Day 24 - August 15, 2013

August 15, 2013

Day twenty four.  All is well.  On board the M/V Kennicott.

Today we continued to travel south, as we did all of last evening.  We stopped in Ketchikan, AK at 10:30 a.m. for four hours, where we again took on fuel and supplies, and exchanged cargo, passengers and vehicles of all sorts.

Ketchikan is the most southern Alaska city, with a population of approximately 8,000 people.  It is a favorite stop of the cruise ships, which dock at the downtown terminal.  We docked at the Marine Highway terminal which is about two miles north of downtown, and where the cruise ships dock. 

Ketchikan is the rainiest city in Alaska, getting an average of 153 inches of rain annually.  Nashville, Tennessee averages 48 inches of annual rain fall.  And, today when we arrived, it was raining.  It stopped for part of the time while we were at dock, but, before we departed it began to rain again.

The scenery continues to be breathtakingly beautiful.  It is hard to provide varying descriptive words or identify any unique landmarks because there is/was much sameness of the shoreline vegetation and trees, as well as views of occasional distant mountains. 

As we continued to sail south the mountains appeared less massive, with no snow caps, and the temperatures have risen slightly.  Today while we were in Ketchikan the temperature was 62 degrees, which is a normal August high for the area.  Ketchikan is typically warm than what its geographical location would suggest, because of the prevailing air currents.

Also as we continued south the length of the days and nights began to change gradually.

Meanwhile, back on the ship, while we were docked in Ketchikan, the crew again practiced full emergency abandon-ship evacuation drills.  These drills have occurred each day of this voyage.  This includes launching one of the lifeboats, starting the lifeboat engine, getting part of the crew on board, while everyone wore big bright orange life preservers.  Classes are taught for passengers in the main sitting area, but attendance has not been mandatory.  If this is this level of practice is the norm then this crew should be well prepared in case of an actual emergency, assuming the training material is proper.

For some reason, after leaving Ketchikan we moved to the open waters and no longer followed the marine highway route along the inside passage as outlined on the map.  We also increased speed by one mph, now up to twenty.  This routing provides a more direct line to our destination.  If this continues we should arrive in Bellingham, WA ahead of schedule.

All is well.