Day 26 & 27 - Ketchikan and back to Vancouver

We had a rocky ride last night as we sailed to Ketchikan; the ship was rolling so much that we really did get rocked to sleep. The morning however was host to a brilliant blue sky. We were having breakfast as the ship pulled into dock and joined three other cruise ships already tied up. Our excursion today was to a Bear and Wildlife Refuge. However, because of the limited amount of time we had in port Nan wanted to get to the shops first thing, so off the ship we hustled. She had me going all over the place, which really was no big deal as the tourist district of the city was interesting. We eventually boarded our shuttle to the Reserve and were whisked out of town about 8 miles. Our guide was a nice young guy who was very knowledgeable about the rain forest that we were walking through. We saw some rally large trees and saw a lot of different plants and learned how the animals (mainly bears) used them for hibernation. The trail we were walking lead us to a series of suspension bridges so we could go high above the ground and hopefully see some wildlife. We were almost finished when our guide spotted a bear in a clearing by the marsh. It was one bear, but at least it was not in a cage, and walking around in his territory. Back at the ship we all shared stories of our excursions, but no one could beat Wayne & Sue’s flight-seeing trip to see bears. The pictures Wayne got were spectacular.

Leaving Ketchikan we sailed all the next day back to arrive in Vancouver on Saturday. It was a nice day so we spent time on our verandas and enjoyed the scenery. We saw many of the sights that we didn’t see on our departure because we passed them in the dark. We saw whales breaching and even saw the dorsal fin of a killer whale…and all from our balconies.

Tomorrow we will be in Vancouver and ready for our return trip home.