Chapter Twelve - Beginning of a Dream

Yup - I've dreamed about cruising up through the Inland Passageway for a long, long time. When we planned this trip I told Janet that regardless of the cost (well almost!) I really wanted to see if there was a way we could get the motorhome on a boat and head on up through the passageway to Haines, Alaska. Today, we took that first step, when we finally boarded the Alaska Marine Highway boat around 4:30 AM this morning with the boat finally pulling out of Prince Rupert around 5:45 AM for the 5 hour 15 minute journey up to Ketchikan.

It's really incredible how calm the inland passageway waters can be, and the smoothness of the ride. I'm afraid I fell asleep a number of times during the ride as I really hardly got any sleep last night. At that point this morning it really didn't matter as it was very overcast and almost impossible to see much of anything as we traveled on towards Ketchikan.

Finally, probably 90 minutes out of Ketchikan the clouds broke open and we started to see little peeps of the sun. Of course it was time for the camera to come out, and in the end I did get a few pictures of the trip into Ketchikan harbor.

We spent the afternoon in Ketchikan touring both the old, and the new parts of the city, all of which was much larger than I had

anticipated. One large cruise ship from Norwegian Cruise Line and one small ship from Uncruise were here in port, adding to the large number of people on the streets of the city.

After checking in to a Bed and Breakfast called the Black Bear's Inn, we got a couple of items done before heading off to dinner. Needless to say, as I'm writing this, I'm feeling the results of a really good blackened rib-eye steak. We are at the bed and breakfast because the two small campgrounds here at Ketchikan aren't that great, from everything we have been told.