It was another beautiful day in Vancouver. Apparently, we have been very lucky with the weather on this trip. It has not rained on us at all. Vancouver is in a temperate rain forest area, so it usually rains quite a bit. Also, at all of the ports in Alaska, it usually rains often. We have seen a lot of sunshine and very few clouds.

We decided to go over to Granville Island and check it out. We walked down to a dock at the end of our street to catch a ferry over to the island. The ferry was run by AquaBus ferries. The logo was a rainbow. Sarah loved that.

It was a quick ride over to the island. We just walked around and checked things out. The first stop was the public market. It was quite a large market with many vendors. As we walked along, Kate spotted an Asian vendor with dragon fruit. We bought one to enjoy later.

There were a lot of shops on the island. We went in one called the Hangout Place. They sold really cool hammocks. I would have liked to buy one, but getting it back home would have been difficult.

We went into another store that was just really eclectic. They had clothes, toys, books, art and design your own t-shirts. We enjoyed looking around. They had a sheet of butcher paper for people to write and draw on. Sarah drew a mermaid.

We also happened upon an art store. The sign out front said, “An artist can never fail. It is a success just being one.” Sarah looked around and found a few art supplies she wanted to purchase.

Down the street from the art store was a concrete plant. I am not sure what they are called, but the things that look like silos were painted to look like cartoon characters. It was really cool. Even though it was something industrial, it was made to look artistic.

There were a lot of street performers on the island. When we first arrived, there was a man playing the pan flute. That is not something you see every day. Later in the same spot, there was a young lady playing guitar and singing. She said she was still in high school. She had a great voice. I have Sarah a couple of bucks to give the young lady.

We decided to have some gelato to cool off. There was a young man performing in the area. While we were eating our gelato, Sarah drew a picture of the young man singing. She put it in his tip basket. I would loved to have seen his face when he saw it.

Also while we were eating, there was an English family at the next table. They had a little girl who enjoyed the sea gulls. The little girl was probably about 2. She would walk slowly up to the gull, because she said she wanted to stroke the bird. Her father said, “you can stroke the bird if you can catch it.” Inevitably, the bird would fly away before she could get there. That did not deter her. She kept trying again.

For dinner, we went around the corner to a Vietnamese restaurant. We can’t get Vietnamese food at home, so it was a great treat. The shop was family owned. Mom did the cooking, and her early twenties son was the waiter. The food was excellent.

After dinner, we went back to the hotel, drank a little wine, and relaxed. I went out on the balcony and hung out for awhile. It was nice out there. There was a house across the street that we thought might be abandoned. Once it was dark and they turned the lights on in the house, I could see it was not. There were some young people hanging out drinking and smoking something. It may have been a cigarette, but they were all sharing the same one. :-)

The cruise ended today. We woke up in port, and ate some breakfast before time to leave. Debarkment was done in groups according to the type of luggage tag you had. Each tag had a background color and a Disney character. Ours was the white Daisy Duck. We were able to get off the ship fairly quickly.

We took a cab to the hotel where we will stay for the next three days. It was a Residence Inn. It was still fairly early, so our room was not ready. We checked our luggage at the hotel and walked down to a Starbucks to have a good cup of coffee. (The coffee on the ship was not good.) We hung out at a table outside and enjoyed our coffee.

When we got back to the hotel, we were able to get into the room. It was a nice room with a balcony. The view was not as good as our first hotel, and it certainly was not as good as the view from the veranda of the ship, but that was okay.

We brought in our stuff and decided to rest. We went to sleep and slept until after lunch time. When we got up, we walked over to a Mexican chain restaurant called Mucho Burrito. It was good food. After lunch we took a walk down Davie street in the West End neighborhood. This was the “gay section” of town. The street light banners had rainbow flags, and one of the crosswalks was painted as a rainbow. Sarah loved it!!

Today was the last full day of the cruise. We were at sea the whole day. It was a wonderful day. We really did not do much. We got up late, ate breakfast, worked on the computer, sat on the veranda, then ate lunch. After lunch, I had a beer tasting. The beers were pretty good, but I liked the martini tasting better. The beer tasting was free though.

We got a printout of our folio, a list of purchases, and found they had overcharged us for the beer tasting. The cost should have been $20, but they charged $35. I found the original paper they had given us with the prices and brought that to the customer service desk. On the paper, the maximum number of people for the tasting was 35. I think when they charged us, they looked at the maximum number of people and put in that number instead of the actual price. When I pointed it out, they removed the charge and said it would not cost anything since it was their mistake. I was not trying to get something free. I just wanted to pay the correct price. It was a very nice gesture that I will remember.

About an hour after the beer tasting, Kate had a tequila tasting. Since I can’t drink tequila, I just sat with her and listened. It was very interesting. One of the things they had as a chaser was some type of juice with tabasco sauce in it. I think it was orange juice. In addition to the traditional salt and lime, they had cinnamon to take with certain tequilas. One of the tequilas was black. It was Patron XO Cafe, a coffee flavored tequila. Kate liked that one. Miraslov came around and gave everyone a splash of Bailey’s in their Patron XO. It was called a baby Guiness. Kate liked that as well. Miraslov mentioned a drink made with the Patron XO and something else, I can’t remember. It was called a “Dirty Mexican.” I thought that was more than a little out of line. They need to come up with another name for it.

Our last dinner was back in Animator’s Palate. We took a few photos with Yusuf and Harry. We will miss them. They did a great job. For the last evening, the entire staff did a show at the end. Mickey came out and all of the servers paraded around the dining room with flags of different countries.

Today was our last port day. We were in Ketchikan. The day started off very cold. We ate breakfast at Beach Blanket Buffet. There was no seating inside, so we went outside to eat. The wind was blowing, and it was very cold. So, when we left the ship, we bundled up.

We did not have any excursions planned for Ketchikan. We just decided to walk around and see the city. That was a good plan, because it was very walkable. When we got off the ship, it did not stay cold. It was cool, but not freezing like it had been at breakfast.

We walked around a bit, then we found the Ketchikan museum. We decided we would check it out. It was not much of a museum, but there were some interesting things there. The guy who ran it was a bit of a character. Kate asked him were we could see eagles, because she had heard about a spot where there were a lot of eagles. He said well there is this place and there is the other place. None of it really made sense, so we left.

We headed back toward the ship. On the way, we stopped at a coffee shop to have some coffee and use their wi-fi. We had to buy the coffee, but then the wi-fi was free unlike on the ship. We took some time to check emails and look at Facebook.

By the time we got back to the ship, we had missed lunch, so we ordered some room service. I had a vegetarian pizza, and Kate ordered a Chicken Fajita wrap. Both were very good! Sarah decided to go to the Vibe and get something with her friends.

I walked around and looked at some of the shops along the stream. I found a tram there that went up the mountain. The young lady said for three dollars, I could get a ticket to use the tram all day. I paid my three dollars and took the tram up the mountain. It was nothing special, but it was easier to take the tram than to walk up the mountain.

When I got to the top, there was a hotel and conference center. Outside the hotel were some totem poles. I took a few photos and walked around a bit. There was not much to do, so I decided to go back down. Rather than take the tram, I walked the trail. Going down was not too bad, and the view was nice. At the bottom of the trail, I went back into the gallery. I bought a couple of cards and a magnet with the Inuit art.

I wound up walking quite a bit around Ketchikan. I was trying to get a photo of the ship, but it was hard to find a spot where I could get the whole ship in the photo. I found a long pier that went toward the ship, so I decided to check it out. I was able to get better shots of the ship, but still not what I wanted. While I was on the pier, I walked past a native man sleeping. He had a couple of empty beer cans next to him. It was sad.

Walking back through the dock, I noticed some steps that went down into the water. The tide was coming in and many of the steps were under water. I wondered where the steps went, but I did not have time to wait for low tide.

We had another great dinner. After dinner, Kate and I went to the movie theater to see McFarland USA with Kevin Costner. It was a really good movie about a white teacher working in a poor Hispanic school. He started coaching the track team so he could make an impression and move to another school. He wound up being embraced by the community and staying there.

After the movie, we stopped at Cadillac Lounge to have a martini. We ordered two Limone Basilicos. It was Absolut Citron, Limoncello, and muddled basil leaves. They came garnished with a basil leaf. I could not taste a lot of basil in my drink, and Kate said hers tasted too much like basil, so we traded drinks. I could taste the basil in hers. It was very good. She liked it better without too much basil in it. One was enough for Kate, but I decided to have another. I really enjoyed the combination of lemon and basil flavors.

Today was the second port day. We were in Juneau. Kate set up a whale watching excursion with Harv and Marv’s. They picked us up and drove us out to the dock. We were on a smaller boat with one other family of three like us. The daughter knew Sarah from the Vibe. Her name was Sarah also. They were nice people.

Our captain was a young lady named Jen. She was from Florida, and this was her first season in Juneau. She did a great job. On the way out of the harbor, we saw a the schooner Atlantic, and we got a glimpse of Mendenhall Glacier. We also saw some sea lions. There were several sunning themselves on a buoy. I got some great pictures of them.

We saw quite a few humpback whales on the tour. It was cool, because we learned what to look for and how to spot them. There were a few solitary whales. Apparently that is normal for most of the year.

We also saw a group of whales that were bubble net feeding. This only happens at certain times of the year. The whales work together. They dive down and swim in a circle blowing air bubbles. The fish get caught in the net of bubbles and the whales slowly drive them to the surface. Then suddenly all of the whales come out of the water at the same time with their mouths open to eat the fish. It is truly an amazing site. We were able to see them come out of the water several times.

When we got back to the ship, we went to one of the fast food places and got some chicken strips and fries. Sarah got a salad and some fruit. The chicken was really good.

Kate and I rested after we ate lunch. I also pulled my whale watching photos on to my computer and was amazed all over again.

Dinner was in Parrot Cay. Another fabulous meal.