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Published: October 22nd 2017
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Geo: 57.0531, -135.33
(Sean here.) As we have begun the marine portion of our voyage, I must take a moment to paint a picture of our strange and quirky lives as sailor vagabonds on the Alaska Marine Highway System. Personally, I have not been on a cruise liner before, so the sea life to me is a new experience and it is without a doubt a unique way to see Alaska's inside passage.
Currently, we are cruising on the Matanuska Ferry (in service since 1963) and ripping through the Inside Passage at an average pace of about 15 miles per hour. Yes, that's right; we are going to travel from Haines, Alaska to Bellingham, Washington at the speed of a casual bike ride.
To begin, the boat is fairly well equipped for a "ferry" . . . we do have the luxuries of a cafeteria (which serves quite delicious food after our standards have been set to ramen noodles and food out of a can for the past two weeks), a movie lounge (which has wowed us with great movies including “When in Rome” and “Slappy and Stinky”!), a cocktail lounge (haven't utilized this, yet, but most certainly will during our three day stint
from Petersburg to Bellingham), a gift shop, and hot, clean, free showers. What a deal!
The most endearing part of the ferry, however, we have come to call “the Hobo Deck”. This area, actually called the “Solarium”, has become our home away from home where we make our bed atop a flat chaise lounge chair and beneath radiant heaters hung from the ceiling. The rear of the Hobo Deck is open to the tent deck (which surprisingly had no tents last night) and fresh Pacific air, and we are joined by a select few vagabond sailors that also opted not to pay extra for a cabin inside the ferry including a Boise fire fighter, a solo guitarist, and the token drunkard with disheveled hair and dirty pants. We mingle briefly with the other vagabonds, but primarily stick to our claimed loungers and keep a diligent eye on the water for sea life sightings (which have been plentiful with good views of humpback and gray whales, porpoises, sea lions, and even a hummingbird – go figure).
Kaia and Jack have been sequestered to the camper in the car deck, and are greatly appreciative when we get our 15-minute car deck call approximately
once every 5 hours. They pour out of the back of the camper whimpering with excitement and anticipation and we furiously walk them around the track of the car deck in an effort to get them a little exercise. Last night, we did have a little more time to run them around as we made a 2 ½ hour stop in Sitka at approximately 1:30am. Strangely, all of the ferry terminals seem to be located between 4-8 miles away from town, so we entertained them with the Chuck-It and a tennis ball in the ferry terminal parking lot.
We just received the call from the overhead voice (where does that guy sit?) indicating our approach to Petersburg so with that, I'll leave you with this initial view of ferry life and anticipation of our final adventure stop before we arrive back on the mainland.
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stephaniehight
non-member comment
Hi you two! I'm really enjoying your updates and your pictures. What a great trip this seems to be! Wishing you continued safe and fun travels. Hope to see you sometime soon. Love and miss, Steph