Ketchikan – canoe/jeep
This snippet is part of our 2022 Alaska Cruise.
Though Mare and I have cruised a reasonable amount, we tend to avoid the ship offered shore excursions. They are usually pretty good, but a poor value due to their high cost. So, on our annual Sistah’s Cruise, the girls did none and I did a relatively inexpensive (and genuine fun) walking tour in Aruba. For the Alaska cruise – our second cruise of the season – we were “comp’d” with $100/ea for shore excursions; we had to do one, no? The one we chose was one that seemed to be appropriate to Alaska. A Canoe and Jeep Safari.
The weather on our cruise was excellent. In Sitka where we walked to the Raptor Center to see eagles and owls, it was sunny and 75 degrees. We were told they get a total of TEN of those nice days a year. We got one. For Ketchikan where we did our shore excursion -even better. They get 14 FEET of rain a year and we were told to bring raingear. No, the day was perfect.
We were on the quay* at 7:15 to board a bus with about 25 other adventurers. Our guide read us the disclaimer/waiver paper in full at full speed, i.e. faster than the original FEDX commercials. We rode about 30 minutes into the Tongas National Forest to a pristine mountain Lake. Harriet Hunt Lake is over 600 feet deep and was smooth as glass.
We ditched our raingear into a truck, donned PFD’s (life jackets) and grabbed long paddles. Then to the dock where several 20 foot long war canoes awaited. We then – all in one boat – paddled across the lake to the cook station. There, under a huge canvas canopy we were fed coffee, salmon spread and jam, and clam chowder, really.
As another canoe group came into the cook station we moved to a short, but interesting nature tour/walk. After, back to paddling, back to the docks. Aside from seeing eagles we experienced a remarkable echo. A shout or thumping a paddle on the canoe came back as multiple booms.
More or less dockside, waiting on us were a line of Jeeps. Four Wheelers. We got a red one with a couple of newly-weds (From Warren Michigan) in the back seat. Dropping into 4-wheel drive/low we banged around a couple of old logging roads. We were linked with two-way radios and managed not to fall off the road. [We saw an abandoned SUV way down a slope.] The “ride” was rocky and bumpy enough that my smart watch actually recorded that I had walked three miles. Photo ops high up with a distant view of the Pacific Ocean and then back to the docks to find our bus waiting.
We were back on board the Westerdam and having lunch by 12:30 p.m.