PowerCycle

Hung out in the motel until the afternoon and then went on a ride around Prince Rupert. Not a bad little town. I’d heard some parts can be a little seedy for lack of a better word but I rode from one end to another and up a few side streets and really enjoyed it. There were a fair number of people walking around, tourists and locals alike. The only negative was that there is a lot of broken glass on the streets. I hit Safeway for some food and then headed back here where I feasted on a bag of BC cherries. Yum.

The weather today was incredible. Wore shorts, sandals and a t-shirt. Loved it.

Tomorrow I’m up at 5:30am for my last ferry ride.

It’s so good to be back on dry land again. I’ll be here in Prince Rupert for 2 days and then I leave on another ferry to Port Hardy (also in Canada). From there it’ll be down to Victoria. It’s very humid although it’s not raining so the short ride into town was a dry one. It was nice being outside without having to wear a jacket. No problems getting through customs. It’s hard for those guys not to skip the “official” questions and just ask about my trip. I don’t mind though. So far they’ve all been cool.

Other than seeing some more whales today it was quiet. I’m fairly certain the first picture is a killer whale (Orca). I would have died if it had jumped out of the water and I got a picture. At dinner last night I met Ashley. She’s on her way back to Minnesota after having been working in Juneau for the last couple months as an occupational therapist. We ended up hanging out in the lounge and had a great conversation about all sorts of non-bicycle things. Nice girl but I’d just end up breaking her heart.

Staying in a motel for the 2 days here. I’ll need the wake up call since the ferry out of here leaves at 7:30am. Tomorrow I’m going to go exploring.

08/28 The storm last night packed a bit of a punch. Andy was up higher in the solarium and said he heard that waves were breaking over the bow. This is a pretty big ship so the those must have been some decent sized waves. Sitting in the cabin I could feel the ship climb up the swells and then drop back down hard enough to rattle pretty much everything. Getting to sleep took a while but I slept OK after that. If I can sleep through an earthquake sleeping in rough seas should have been a breeze anyway.

Yesterday was uneventful. We were out in the open ocean all day so there wasn’t much scenery to look at. It was very rough and several announcements warned people to hang onto the railings. At 4am this morning we entered the channels that run between the islands and the mainland. Things calmed down a lot after that and since then you barely notice any wave action.

Sailed into Alaska’s capital, Juneau, this morning. David, Andy and Collin all jumped off here so I’m on my own again. The passenger count went from 171 to 57 so there are a lot less people walking around. I hopped off the ship for a few minutes to check email in the terminal. The ferry was running 2 hours behind due to the weather so this stop wasn’t very long. Juneau is laid out in an interesting way. The city is about 40 miles long and only goes in off the coast a couple miles, if that. Sitting almost right up against the coast is a mountain range with glaciers spilling over from the icefields on top.

My highlight of the day so far was a tour of the ship’s bridge. This isn’t something offered onboard and I didn’t even think it would be possible with security being what it is after 9/11. It couldn’t hurt to ask so I did and after writing a little note saying why I’d like to visit the bridge I handed it over along with a copy of my DL and went off hoping they’d let me. About an hour later they called me over the PA system. I was escorted up and Pat, the First Mate, gave me an overview of the navigation equipment and some of the things they have to deal with up here, like avoiding whales. Talking to him was great and I gained a new found appreciation for the ocean navigators out there.

Another big event was seeing my first ever humpback whales. I was sitting in the forward lounge when a guy standing in the window spotted them. Everyone rushed over to window and we watched as several humpbacks took turns breaching. We ended up seeing about half a dozen different whales doing this. Very cool. This was right before my tour of the bridge. From up there I saw even more off in the distance.

08/26 Sitting in my cabin on the ferry as the waves bounce us just a little higher every hour. There’s a storm to the south of us that we’re heading right into and the waves are supposed to get up to 25 feet. I’m no expert on sea travel but that seems fairly high to me. I bought some Dramamine before we left because it was raining and the wind had picked up. I didn’t know about the 25 foot seas though. I’ve been on the ocean on smaller fishing boats in rough seas but nothing like this.

This is the biggest ship I’ve ever been on. It has 8 decks (I think), a cafe, a lounge, a little movie theater and a solarium for people without cabins to sleep in. The solarium has some lounge chairs to sleep on or you can pitch your tent on it if it’s freestanding (they discourage the use of tent pegs). It’s also fully enclosed so the people sleeping there should stay warm/dry. The cabins are very small but the bed is long enough for my 6′ 3″ so I’m happy. Awesome showers. No internet on board.

The train from Anchorage to Whittier this morning went smoothly. It was at 10am so I even had time to run out and grab some breakfast. Down at the train station I ran into David, another cyclist on a recumbent + trailer. His site is alaskanokie.blogspot.com. We’d actually met yesterday after disembarking from the train down from Denali. He’s just finishing up a tour and is on his way down to his home in Juneau.

The scenery riding along the inlet that runs toward Whittier was incredible. The train runs right along the water almost the entire way. On the other side were towering ice-covered mountains which were dumping plenty of water off them. This resulted in a numerous cascading waterfalls that looked like something you’d expect in Hawaii. None of my pictures turned out because they were pretty far and it was raining the entire time. Whales can even be seen in the deeper areas swimming along. That would have been cool to see. At some point a bear was spotted but I missed that one. A couple of the streams had salmon flopping around in them (dying after spawn) so the eagles were hanging out having a feast. There were also a few areas along the water that had dropped up to 15 feet in an earthquake so a bunch of trees were killed after being suddenly exposed to the salt water.

I forgot the mention I was in an earthquake last week. It was about a 3.0 at 4am in the morning. The epicenter was about 30 miles from where I was sleeping in my tent. I didn’t even wake up.

When then train arrived in Whittier I ran into David again and also spotted another touring rider. Andy is riding to Washington if I remember right and he’s on a 10-speed bike with a trailer. Our group wasn’t quite complete at this point so we also started talking to Collin who is riding the rails around the US and Canada. We had about 4 hours to kill before the ferry boarded so it was over to a nearby cafe for lunch and then the local pub for drinks.

Over at the ferry we hung out waiting to board which ended up taking an extra hour. Finally they gave the all clear and we headed on board. It took me the longest because I handed to lady my railroad boarding pass. After a couple minutes standing there in the rain trying to find my ferry boarding pass I remembered that I’d stuck it in my backpack. They pointed the 3 of us with bikes to the wall and we leaned them up against that.

We all ended up meeting not too much later in the lounge for another drink (surprise). Dinner was beef pot roast and it was actually very good. Andy and Collin opted for the solarium so they are crashed up there. David grabbed a cabin too.