Day 8

I awoke to an announcement that we would be arriving in Ketchikan in one hour. A crewman came by to give everyone a wake up call, since we had to remove our tents from the deck before we arrived. Opening the tent flap, I met a wet, dingy grey. The drizzling rain had puddled under my tent. Happily, the tent bottom is of tarp material, and apparently waterproof. I was very pleased that my cheap CostCo tent had performed well enough that I was not awakened by a sloppy wet sleeping bag.

I packed up everything and returned to the middle deck to find that several good spots were appearing due to the folks disembarking at Ketchikan. I set up the tent again, but once we stopped in port, a fierce crosswind began to sweep over the deck, and my duct tape refused to adhere to the wet concrete. In port it is allowed to go the parking deck, so I fetched a 5-gallon and 3-gallon water container from the truck and filled them in the shower. I left them in the tent to serve as weight anchors. Then I donned some rain gear and headed for Ketchikan.

I ran through the streets to see everything I could with the remaining half hour before I had to return to the ship. Most everthing was closed because it was Sunday. Now we are underway again. Two dorsal fins just broke the surface about 100 yards away. Someone said they were orcas.