Blogs from Haines, Alaska, United States, North America

Got up at 5 to catch the 8 am ferry to Haines. Nice voyage. Explored the town and got settled into our new lodging. Gorgeous view of the bay. Went to the brewery. Excellent beer. Then to the lighthouse for a delicious Italian meal. We had high expectations for Haines based on what we've been told and am not disappointed! Amazing! Beautiful.... read more

We had the luxury of sleeping in this morning; and, our inside cabin has the advantage of not letting in the early morning sun in these northern latitudes. We headed up to the Lido for breakfast where Sharon got her waffle with a sprinkle of chocolate chips and I got my spicy omelet. We have a tour today; but, not before lunch! We headed for the Exploration café where I picked up two different pairs of matching Sudoku puzzles. We chose to do the Puzzle #230; but, it was significantly smaller than the “double-digit” puzzles (and even they are small), and it was virtually impossible for Sharon to annotate without rendering the entire puzzle indecipherable. I finished the Easy Puzzle; but, even I couldn’t complete the Hard Puzzle (I was attempting to do it without annotations). ... read more

We heard there was a great place to watch the bears not far from Haines, so we took a drive out last night. After watching several large grizzlies from across the river, we had a momma bear and her two cubs come out of the wooded area just ahead of us. We were able to move in rather close to get some good pictures and a good view of them catching and eating fish. The momma bear would catch a salmon and then one of the cubs would go to her to get the fish and then take it back to the bank to eat it. With two cubs, the bears were pretty busy. After they ate, they headed down the bank of the river right in front of us. There were plenty of people out ... read more

Shore day today - Haines and Skagway. Some have early trips booked, but we decide to just take our time. Get off the ship and see the ferry to Skagway so make enquiries, booked on the 1100 ferry to return at 1600. No spare seats so lucky to get on. Interesting trip about 40 mins with great sights of waterfalls, eagles and other bits of scenery. Come into Skagway and there are 4 cruise ships in port. Lots of people do the train trip up to whites pass. We decided to give that one a miss and just wander around the town. Main Street looks like it should be in an old time western movie set. Lots of gift shops as usual... The train used to run up the Main Street but now just stops at ... read more

Sunday, July 31st 8am ferry to Haines. The only other time we travelled with our car in a ferry was in Washington. From Bremmerton to Seattle. So, it was interesting to see cars from different states(US..some as far as Arizona) & other provinces(Ontario was popular, I noticed). It was the first time for S to be on any vessel in ocean waters(though typically, you don't get to the ocean between Skagway-Haines). It was a very short 40 min or so cruise & the ferry had a movie theatre that played some Alaska movie. When I have more time, maybe I should watch it. Mainland Alaska memories seem so long ago. The ferry had a neat dining area that served decent food. We spent most of our ferry time there as S had more space to run/see ... read more