camanoescape – The Wagnerson's Travel Adventures

We returned today from our brown bear photo safari and can only say Wow!!!.  Many outfits that offer opportunities to view the Alaskan grizzlies, will take their customers to preordained places with brown bear “viewing platforms.”  That was not the experience we were looking for.  We chose Bald Mountain Air to take us into the wilderness to see brown bear in their complete natural habitat.  After a one hour instruction period of grizzly bear etiquette out in the wild, there were twelve souls who boarded two De Havilland Otter float planes to take a one plus hour flight to a river in the Katmai National Park.  This is actual wilderness country where the brown bears are in their native habitat.  As we taxi down Beluga Lake getting ready for takeoff, you can see the look of concern on Lynda’s face as a “float” plane is not necessarily her idea of a good time.

We landed at a remote river and wearing hip boots that were provided to us by Bald Mountain Air, we waded into the shore and began our photo safari.  There are no words that can express how spectacular and amazing this experience was.  You will note Barb in the pink jacket who walked within a few yards of this incredible creature.  We would immediately sit down to assure the bear we were not a threat.

There was a massive brown bear who saw us walking along the top of a ridge.  He started running toward us and then disappeared behind a short hill.  We sat down and I was able to take a video of what happened next.  It was incredible.  It is about a two minute video so I had to upload it it youtube in order to share it.  I’ve included the link for you to view.  Absolutely amazing.  Then it was about a mile and a half walk back to the planes and our return to Homer.

Wow, our Alaska trip took a huge step forward when we got off the ship and arrived in Homer on Sunday in our car we rented in Seward Alaska.  This is an interesting town and quite picturesque.  This fits the Wagnersons much better than the week long cruise we had just undergone.  We celebrated Doug and Barb’s 40 wedding anniversary at the Little Mermaid restaurant.  It specialized in wholesome, organic and locally grown foods.  Unfortunately Doug was not feeling well by the time we got there.  As he looked at the menu, it was “a little too froo-froo for his tastes, and he ordered pizza.  We enjoyed our froo=froo dinner there and then it was home to our rooms at the Alaska Beach House and then to bed after a long day.

It was up early because Doug and I had booked a fishing trip on our first full day in Homer.  We met our captain Drew and deckhand Brent, along with a dad and his older daughter who would be fishing with us on the Patriot, a 30 foot 500 horsepower fishing boat.  Our trip for halibut and rockfish required us to take a 55 mile trip (about 2.5 hours) each way out to where the bigger halibut were located.  Alaska allows an individual to catch two halibut per day, but only one halibut over 28 inches.  We fished for the big halibut first, catching two of those and then after the tide changed, we fished for rockfish….something those of us who fish in Puget Sound know that we haven’t been able to fish for in more than a decade.  The four of us who were fishing reached our limit in rockfish (five apiece) in about 40 minutes.  We then turned back to fishing for the big halibut.  We had two more big halibut within about an hour.,,,our biggest was a halibut that weighed 111 pounds, one that weighed 65 pounds, another 45 pounds and one 30 pounds.  The remaining halibut the four fishers could take had to be under 28 inches or “chickens” as they are referred to up here.  We then moved one and a half hours back closer to Homer in order to fish for the chickens.  We caught those four “chicken” halibut in no time and were soon heading back to the port of Homer.  As our fish were offloaded from the Patriot and cleaned, there was an eagle that showed up to eat up fish scraps.  The eagle gave me a great opportunity to get close and take several pictures of it.  Then a quick dinner and off to bed to get ready to leave for our grizzly bear photo safari on Tuesday.

Our Alaskan cruise ends tomorrow when we pull into Seward around 6:00 a.m.  As a way to have an orderly dispersal of 1,900 passengers with their luggage when the cruise ends in Seward, the cruise line assigns passengers to different and staggered departure schedules.  We received our disembarkation schedule for Sunday morning and we are in a group scheduled to get off at 8:30 a.m.  Our last full day on the M.S. Noordam finds the four of us more than ready to get off and continue our trip on solid ground.  There are a lot of people on board this ship.  The numbers of people this week have certainly provided me with a test of patience trying to maneuver around and through all the cruisers to get from one place to another.  That’s why I’m ready to get this ship.  On a more positive note, from our verandah today we spotted and watched three whales just off the side of the ship.  This has been fun, but I’m ready to turn the page!

We spent the better part of the day on Friday with our ship slowly making its way into Glacier Bay National Park.  Once there, we visited several different glaciers.  They all have names.  We even pulled up in front of two different ones and sat for a couple of hours in front of each, watching and listening to them.  Some of the ice was just bright blue.  You would hear an occasional crack about every 20-30 minutes emanating from the glacier and we even saw three different occasions of “calving” going on…where small sections of ice break off and fall into the water.  These are called “bergy bits” or “growlers.”  It was very interesting, at least for the first hour.  I sure don’t mean to offend anyone by my words, but after a bit, glacier viewing sort of took on the feeling of standing there watching paint dry.  The activity was literally moving at a glacial pace.  At the last glacier we visited, there were hundreds of these bergy bits floating around with occasional harbor seal moms and their babies lying on top of the various ones.  That was pretty cool but we could only see this through our binoculars as we weren’t close enough for the camera I was using to be able to get any pictures.

We eventually left Glacier Bay National Park and began steaming towards our next stop and final destination, Seward Alaska.  For the next day and a half, we will be at sea cruising northward.  The farther north we go, the more light it seems to stay at night.  At around midnight Friday night, it was still light enough out that you could read a newspaper outside in the darkness.  Weird.

We awoke to another sunny beautiful day as our ship maneuvered itself around and along the dock to tie up in Juneau, Alaska.  An aimless shopping stroll appeared to be the order of the day once more unless we could head that off somehow.  My first stop was an establishment by the cruise dock called Tracy’s King Crab Shack.  There is an open corner at the front where they were cooking the crab for all to see.  Looks scrumptious!

I took Lynda’s watch which needed a new battery and I set off to find a watch smith/jeweler type shop to accomplish that.  Twenty minutes later Lynda’s watch battery is replaced and I begin searching for the group along the way.  I find Lynda in a shop where she is trying on a Tanzanite ring with diamonds.  She asked me if I liked it.  Yes, I told her.  The shop owner asked if we would be paying cash or with a credit card.  How much is it I asked.  He did some calculating and slid the calculator over towards me where I read:  1995.   I looked closely but did not see any decimal points between the first number and the last one.  I mean, it looked like a pretty ring, and I would pay $19.95 for it.  I might even pay $199.5 if Lynda really liked it.  But $2,000 for a ring that wasn’t even on our radar when we woke up this morning?  Uhh, I don’t think so.  The shop owner asked if I had seen it in the sunlight outside.  It really lights it up beautifully, he said.  No, I told him, I haven’t.  He insisted Lynda and I walk out in the sunlight so I could personally see the effect of the sunlight on the ring.  We obliged him and while outside, I asked Lynda if she was serious about spending two grand on a ring.  “No!” she said.  “I was only trying to rescue Barb who was trapped by a different sales person.”  Okay then, crisis averted.  We went back inside, returned the ring and told the shopkeeper that we weren’t ready to buy it yet.

Farther along the way there was a little shop where we came across a plaque made of license plates that reflected the second half of the Wagnerson’s travel motto, “Attitude is everything, Enjoy the journey.”  Lynda went in and checked on the price but at $95 a pop, we figured a picture of it would serve us just as well!

We found the Red Dog Saloon and ended up eating lunch there.  Sawdust floors, signs and animal heads and bodies complete the décor of the establishment.  There was even a full size bear climbing a pole chasing a person higher up the pole.

For live music, they had an older ragtime piano player banging on the keys of the piano in the saloon.  The piano player both played and sang, the playing being much more enjoyable than the singing.  It was a fun lunch and then we were off to reboard the ship and get to our cabins for a nap.  This vacationing is really hard work!!

The fancy dinner last night was great.  I tried some escargot that Lynda ordered for an appetizer.  It was okay, but nothing that I really need to have again.  I figured if I liked the taste of snails, there’s plenty more of those available for me crawling around in our back yard at home.  After dinner we stopped by a blues club and enjoyed that music for about an hour before heading back to our cabins.  Tuesday morning brought the arrival of our first port of call, Ketchikan.  This city has the world’s largest collection of standing totem poles.   Although this place gets 153 inches of rain every year, so far there has been no rain.  We gained an hour in the new time zone here so that meant one extra hour of sleep for those so inclined.  It is now 7:30 a.m.  We are meeting the Andersons for breakfast on the ship at 8:00 a.m., but I’m not sure if they remembered to turn their clocks back.  Time will tell.

What a wonderful lazy day is Day 2 onboard the Noordam. We’ve been at sea all day churning northward.  Our first destination is Ketchikan Alaska where we pull in tomorrow at 7 a.m.  Although I’m traveling with three retired people, for me as the lone worker and social security tax contributor of the group, today has been so great to just be able to unplug and relax.  There was a little eating, a little reading, and a little napping going on.  I personally invested in three different naps today.  It was quite lovely.  The ladies visited the on board spa and had pedicures and manicures done.  Room service breakfast was nice.  Doug spotted an Orca whale and alerted all of us, so we could watch.  Very cool.  We hit the Crow’s Nest lounge for happy hour in the afternoon where Barb could get 2 Sprites for the price of one.  Yay!  We met a couple from Sydney Australia who we hit it off with quite nicely.  They are completing one of their “bucket list” items with this trip to Alaska.  Even though Doug and I are hermits and hate to encounter people, this was so very fun.

The scenery is incredibly amazing.  It really is so, so amazing.  I have sat here in my cabin in awe for the last two hours and just watched as we pass by this wild, snow covered, pristine, waterfall laden landscape.  Wow!  Speaking of wow and amazing, apparently the ladies have us signed up for some kind of fancy dress up dinner tonight.  Two hours to go.  We’ll let you know how it goes.

Our excitement at the start of this trip was palpable.  We picked up the Doug and Barb Sunday morning at 8:00 am for our 20 minute drive to the Stanwood Amtrak platform and the start of our Alaskan adventure.   Our northbound train to Vancouver was to arrive in Stanwood at 9:08.  From there it is a two and a half hour train ride to Vancouver where we were scheduled to arrive at 11:45.

Our past experience with trains is pretty much isolated to those trains we used extensively in Italy.  When the schedule in Italy says the train will depart at 8:30, you know that if you arrive at the train station at 8:33, it is too late and the train has already left.  Here in America, we arrived 43 minutes early for our 9:08 train and we waited.  9:08 arrived and left with the four of us still waiting.  At 9:45 our train finally arrived.  We boarded our iron horse chariot and left any worries about the extra waiting time behind in Stanwood because we had plenty of time built in to our schedule.  We only needed to be at the ship to check in two hours before it was leaving at 4:30.  Our train however was involved in so MANY delays!!!  We had to stop a number of times and back up to change tracks so we could wait on the side while a train coming from the opposite direction passed.  We waited for another 20 plus minutes at the Frasure River as the train crossing bridge was open for passing boat traffic.

When we were still on the train as we’re closing in on 2:00 pm, I was starting to get antsy as our built in cushion time had all but evaporated.  We still had to clear through Canadian customs, then find the line and stand in it in order to take a 10-minute cab ride to the cruise terminal where we then had to check in with Holland America plus clear through US customs in order to board for the Alaska cruise.  For some reason, the Vancouver train station had no avenue for us to pull into the station.  Our train ended up having to motor completely past the station and afterwards spend at least 20 minutes backing up into the Vancouver station where we would then “be invited to detrain” as the conductor said.  One of the strangest things I’ve seen.

In the end, there was no need for worry as we were able to overcome every obstacle and still arrive with time to board the ship.  We probably missed the main crush of on-time boarders!  Our ship pulled out at 4:30 and we are now heading north about 15 knots an hour as I sit here.

We had a nice dinner, but the four of us have had a long day and we said good night and turned in to our respective rooms.  It is now after 10 pm and our shipboard internet is so slow, it won’t even load a new page before timing out.  I will try again to post this early tomorrow morning.