Day 10 Ferry through Inside Passage

Get to Petersburg at 9 pm.
Narrows: most beautiful part of the trip

A house in Wrangell

Float plane taking off at Katchikan

Fery docking at Petersburg

I am in a cabin of a local Alaska Ferry going to Juneau. We boarded the ferry at Port Rupert at 3am. We had to get in the line at 12:30am ( which was not totally necessary) but we followed the rules and slept in the car till they woke us up. We boarded the car and ourselves and have a nice small basic cabin with ( all important) window and bathroom. Slept like a log till 8am.

The ferry is nice, mostly local people and few tourists like us. ( it is mostly empty actually). Five stories high , has several sitting areas, movie lounge, childern’s play area, cafeteria with warm food and very nice crew. People are friendly and we got to meet interesting local people. One family with three kids, going to Disneyland. I thought it was in the wrong direction, turns out for them the only way to get out from Ketchikan is to take a all day Ferry to Juneau and then fly out from there…huge travel ordeal just ot go to Disney Land. This other old naturlist looking guy ( with long white beard) was going home to Pertesberg after 17 years. He was very emotional and excited. Another young kid in half sleeves shirt ( when we had three layers) grew up in Katchikan and was doing very similar road trip as us but in opposite direction. He had gone to California and was coming back. Many more interesting stories. It has been a wonderful experience.

We managed to get lost in Ketchikan and almost missed the Ferry , had to run in before they closed the gates. After that, no one ever check our IDs when we got down ( because they knew us well :)

We stopped at Wrangell as well as Petersburg. All of these are tiny towns with very depressed economy and wonderful nature. So, tourism is their main business but coming here is not easy. Only way is by marine routes or planes. Katchikan seemd to be the float plane haven.

Before Petersburg, the ferry goes through what is known as "the narrows". The channel is barely enough for the Ferry to navigate and all the crew is on alert for 45 minutes. It is the most beautiful section of the "inside passage" and we were told that the cruise ships cannot and are not allowed to navigate here...

Now we are on our way to Juneau and will get there at 9 am. I will post this tomorrow as I get the internet access . I have to say that after travelling by local ferry, I do not see why people pay so much for Alaska Cruises even when those huge ships cannot go though the “narrows” these ferries do. No more Canda tidbits for now, we are in Alsaka J Good night.

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