1st Port Aug 6 - Ketchikan

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Ketchikan was an interesting town and unique town. The driver to our excursion gave us a brief history of the town.

It's the fourth largest town in Alaska with an average population of 13,000 - 14,000. The whole island is 160 miles around with one road throughout the whole town. The road does not connect to loop around the island it just deadends. Most of the town is built on pilings and it rains 300 days a year. The most rain they received in a given year was in 1949 with 202 inches. The fishing industry is pretty large on the island and equates to 1 in 10 jobs. Since Ketchikan is an island the only way to get on and off the island is by boat. The State Ferry is used by islanders to get around to different islands in Alaska. There is a International Airport on another island right next to Ketchikan. The airport has 11 flights a day and locals can take the ferry to get to the island.

The excursion for the day was A Rainforest Ropes Course & Zipline Park. The decription is you can swing, scramble, climb and glide on suspended cables through a rainforest adventure park. Rope elementes include suspended logs, rope bridges and swinging steps, then gravity pulls you along a series of seven ziplines.

The ropes were the most challenging requiring good balances and upper body strength. Once again - Thank You Body Pump :-). The ziplines went pretty fast and althogh I kept turning backwards which gave me no idea how close I was to the landing platform. The guys working the lines were fun and had a good timing messing around with the group on the lines. The last zipline run was out over the bay which lead to the ocean. We got to see a whale breach not to far off shore. All in all it was a good time. Pictues will be following later.

The rest of the afternoon was spent wandering around town sampling the salmon and being a tourist. I managed to only come back with exactly what I targeted to purchase. Got some great pictures of the old district.

Highlight: The night before docking in Ketchikan got a chance to see a pod of whales breach the water near the ship. Retreived the pictures from the first formal night. Can't wait to share it out. The pose we did is hilarious. Four girls one guy think Charlies Angels.

Lowlight: Settled in to watch Mirror Mirror on the big screen for Movies Under the Stars. Went to got fetch some popcorn and there was none. Popcorn wasn't ready until the end of the movie and it had no butter or salt on it. WHAT!!!!!! I know I know what a thing to complain about but it was the only lowlight I could think off.

Tommorow Juneau

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