; we’re not sure how they will cope tomorrow when the rest of our cruise passengers arrive.

After dinner Gavin and I went for a walk around the town and watched one of the cruise ships, The Regal Princess, leave from the harbor. We talked to some of the dock workers and were told that the last cruise ship of the season is September 25th and that on September 26th there is a big party in town to celebrate!