The Ferry to Bellingham

Date: 06/08
City: Ferry, Alaska
Kilometers ridden: 0
Cumulative kilometer: 56841
Street: N/A
Weather: Sunny, warm

We got up at 2:00 AM and packed the bikes.

We arrived at the ferry terminal in time, two hours before the ferry leaves. After getting all the paper work done, we queued and waited for the ferry to arrive. The roads around Juneau are limited, the road from the ferry ends in 24miles.

This time is was not so easy to tie the bikes down, since there were only anker points on one side of each bike, which meant that my tie-downs were too short. Luckily, a fellow bike rider had some spare and lent them to us.

In the end we tied both bikes down and moved into our canine.

After we settled in we went to the deck and let the landscape pass by. Below are some pictures of the first leg to Sitka.

And then we arrived in Sitka and hopped on a bus for a guided tour.

First we visited the St. Michaels Cathedral which had an amazing interior.



This is even more impressive when we heard that the cathedral burned down to the ground. The towns people could not extinguish the fire since the water was frozen! Instead they formed a human chain and moved as many items as possible from the church to a safe area, even the heavy chandelier! From here we had a look at the fort and continued to the smallest National Park in Alaska. Part of the park were Salmon breeding grounds. The salmon on the right hand side are half a meter or larger.

We thought that would be an ideal spot to catch salmon, but we have learned that the salmon doesn’t taste nice when they start to swim upstream to bread. The salmon actually stops feeding. Close by was a park with plenty of totem poles. The tour guide told us that there are different types of totem poles, some tell a story, some show that the area is owned by a particular clan and some are at a house entry.


Some of the totem poles were located in a building with other artifacts such as masks or clothes.

Now it was time to head back to the ferry. In the mean time the tent city at the back of the ferry got bigger. I really like that the shipping company allows people to pitch a tent instead of insisting that they hire a cabine.

That night we went to bed early as we’d been up since 2 AM.

Date: 07/08
City: Ferry, Alaska
Kilometers ridden: 0
Cumulative kilometer: 56841
Street: N/A
Weather: Sunny, warm

We had a beautiful sunrise.

After taking these pictures I went back to bed, life can be hard. A couple of hours later we got up and went to the restaurant, having a great long breakfast, with plenty of coffee. In the meantime, fog started to appear which allowed for interesting pictures.

At lunch time we arrived in Ketchican, where we took a guided tour again.

We visited again a park with totem poles, this time we got more information. Some stories are owned by a wood carver, so nobody else can tell the story, some belong to a clan and some are public domain.

We also got some explanation about the carvings inside and outside of a house.

Not long after that we returned to the ferry and left Ketchikan. The sunset looked great, while a solid cloud front was coming from one side, we could see the sun disappearing in the part that wasn’t covered.

Date: 08/08
City: Ferry, Alaska
Kilometers ridden: 0
Cumulative kilometer: 56841
Street: N/A
Weather: Sunny, warm

We didn’t stop today at all, so it was a day for just sitting on the ferry and letting the landscape pass by. In fact, it was so relaxing that we only took pictures on two occasions, first when we saw some Wales and second at the sunset. I was a bit slow with the camera, so the whales had nearly disappeared by the time I took the picture.

The sunset took its time, so I got some pictures of it

Tomorrow we will leave the ferry and visit Dave, a fellow motorcycle rider we met at the Horizon Unlimited meeting last year. He offered us accommodation when we are in Washington state, so we happily accepted.

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