At 5:30 that afternoon, we all gathered together for a minibus ride deep into the hills to see the dog camp.

During the day we bumped into other people who had been there before us. They all raved about how good it was. Both Megan and I wore our old clothes so we could get covered in dog hair and it wouldn’t matter, and we were set to go.

The trail to the camp was narrow and very exacting for the driver. The forest was deep all around us as we went higher and higher. The campus is about 1,000 feet up, which is a steep climb, considering that the city of Juneau is only 36 feet up from sea level.

It was an old goldmine back in the day but this is about the only flat space around, so these people have leased the land from the old gold mining company as a dog training camp. It’s been here for about 20 years. 

The dogs are bred for performance not for looks, so unlike the traditional Siberian husky who are pretty useless at racing, these ones are built for performance and strength. 

175 dogs live here during the summer. The dogs are built to enjoy extreme cold, so bringing them here is a kindness. The summers are far too hot for them where they come from. Each doghouse is a different colour – depending on who owns the dogs. The red houses , for example, belong to the 47 dogs that one woman here owns.

Sledding dogs is a whole lifestyle for the owners. This is a real training camp. The dogs come here and haul fat tourists like us around all day on carts that they have to drag along the ground. This builds them up beautifully. When the’re suddenly in the snow in winter, dragging only one person in a proper racing sleigh, they go FAST.

You’d expect a working dog to be a serious being, but they’re not. We were warned not to get too close, because the dogs will hurl themselves at you, demanding cuddles and pats, and these dogs are strong.

“Even now, when I’ve been working with them for years, if one catches me unawares, they can send me flying,” said Jake, who was our driver.

As soon as we arrived, eeryone noticed this enticing sign.

“Now, no one sneak off and have a look at the puppies,” said the woman with the 47 dogs. “We have them right at the end of thetour, because we know that if we let you go there first, none of you will want to see anything else!”

It’s Alaskan law that every dog has to have its own house, and it has to be chained to that house when its not working.

“In Oregon, where I live,” said Jake, “we have a huge open farm and the dogs can run where they like. But here, they have to live on a chain. It happened because some dogs in very remote communities got too protective and they went after children. It doeasn’t bother them too much and here, they’re out training two or three times a day.”

Sophie was taking it easy.

I was subconsciously expecting huskies before I arrived, but of course for racing dogs, the only thing these people care about in their breeding programs is speed and health. These animals have to perform in extreme conditions. They’ve used Greyhounds, Salukis and other racing dogs over the years, but basically what they’re looking for is speed, endurance, (especially if they do the really long races like the Iditarod), and intelligence. They have to be able to work in a team.

Jeffrey would have no hope!

Someone asked why this dog was up on a platform.

“Oh, that’s because when he got here, he started eating rocks,” said Jake. “He ate so many that he got backed up and he had to have an operation to get them out. It cost thousands of dollars. But he deserves his little throne. He’s a good dog.”

I know I love my dogs, but these people here live tfor them. They live beside them here in tents in the summer, they take all 47 of them travelling and they speak of them individually with so much affection.

It was a lovely thing to see.

The first group was called out and we were part of it. Here are the dogs who were waiting to take us out.

The noise was incredible! These ones were excited because they knew they were going to have a run, while the others were all barking in protest because they wanted to get out too.

These dogs LOVE their work. Watch this next video – it’s the first part of our run. When we were asked who wanted to sit in the front seat, of course I was leaping up before the guy had finished his sentence. I wanted to see it all! Megan, who is tall, isn’t (yet) used to frontside viewing. She sat beside me in the front seat but scrunched down a bit for the sake of the people behind.

It was so much fun!

The front dogs were called Georgia (on the left) and Ranger. He was there for the muscle and she was there for her intelligence.

Both of them are great at ignoring things that a normal dog would find impossible to resist. A bird flew across the path and into the trees, but these two just kept going forward.

“The wrong dog would have pulled us into the trees!” said Jake.

Every now and then Jake wuld pull over the team for a rest. He said that even in the summer in Alaska, they have to guard against the dogs getting too warm.

“Too cold isn’t usually a problem, ” he said. “It’s when they get too warm that they start having issues. Occasionally we give them an opportunity to cool down and collect their sanity but they don’t really know the concept of stop. That’s why they get anxious. The other dogs run this path earlier so never mind about stopping to cool down! They’re thinking it’s a race and they’re trying to chase down this other teams. That’s how we do it. Follow the scent of the ones before and then once we get confirmation, we catch up and go past them. That’s where the hound comes in, it’s pure instinct.”

He got down off the cart, as a couple of the dogs had jumped around so much in excitement that they’d got a bit tangled. As he was doing that, the back two dogs swapped sides without him seeing. Earlier he’d said that the big black dog was trying to intimidate other dogs – he is two years old and feeling his oats – so he’d put him next to a very stable-natured girl. When he jumped over, she simply looked at him, raised and eyebrow and swapped to the other side without any fuss.

He pointed to the waterfall behind him.

“See that puddle they’re lying in? We built that specially for them. They’re standing in this water and lying down and it helps cool them down rapidly. Drinking helps cool them internally, The snow is now melting in the spring, and that waterfall is melting glacier water and that’s what we’re pumping to this puddle so it’s just a few degrees above freezing. It’s very cold. Brings down their body temperature is really quickly. You can see Georgia up front just lying down in it.”

In a surprisingly short space of time the team were all jumping up and down and barking to be let go again.

They absolutely love it!

These dogs are fed once a day, after the last tour has gone. The handlers are very conscious of gastric torsion, which can kill a dog in a matter of hours, so they take very good care to feed them only after all exercise is done for the day. That includes when they’re racing.

They eat a huge amount of calories every day, but they burn it all off, especially when they’re racing in the winter.

They’re all muscle.

They’re bred to thrive in harsh climates for winter.

“These guys can go 100 miles a day. They take breaks, which just means to walk at a really moderate slow pace every 5 to 50 miles, depending on how long the race is. We’re here for the summer but our actual kennel is in central Oregon.”

You can see the husky eyes on Ranger. I don’t know if I like the blue eyes on a dog – I’m not used to it.

But he and Georgia were good dogs. Even though they’d just pulled us around two miles of track, the team was ready to go out again.

“This 2 mile track is nothing to them,” said Jake.

Here are some boots for the dogs, which they need when the temperature goes down to NEGATIVE 30 and beyond.

omg.

“It’s a delicate balance,” said Jake. “If you put the boots on too early, you’ll harm your dogs because one of the most efficient ways they cool down is through their feet. If you put the boots on too early, you’ll heat them up and they’ll suffer. If you leave them too long without them, their feet will get ice between the pads and they’ll get cut on the ice.”

Finally we got to see the puppies. Megan was in her element.

There were 3 litters here – one that had 12 week old pups and two litters that were one week old.

Interestingly, none of these litters are owned by the people here. Owners bring theor puppies here to be socialised by all the tourists. What a great idea! Almost from birth, these dogs are getting used to being handled by a multitude of people. Their temperaments will be bomb-proof!

The 12 week old litter had 4 girls and a boy, so the staff here have given them nicknmes from ‘The Office.’ This one is Dwight.

It was strange. I thought I’d be all over the dogs but once I was here, I wasn’t at all. I patted the team who took us around the track, but I didn’t want to cuddle the puppies.

I think I wanted MY dogs, all three of them.

However, it was a different thing when they brought out the babies.

Their eyes weren’t open yet and they were still making that squeaking sound very young puppies make. I remember it from when I used to breed puppies, in the years before I started breeding humans.

On the way back to town, we saw a porcupine walking along the road.

No bears. I’m starting to believe that bears are very rare here and that it’s all a big lie to entice tourists over here.

We ate at an Italian-themed restaurant on the ship this evening and joined up with a lively group of people out on the deck afterwards.

Goodbye Juneau! I’m sorry I didn’t get to catch up with Rae, but the rest of it was fun.

Dad joke of the day:

Here we are, berthed in the capital of Aaska – Juneau!

Yes, I thought it was Anchorage too, but Juneau, though tiny, had a far greater advantage than the more populous Anchorage.

Gold.

Though, as our guide to the sledding dogs’ camp said, “If anyone thinks they can retire up here and strike it rich – think again. The biggest nugget pulled out of here last year was only worth $12.”

Anyway, I’m getting ahead of myself here, mentioning sledding dogs… and puppies.

First I had to fly up to a glacier and walk around!

When we hurriedly signed up for this cruise, we were each given $500 ship credits. Megan spent hers mainly on massages. I spent mine mainly on this excursion.

Actually, each shore day on this cruise, we were able to go on a ‘free’ excursion, so we’ve been busy doing at least one thing every single day. This one was an optional extra.

I’ve only been up in a chopper once before when I spent the night in Albury on my way to Sydney in 2019. I forgot how much you can see from up here! Fortunate Frogdancer was assigned the seat next to the pilot, so I could see it all laid out before me.

It almost looks like abstract art, doesn’t it?

There is different footwear for different glaciers, it seems. Here’s my neighbour’s foot encased in her glacier shoe – an overshoe with plastic spikes that we had to wear to give us a little more traction on the ice.

I wanted to show you the texture of the ice. Isn’t it incredible?

Three helicopters touched gently down on the ice and we all got out.

Here I am, subtly showing my appreciation of this scenery.

But seriously – look at the different textures and lines in the ice. It was beautiful.

A look towards the edge.

There were blue rivulets of water running all through the place.

“Here is the drinks bar,” said the tour leader, an American girl with impossibly straight teeth. Her parents must have paid a fortune for them. “You can lie down on the ice and drink glacial water.”

She demonstrated.

l, of course, jumped straight over to the other side of the stream where the ground was flatter, and gave it a go.

A kind woman offered to take my photo. I tried to do a plank because I didn’t want to get wet in this cold air…

… and I had a mouthful of pure. clear water. It went all over my face.

As you’d expect, it was cold.

Megan was friends with an Australian couple who went on the trip with me.

“She just dived straight on!” said the woman to Megan afterwards.

“Yes, Frogdancer has no fear!” said Megan.

This is my phone on extreme magnification, trying to take a picture of a mountain goat and her baby. The white dot in the centre is apparently what I was searching for.

“She gave birth a week ago,” said the teeth girl. “We’ve been watching them get out and about.”

A man with a better phone took this photo. If you make it bigger, you’ll be able to see the goat.

I need a better phone.

After 30 minutes, which seemed like 10, we had to leave.

The guides stay up there all day. There’s a little white tent where they keep their food and their … bucket… and they greet a new crop of visitors every 45 minutes or so.

Happy me. It was a good way to see a glacier. I was glad I’d chosen this excursion.

This glacier finishes in a river system, only a short distance from the sea.

In the time that we were up there, 1 million gallons (which is 3,800,000 litres) had gone from the glacier to the river. It’s being replenished from the mountains above, but not at the same rate as it’s melting, so this glacier is gradually getting smaller.

Once I was back in Juneau, I took a walk around town.

Fur-lined sandals, anyone?

There’s not really much to this town. It’s built on a very narrow strip between the harbour and the mountains, so the housing behind the shopping strip are up a LOT of steps.

I liked the pink and teal planters that someone has here.

The Red Dog Saloon is reputedly the first bar that was built here. They’ve played upon this reputation, with barmaids dressed in old-timey clothes and sawdust on the floor.

I poked my head around the door and took a look.

I went next door to where they serve their specialised drink – the Duck Fart. I asked the girl if she was cold.

“No, I have a secret heater right by my feet!” she said.

The Duck Fart is 1/3 Baileys, 1/3 Kahlua and 1/3 Canadian Whiskey – in this case it was Crown Royal.

It was just after 1 PM. I figured that it was wine o’clock somewhere in the world, so why not try it?

Done!

Quack quack.

Juneau seemed a town made up of jewellery stores, eateries and pretty much nothing else. I asked the Duck Fart girl if there was a place in town to get my ear pierced and she sent me on a wild-goose chase to the tattoo parlour.

When I got there, the tattooist said, “We can’t get a piercer to come to town. You need 1,600 hours training before you can do the job.”

A fat guy lounging by the counter said morosely, “You can be a cop easier than you can be a piercer.”

I toyed momentarily with the idea of getting a poppy tattoo instead, but I gave my kids so much hell when they got tattoos that I decided that I couldn’t do it. Even with the tattooist’s urging, “Go on… be a hypocrite!” I couldn’t do it.

I walked back into town, but there was nothing much to see, so I went back to the ship for lunch. If I was paying for the cruise and the ship was right there on the dock, why not?

After lunch, I checked my emails and realised I’d missed an email from Rae, a blog reader who actually lives here. She was going to be in a coffee shop for a little while that morning. I probably logged off from my email just as she posted the invite. I was so upset!

(So if you’re reading this Rae – I definitely would have come down on the dock earlier to meet you. The offer stands for hospitality if you’re ever in Melbourne. )

I’ll leave this post for now, but at 5:30 that day we went to the dog sledder’s camp. I’ll tell you all about that tomorrow!

I got up this morning, threw open the balcony and out I stepped – into water! Yuck!

So this morning’s shot was taken from the carpet inside the cabin.

The ship was moving more markedly than usual and Megan decided she’d forego breakfast. She’s been having a bit of trouble when the ship moves too much. We’re both seeing bird tours today, though different ones.

The first place we went to was a bird sancu=tuary, which was much the same as the one Martha took us to in Canada, at least in spirit. This one had far more money thrown at it.

This is a glass sculpture of two Bald Eagles in a mating dive – they basically grapple with each other in mid air and if the female decides that he’s not the one, she’ll land on him on the first floor, then fly away. The females are bigger than the males.

Like the other place in Vancouver, they also have permanent residents who aren’t able to be rehabilitated back into the wild. When I bought a fridge magnet from the gift store, the woman behind the counter said, “Oh, this is the first eagle you saw when yu went out to the cages.”

I hadn’t been outside yet, so I made it my first priority to meet the eagle who’ll soon be living in front of my veggies and small goods.

Look at how light their eyes are!

They also had outdoor cages with no roofs, so that large birds who can’t fly anymore can still come outside and feel normal.

Our tour leader was an amazing woman. She and her family were from here for generations and she knows a lot about the native medicinal plants ad the like. She has 17 kids – 5 were her biological ones and the rest were either her husband’s or they were adopted.

No wonder she sneaks off to go fishing on her own!

“I’m a bad mother, I admit it,” she said. “ I don’t want to take the kids on the boat with me. I just want to go out, catch my fish and be happy.”

After we went to the Bird Sanctuary we drove to the forest outside of town.

She said she has not been given permission to tell the stories of the totem poles, but she could tell us that the totem poles always face out to sea. Traditionally that’s how people travel, and anyone coming to the village would be able to read the poles and know who they were about to be dealing with.

“I will only tell you about the plants I personally forage,” she said. She then proceeded to tell us of about half the plants in here.

No wonder the people settled here so many years ago. They had everything they needed.

The following paragraphs were recorded. Devil’s Club sounds like an amazing plant:

“I used to go into the woods with my great-grandmother to pick Devils Club. She didn’t want any that were wonky like this one. She wanted them when they came straight up out of the ground and they grew nice and straight. She would take the knife and she would score the bark and she’d get as much of the green stuff on the underside of the bark as she could with it and she put it all in there and mash it together.

“Then she takes some of those double club things, you know, she wanted it kind of thick and then she would cut some of them into sections. You have to cut it before it dries because after it dries, you’re not gonna be able to get a good cut on it because it turns into a nice solid piece of wood.

“She would make drumsticks out of them to beat the drum with and then she would also put beadwork and feathers on the really tall ones and she would give it to the men so they could use it as a dance prop for Ceremonial dances to keep time with the drum.

“She used to take the bark. She would separate some that she wanted to dry out and she’d make a tea with it. Then she would separate it to where she had some that she could make a brew with some spruce pitch.

“Now I wish I would’ve paid closer attention on how to make it, because now I have to go out and harvest and then barter and trade. I have to take it to somebody who knows how to make it, once I’ve gone out and I’ve got the pitch. I’ve got the Devil’s Club and they get to make as much as they want for themselves, as long as I can get at least six containers of Devil’s Club.

“I remember that she’d take some and she’d throw it in a bowl and dump some hot water in there and she’d put her feet in there to help relieve the pain of arthritis. It’s a pain reliever and she also used lip balm, on mosquito bites to help relieve the itch, for psoriasis and she used it on all her joint pains to relieve arthritis. I use it on my knee to help relieve the pain of my torn meniscus. It is just an all-round wonderful medicinal plant. It smells good. Tastes good too!

“My nine-year-old daughter just ate my last 3 jars of Devil’s Club, so I’m out. Luckily it won’t kill her!”

…

Her great-grandmother was 100 years old when she died. She kept harvesting plants like the Devils Club until she was 94.

When we were on the bridge, we saw this little fella, a mix of a husky and a pomeranian.

He was born without eyes. He was a perfectly delightful little man, though.

When we were back on the bus, our tour guide passed around a sea-otters pelt. It was the softest fur I think I’ve ever felt in my life.

When the Russians were here, back in the 1700 and 1800s, they nearly wiped out the sea otter population. One pelt was fetching the equivalent of $1,700 in Europe at the time.

(I still haven’t seen a sea otter. Or a hummingbird. Or a grizzly…)

We briefly visited the Community Centre, where this art is prominently displayed.

I’m slowly getting used to the native art, but I loved this display!

I found my Alaskan Art in the shop next door to this one and I was feeling terrific!

It was totally different to what I thought I’d be buying. The artist is called Karen GET HER LAST NAME and she lives in Alaska. She uses driftwood and other found objects to carve her art. She’s married to a native Alaskan but she doesn’t use any motifs from their art – hers is completely modern.

I respect that.

This is carved from a moose antler and the top part of its skull. The top part of the antler is the eagle’s wing, and the skull is the salmon she’s grasping in her claws.

I absolutely love it. Since we crossed the border into Alaska practically the only wildlife I’ve seen has been Bald Eagles. The whole artwork screams “Alaska!!!” to me. Trust me when I say that the photo doesn’t do it justice.

I got so carried away that when the gallery owner told me the price, I haggled a little but I forgot to do the conversion rate into AUD. This thing is far more expensive than I thought.

I’d better still love it when I unwrap it back home…

The shopping’s slightly different in Sitka. For a lazy $2,000 USD, you can bring home a bear pelt to drape yourself in when you’re feeling frisky.

And look! They’re still using Devil’s Club!

After my wonderfully unexpected find, I wandered around Sitka for a while, eventually deciding to go down to the water and see what’s down there. I’m so glad I did.

There was an enchanting little island with a house on it. I sank down onto a bench facing the water and unwrapped a couple of Aldi nut bars from home.

Then the magic happened.

Three Bald Eagles started flying over where the house was, swooping out over the bay and then returning. They were talking to each other with wild cries.

There must have been a nest in the tall trees.

Instead – it was an eagle holiday. The correct art had found its way to me.

I sat there for ages after the eagles had successfully brought my attention to the purpose of my holiday and were now quiet again. The scene was so serene and quiet. There was the lapping of the waves into the little bay and the occasional cry of a bird.

I was happy. It was time to find my way back to the ship.

The town of Sitka also has a church with architecture reminiscent of when the Russians owned Alaska. The Americans bought Alaska from the Russians for 7.2 million dollars. Of course, no one thought to ask the native Alaskans what they thought about the deal.

I tried to go in for a look. I’ve been to every church and cathedral in Europe, so why not here? But it was closed on Saturdays. That’s how I found out which day of the week it was.

I remembered that the guide from earlier in the day told people who wanted to go back to the boat to turn right, so off I set.

I saw these beautiful Poppies and thought of my girl.

I walked along a road by the river.

It started out looking ok, but then derelict houses and canning factories started to pop up. I didn’t remember seeing these from the bus this morning…

I saw a bait shop and decided to go and ask for directions. Surely it’d be filled with capable, practical guys with a good working knowledge of this town?

I walked in and there were 3 men and a dog talking together. I explained my plight and one of them said, “I’ll take you to the dock.”

I turned to his mates and said, “He isn’t an axe murderer, is he?”

They laughed and one of them said, “You don’t have to worry. Everyone knows Rico.”

“The police… my schoolteachers…” said Rico.

Bloody hell. Absolutely no one knew where I was – NO ONE. I wouldn’t be missed until the ship wanted to leave at 5:30 PM, and by the time they started paging my name over the loudspeakers, I could be dead in a ditch. Look, he seemed ok – but a serial killer WOULD seem ok, wouldn’t he? Otherwise he’d never get any victims.

“So do you know where I need to go?” I asked.

“Not really,” said Rico.
Jesus!” I said, and the men laughed. “It’ll be the blind leading the blind!”

I followed him out to the car park and hopped into his car.

He took me straight to where I needed to go. What a great guy!

A great guy with a real Alaskan-style truck.

I was so happy to see the Silver Muse as I jumped into the tender that was taking us back to the ship. I told everyone all about the adventure I’d just had.

I finished off the day with a lemon meringue pie with edible gold dust.

Dad joke of the Day:

Here is the view from the balcony this morning, as we made our way towards the dock at Icy Strait Point. We were the only cruise ship in town, and it was a tiny town. Just as well there were only 500 extra people.

I woke up and looked at the time. I was looking forward to Ruby arriving with a cup of coffee at 7:30. Only 15 minutes to wait. I snuggled back down to doze.

I woke up half an hour later. When I looked at my iPad time, all sense of faith in the butler system was shattered. It was a quarter to.

I leaped out of bed, threw back the curtains, took this photo and stomped off to the shower. As I was drying my hair, I thought, ‘I’d better check the time one last time…’

Sure enough. I hadn’t paid enough attention to the hour hand. Just as I realised that I’d woken up an HOUR early, Ruby’s gentle knock sounded on our door.

This is a close-up of the dock.

The town is owned and run by the Tlingit people. They’ve lived in the area for around 300 years, after a mini Ice Age forced them to leave their ancestral home in Glacier Bay. Due to colonisation, they weren’t allowed back until 2016.

It’s situated in a glorious bay. The scenery was absolutely beautiful.

I still had $40 left of my $500 ‘bonus’ ship credits, so I took this cooking class to use up the money. I wasn’t too enthused, but I dutifully lined up with 7 other people and we walked to the kitchen.

On the way, we passed these chopped-down trees.

This is the work of beavers.

There were only 7 of us in the class. It reminded me a little of the old Thermomix days, when we used to run cooking classes for customers. It was very ‘hands-off.’ No cooking skills were required, as we watched Mellie take us through making a salmon dip, the she turned it into a salmon bake.

She used canned salmon for this recipe. Canned foods, and other foods which store well such as rice, are very important here. The barge only comes in once every 2 – 3 weeks.

Here’s a small halibut.

Mellie showed us how to fillet this portion.

“There’s a saying that this was the first fish god made, because he put the lines on the skin to show us where to cut for a fillet,” she said.

I took a video of the process, but you’ve all seen Masterchef. Besides, the ship’s wifi gets cranky when I try and upload videos.

We sprinkled various herbs and spices on the halibut and salmon pieces, then headed outside.

This was my first taste of halibut. It was delicious!

The salmon was also lovely – so fresh

Then I had 3 hours free until my Bear tour in the afternoon.

I decided to walk into town. There’s one footpath that goes beside the harbour, so it’s impossible to get lost.

Brown or Grizzly bears are different to the more docile black bears. These ones maul people if they feel threatened.

I set off with a group of people but I soon fell behind when I kept stopping to take photos.

I wondered if I should start to sing loudly, in case a bear was eying me off from the first on the other side of the road, wondering what my insides would look like.

Mellie said that seals and otters can be spotted here, along with whales, so I kept my eyes peeled, but all I saw were birds, particularly Bald Eagles.

Walking, walking. There was a slight drizzle.

This is a pretty ordinary video, but this eagle swooped me on its way down to the water. Of course, my phone was in my pocket at the time.

He skimmed the water, then flew back up to the trees.

On his way out to the sea, he was so low that I could see individual feathers! I couldn’t believe my luck.

A heron! What a graceful silhouette they have.

I kept walking. The other people that I started with had pulled further ahead.

Maybe I was bear bait…

I took this photo because, as I was walking towards this couple, their dog, who was clearly unimpressed with the situation, sat down with an ‘oomph!’

There was a tiny cemetery beside the road, squeezed into a flat space.

We humans tend to ruin good views, don’t we?

This is the sound of water just after I took my life into my hands to cross the road. I have no idea which way to look – I wish Americans would drive on the correct side of the road!

Veggie growers of the world unite!

Only things that require lots of shade can grow successfully here. Root vegetables, lettuce, spinach etc. I also saw a lot of rhubarb.

The people here have to get everything brought in by barge. Gallons of fresh milk arrive with only 3 days left on the expiry date and it costs $12US/gallon.

That’s $4.74/litre in Aussie dollars. Yikes!

That’s why people here hunt and forage for food. It’s cheaper and fresher. They also use a lot of UHT milk.

Firewood.

They get 8 – 12 feet of snow every winter. I can’t even begin to imagine.

It was gently raining. I saw this optimistic line of washing in front of the house at the back.

More US flags as I walked into town.

Who doesn’t love to see an old dawg asleep on his porch?

I stopped at a gift shop and bought an ornament for my epic Christmas tree. When I said that I used to be a teacher, a man excitedly said, “Hey, we’re hiring!”

I politely declined.

This was pretty.

Once I’d walked the length of the town, I decided I’d take the shuttle bus back to where I’d be taking my bear tour. I stepped out on the porch and saw…

… the black blob on top of the pole equal to the level of the sign. It was a Bald Eagle and she was eating a fish she’d caught!

I could see her tearing at it from between the talons on her feet.

Then, once she’d finished, she flew away.

I wandered around the gift shops at the tourist centre while I waited for the bear Tour to start. I’m looking for a piece of art from Alaska to hang on my wall back home.

The trouble with looking for art is that you don’t know what the right one will be until you set eyes on it. There were a couple of nice prints, but I didn’t walk away with anything.

We were accompanied by two people with large rifles, just in case any of us did something stupid if a bear approached, like scream and run.

Not sure if they’d shoot the tourist or the bear. They’re fond of the bears here.

The bear hunt tour was useless. No bears to be seen at all.

However, our guide was very knowledgable about bush tucker. She was describing how people eat the tips of the Sitka Spruce shoots. She picked one and popped it into her mouth, so I did too.

It was tart, almost like orange zest. It separated into little slivers as I chewed. I realised I should’ve removed the chewing gum from my mouth before impulsively eating this, as the two became inextricably entwined.

Bears?

Nope.

There were 3 viewing platforms, and when we saw a couple of deer comfortably grazing on the third one, I had the feeling that if they were here, then a bear certainly wasn’t!

There are 4,000 bears on this island, outnumbering the permanent residents by over 4:1.

So they say.

An eagle’s nest on the way back into town.

Huge, isn’t it?

Dad joke of the day:

Here’s what was outside the balcony when I pulled back the blinds this morning.

Today was another sailing day, which turned into an amazing morning of beauty as we sailed towards a glacier.

Dawes Glacier, says Megan. She’s sitting beside me as I type.

Oh! We were having breakfast and Suze, the woman we met yesterday, came and sat beside us. She has a suite on the same floor as us – with a separate bedroom and dining room – and we must have found favour with her. We’re invited to a gathering at the Grill on the 10th floor on the next sailing day.

She’s very well-travelled, which I like. She seems like a woman who’s used to getting her own way, which would be a problem if she was going to be hanging around long-term, but for a cruise… it’s fine. She says herself that she’s very impatient, and she appears to ensure that she has things arranged to her own satisfaction.

It’s interesting to see her in action.

I said to her, “My theory is that the people who go on lots of cruises eat like birds. It’s the rest of us who go crazy when we have a buffet in front of us.”

She said, “Oh no, I eat like a pig!”

A pig who had just ordered an egg-white omelette for breakfast. Who throws out the tasty part of the egg unless they’re watching their figure?

Megan disappeared after breakfast and I stayed in the room to catch up on the blog posts. Our cabin is right at the front on the ninth floor, so I kept my cabin door open to listen for any announcements and I photo-dumped and typed, leaping up every second moment to stare at what was going past my balcony.

This was the first ‘iceberg.’

I heard the waterfall. Other than this, all I could hear was the low sound of the ship’s motor, and the sound of the waves.

It was so serene.

I heard later from Megan that everyone was on the major viewing rooms at the back of the ship. She says it was so quiet. People would take turns shuffling forward to take photos, then shuffle back to let others have a go. They were quiet so they could hear any announcements from the Bridge.

Fortunate Frogdancer had the glacier coming up on her side of the ship.

I could see more pieces of ice in the water, the closer we got to the glacier.

Closer…

Just as they said that there are seals lying on icebergs – on the other side of the ship. Dammit!

Ok then. I’ll just make the best of what I have.

I glanced back at where we’d been. Look at these colours!

Is this better than Antarctica?

No. No way.

Antarctica is pristine. In my mind, she’s brilliant white and clear blue skies. I don’t think any place will surpass what I saw there.

But Alaska is like Antarctica unclothed. Here – you see what is underneath the ice. There’s grandeur here too.

Then… the captain announced that he was doing a 360.

I crossed my fingers. Maybe I’d be able to see the seals.

How wonderful is this? They were much closer with the naked eye.

I tried to enlarge and crop and photo for you, but it looked awful. Just believe me when I say that I was so happy to see them, the three of them nestled together on their ice. They allowed the ship to come so close to them, which surprised me.

It was also a testament to the skill of the captain, who was able to do a donut without disturbing them.

I was so close to the Bridge that I could see and hear people laughing and talking. If they’re happy; then I’m happy!

When I turned back towards the front, the glacier was right there. Look at how thick and blue it is at the end – that ice is OLD.

I’m sitting here at 6PM writing this. I said to Megan, “This is going to be a very photo-heavy post.”

She replied, “Well, fair enough. It’s been a very photo-heavy day.”

I was so happy to see bits of the blue ice that I fell in love with two years ago.

The grooves in the rocks are incredible.

Rounded mountains are those which were small enough to be under the ice in the last ice age. The jagged peaks were the ones that were above.

You can see that this has been taken from my balcony.

Look at how these cliffs rise up straight from the sea. It’s the end of May, yet there’s still snow.

I loved the jagged line of the trees against the snow.

A close-up.

Megan messaged me and said she was going to lunch. I looked at the time – it was 1:30!

Here I am, sampling honeydew melon covered with chocolate. It was delicious.

Then I raced outside to show you the views I was seeing through the window as I was eating.

Rounded mountains.

And a pretty little piece of ice floating underneath my balcony when I came back.

In the afternoon we went to a short lecture by a elderly woman who went to live in an isolated Inuit settlement as a teacher. She started by saying, “These are my stories -all of them are true.”

The things she said proved that I could never happily live there. They work on silence – “Only children talk – adults stay silent.” The only time people speak freely is in the steam room.

“Decisions are only made when you are naked.” This is a reference to the steam room, where every night, people gather, get naked and in the warmth of the steam room, talk about whatever is on their minds.

This, according to her, is the only way you can discipline students when they’re behaving badly.

You can’t pull them up in public. That’s inappropriate. What you CAN say is, “Where is your mother steaming tonight? Do you want your behaviour to be the subject of a chat tonight?”

It was an interesting talk, but it’s far too long for me to talk about here. She’s clearly bonded to this settlement. She kept saying, “we don’t do this” and “we don’t do that,” which made me warm to her. I don’t know if she still lives there, but it is obviously a part of her life that she loves.

In other news – I’ve decided to utilise our butler, Ruby, to make my mornings easier by waking us with an Americano (me) and a latte (Megan) at 7:30 every morning from now on. Waiting for a coffee until almost 9 AM has been making me crazy.

I think Megan appreciates that our mornings will be less twitchy.

Dad joke of the day:

Only the Aussies will get this one!

Here’s my wonky attempt at showing you the view from our balcony this morning. We were all set to have a seafood feast at Ketchikan this morning, so we elected to have Ruby bring breakfast to our cabin this morning.

Having a butler is turning out to be quite handy.

While we were waiting with many others for our tour to be called, I started talking to an English woman called Suze. This is her 18th Silver Seas cruise.

Can you imagine?

She says she likes to go on 3 or 4 cruises a year, plus she tries to fit in a land tour. She’s been doing this all her life. She’s in her mid 70’s now and a knee replacement is trying its best to slow her down, but she’s having none of it.

“I’m booked to the end of 2027,” she said. “After that, I’ll probably slow down a bit.”

Oof. I thought I was pretty swish, booking myself to the end of September 2025. Clearly, I’ll have to lift my game!

Ketchikan usually has a population of around 9,000, but in summer the cruise ships hit town. The Silver Muse has around 500 passengers, which seems big to me. But 4 other cruise ships were docking at Ketchikan this morning – this monster has over 5,000 passengers!

It looks like a wall! This town was crowded…

Ketchikan has a lot of these huge steps that have been here so long – before the actual streets were built – that they also have street names. This one is Elliot street.

Imagine hauling your groceries all the way up here?

The fishing village was down a long, steep walk to the dock.

Look at how sparkling this water is. There’s a 20-foot difference between the tides.

It was a 25-minute boat ride to where the feast was going to be held. We saw some stunning scenery.

A lot of shrimp (prawn) hunting goes on here. One of the unwritten laws is that if you are fishing, you’re hungry and you need to eat something, you can pull up someone else’s shrimp pit and have a feed. You have to re-bait it and put it back, along with a 6-pack of beer as a thank-you.

We also saw this Bald Eagle swoop down to get a fish that our guide threw into the water. This happened 3 times and I was able to see them all. The way the eagle stretches out his white legs to grab the fish just before he hits the water was something to see.

It was spectacular!

The guide said that for every mile of coastline there’s a pair of eagles.

This is the view from the dock as we walked up from our boat.

They also farm oysters here. They don’t grow in Alaska naturally. The oyster farmers have to bring them in as ‘seedlings’ or very young oysters. The water is so cold for them here, so they grow large and fatty, which some people prefer.

There are quite a few chainsaw sculptures here at the lodge This was the first one.

The story is that a guy visited the fishing shack and asked if they had any timber that he could use to make some art. They said, “We have a few trees out the back!”

In exchange for his art, he was able to come and fish whenever he wanted.

There were people in the restaurant, so we went on a ‘nature walk’ behind the buildings. This was code for a short boardwalk.

The ground was a quagmire. The guide said that there were deer here, but I couldn’t see how they’d be able to walk.

Moss hung from nearly every tree. I wondered if the trees wanted to shake their branches free of the encroaching weight of it.

This tree is the 4th biggest Red Cedar in the world. It’s on the fishing lodge’s 5 acres, so they officially own it.

A hummingbird buzzed Megan’s face. I’m so envious. I still haven’t seen one.

I don’t see why Americans are so patriotic.

I think that you can feel love for your country without needing to make a huge display of it.

More taxidermy.

He was over a handwashing station, which I was glad to use later on.

We were told that this was a “Southern Style” feast, which meant nothing to me.

I should’ve taken more notice of the tablecloth of newspapers.

Yep. She just tipped out the whole lot in the middle of the table. Megan found my reaction very funny. I leapt back and said, “Jesus!”

I soon grabbed the crab-claw cutters and got stuck in.

Everything was fresh and delicious.

There wasn’t much left by the time we finished. We talked to one of the workers and she said that she often takes the leftovers home.

“We get a bit sick of crab claws, mussels and shrimp, but the neighbours love us if we make a big seafood bake and ask them around to help us eat it!”

OK, so the guide was right and I was wrong.

Here’s a deer.

I’ve seen many a movie where the actors loll around on these benches screwed to the roof. I had to have a go.

It was surprisingly comfortable. I wonder if I could do this on MY verandah?

We sped back to the dock. Megan, not the best traveller, sat at the back with her eyes on the horizon.

I sat at the front and enjoyed every bump. But seriously, it seemed like a bit of a risk. Pump everyone full of seafood and warm chocolate-ship cookies and then give them a rollercoaster ride back?

We had a very funny, very camp driver on the way back to Ketchikan. He was halfway through an Indigenous legend about how the world began when suddenly we all yelled, “BEAR!”

He slammed on the brakes as a teenage bear ran out on the road, made as if to double-back, then changed his mind and ran across the road to disappear in the foliage. It happened so fast that no one had a chance to grab a photo.

“Hmmm, lucky I stopped,” said the driver. That bear was lucky that he didn’t end up sprawled all over the windscreen.

Ok, I bought a souvenir here. It’s a small piece of white quartz with some gold running through it.

It’s a useful souvenir because I could wear it every day and it’ll go with anything. I stand by my shopping choices.

The mountains hug this town. It’s so odd to think that behind these buildings are bears and wolves.

Every single thing the people here need to support life comes in via barge.

Even babushka dolls. There’s a shop full of them. I took this photo for Scott since it reminded me of when we went shopping for them in Lincoln.

Imagine living over this tunnel?

As we walked closer to the dock, I liked the house on the top of the hill, but I also liked the trio of blue hats so close together.

Got them all in the one shot!

You’ve got to be careful of the wildlife here.

Our tender boat to get back to the Silver Muse took ages to dock.

“it’s because he’s being watched by the captain!” said someone.

I looked to my right and sure enough, our captain was there. He eventually had had enough, grabbed a rope and helped the guy on the dock bring the tender in.

We dressed up a bit and went for dinner at the same restaurant I went to the night before. It was only a ‘smart, elegant’ night on the calendar.

Now that we’re in the inside passage, Megan has her equilibrium back and we’re ready for more. Someone said to us that there are more animal sightings the further North we go, so that’ll be exciting.

Dad joke of the day:

Our reconnaissance mission two days ago went as planned. Our taxi driver took us straight through to the Silver Seas check-in.

Here’s our ship – the Silver Muse. We sat and watched her as we drank coffee, waiting for the check-in to open at 12.

There were lots of kids walking around with Didney t-shirts and Mickey Mouse ears. I was scared that they were going to be on our cruise until I saw the huge Disney cruise ship. Thank god.

A sniffer dog, making sure that no contraband was going aboard. Good girl!

On one of our last nights on the Canada tour, we had dinner with the couple who’d been chased by the bear at Whistler. She’s a travel agent, so they’ve been on many cruises. When we were going with Silver Seas, she said, “Wow! That’s impressive!”

Her husband, a ‘try hard’ with a large, expensive watch that he flashed everywhere, said, “What? Better than what? The cruises we’ve been on?”
“Yes,” she said.

“Better than the Queen Mary?”

“YES, ” she said.

He was very put out that we’d upstaged him, even if it was totally unintentional on our part!

I wasn’t all that hungry, but when we were presented with a smorgasbord, all sense went out the window. I had sushi and roast goose.

Goose! Like a medieval princess.

We struck a slight snag when we opened the door to our suite. There was a lovely Queen-sized bed there.

Megan and I don’t cuddle.

Fortunately, Megan called our Ruby, our butler and soon a nice steward came with armfuls of bedding and turned it into two singles.

Goodbye Canada!

It was so much fun seeing you.

The next day was the first sailing day we had on this cruise. Thank goodness! I can catch up on the blog posts.

It turns out that Megan suffers from seasickness, so she spent much of the afternoon sleeping, while I had a mixture of exploring the ship and catching up here. I always feel so much better when my blog posts are up-to-date.

When we walked into breakfast, it was just past 9 AM. I’d already been productive, having read 100+ pages of a young adult novel while waiting for Megan to wake up, so I was already feeling good.

Delphine, our server, led us into a side room from the buffet with sweeping views of the vista outside. I was sure this would be just the thing to aid digestion, so I sat down, ordered an Americano and raced out to see what was on offer at the buffet.

The service on this ship is amazing. There are wall-to-wall people waiting to get you a drink, bring you some food and pretty much anything else you want. But no contraband – remember the sniffer dog from yesterday? Luckily, I was born to be straight.

We walked around the top deck of the boar for a while. There was an empty pool and a few other brave souls taking photos.

When we went to a smaller place for lunch, there were 5 servers for the 11 customers in the place. Crazy. They were desperate to do something for us, especially because a big proportion of the passengers were feeling sick and weren’t around.

Naturally, I had to help them out by ordering a morsel of food and a couple of glasses of bubbly.

I’m worried I might get used to this level of service. I’m going back on the Hondius in September next year. That’s the same ship that I went to Antarctica in. I hope I’m not wistfully looking around for my butler!

After lunch, Megan fell asleep. Deeply asleep.

I stayed for a while in the room, then when I finished blogging I had a quick nanna nap. Daytime drinkies do that to me.

Then I got up and walked the ship.

It wasn’t too cold outside. I was wearing the famous Grey Dress, 1 merino top and my cowl and I was plenty warm enough.

Every bar I walked into from the deck had a wall of warm air hit me as I came in.

I saw a lemon tart. I decided I needed to replenish my strength.

Georgia rang as I was sitting on the back deck, gazing contemplatively at the sea. She sounds so much brighter now that the worry of Poppy has been dealt with. She’s submitted all of her uni assignments and is going through all of her “change of name and gender” stuff, now that she has her new birth certificate.

She held the phone up so the dogs could hear me. Scout got very excited, especially when I asked, “Are you Mummy’s baby?”

Jeff is very clingy, Georgia said. Poor little man. He’s never been apart from Poppy before.

But I’m so glad that Georgia sounds back to her old self.

After a while, I went back to the room.

Megan was awake and had booked herself a massage. I realised that it was “formal night” tonight, so I’d better iron all my linen clothes.

Here I am, with clothes as wrinkle-free as linen is ever likely to get. (I had to go down 4 floors before I found a working iron…)

Megan wasn’t up for dinner, and I wasn’t about to waste all that ironing! So I dressed in the outfit I wore to David31 and Izzy’s wedding and swept myself off to crash the captain’s cocktail party.

I was given a Cosmopolitan as I walked through the door, and I sat with some lovely people from England. It was a bit of fun.

It was hungry work though, so I decided to see if I could find a nice place to eat. The buffet on level 7 is always available if this plan didn’t work out.

I found a place at a restaurant called ‘Indochine’ which was complimentary. I was given a table beside a window and the waiter and I conferred solemnly about every choice I made.

The meal started with a free cocktail – don’t mind if I do! – and wine was paired with each course.

The crême brulee was paired with chilled limoncello… naturally, darling.

I chatted with a few people seated near me, but mostly I stared out of the window and the magnificent view that changed every minute, sometimes thinking of my Poppy. I let the realisation sink in that I was actually on a luxury ship cruising in Alaska.

Tomorrow I set foot on American soil for the first time. It’s funny that I chose Alaska to be my US introduction. It’s not everyone’s first choice!

After dinner I didn’t feel like going back to the cabin just yet, so I went to a show.

Rachel York has played Fantine on Broadway, has worked with Julie Andrews and lots of other way famous people. I knew that Izzy and Jenna would love to see her sing, so I took a few sneaky vids that the ship won’t let me send to them because they’re too big.

She has a good set of lungs on her. Most of her show has her imitating famous singers like Streisand, Parton, and Andrews. She’s very good at it. She’s also VERY enthusiastic, which in a small venue is a little off-putting. I felt like asking her to tone it down a little.

Still, it was a great way to spend the evening.

When I got back Megan was watching James Bond in her pjs. Her massage, some beer and the (now) gentle rocking of the boat had all done the trick and she was feeling much better.

Let’s see what Alaska has to offer tomorrow!

Dad joke of the first day:

Dad joke for the second day:

It’s always lovely meeting up with blog readers. We’re guaranteed to like each other – because why read the blog of someone you dislike? – and we can jump straight into conversations without much of that ‘getting to know you’ stuff.

At least on their side. As it happens, most of the people I’ve met up with from the blog are people who have NEVER COMMENTED!! They simply pop up when I mention I’ll be travelling in their area. (I’m looking at you, Deana, Loretta and Martha… haha!)

Here we are, posing at the bird sanctuary Martha and her husband John took us to. I think you can all tell who the Canadian is in the photo. Coat casually unzipped. Meanwhile, Megan and I were rugged up to the eyeballs.

Canadians are made of sterner stuff than Australians.

The sanctuary takes in injured birds and, if possible, rehabilitates them to be released out into the wild. Some birds, though, are too badly hurt and have to live their lives in big outdoor aviaries.

Big Daddy, was brought here in 1992. He’s a Bald Eagle who flew into power lines and had one wing amputated after he was electrocuted.

He has a partner, but at the moment she’s off in another cage, fostering new eagle babies and teaching them that they’re birds, not humans. She’ll be back once the new babies have flown the coop.

 After the group had moved down to cages further down the row, John, Martha’s husband, called us back.

“I think Big Daddy wants some more attention!” he said.

Our guide said that over 80% of birds of prey don’t live past their first year.

Yikes.

But in captivity, things are different. I’m not sure how I feel about this poor old thing:

Blinky has been here since 1983. They think that he’s about 45 years old.

He’s completely blind and deaf, though he can sense vibrations around him. Due to this, he’s hand-fed.

He’s usually with another owl who takes care of him, but she’s in another cage fostering real babies. When she finishes with that, she’ll be back to keep him company.

Cessna was hit by a plane, while Connie was confiscated from someone who had her in a parrot cage in their lounge room for 12 years. Imagine what an awful life that would have been for her?

They were put together and they decided that life was for the living. They’ve had babies.

There used to be two females here called Laverne and Shirley, but Shirley exhibited an unexpected aptitude for flying, so she was released two weeks ago and they put young Squizzy in here to keep Laverne company.

Snowy owls can eat more than 1,600 lemmings a year.

Interesting fact.

They sure like their taxidermy in this country!

After the aviaries, there was an indoor museum.

A happy woodland scene…

… in which this owl was NOT happy about spending eternity.

Martha – who is an absolute powerhouse! – and John drove us to Granville Island. Remember we were there for a little while on the first day of the coach tour? This time, we were back to look at the Art.

Two things stopped me from buying this exuberant bust for almost 1K… the fact that I’d just spent $2,200 at the emergency vet for Poppy, and the fact that it was stone and weighed a tonne.

There was a blacksmith there who had incredible things for sale. I loved so many of them, but they were either too big or too expensive.

Damn.

Martha took us for a walk along the wharves, where we could see some of the beautiful buildings that Vancouver has.

I was able to get wifi on GranvilleIsland, and that when Georgia told me that our vet was hopeful that Poppy may have Addison’s Disease. He gave her an injection of a hormone that would make her appear much better in only a few hours, if that was the case. I spent most of today crossing my fingers and feeling hopeful. All of her symptoms matched the ones for Addisons.

Meanwhile, we talked and talked and talked. Here’s an action shot:

Look at these BROOMS!!!! Martha has a broom from here.

Aren’t they amazing? I didn’t get one because they’d never get through customs, but they were amazing – and the people who make them were busy at the back of the shop, making more.

I told Megan one of the steroid seagulls from Canada was behind her. It’s a scary thought!

We all caught a bus to the mainland and we said goodbye to Martha at the end of the day. When we walked back to the room and had dinner, I received a phone call from Georgia, saying that the injection hadn’t worked and Poppy was crashing again. She was calling it, and I agreed. Later that day, they were heading in for the Green Dream.

Poppy was in her bed, with her nose in the top I’d worn the last day I was home. Georgia had fished it out from the washing and given it to her.

Jordan came around to be with Georgia. By the time he drove over there, Georgia had already dug Poppy’s grave, right where I wanted it.

I waited for the phone call. It came at 2 AM Vancouver time.

Poppy was gone. She had a peaceful death with Georgia and Jordan at her side.

They did everything for Poppy exactly as I would have done it. I’m so proud of them. She was given the dignified, painless death she deserved.

I stayed up for a while. Then I snuck into bed without waking Megan.

The cruise starts tomorrow.

We were on the bus, about to leave the hotel in Victoria when the first messages from Georgia came through.

“Mum.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“Poppy just had a seizure. I’m taking her to the emergency vet.”

It was the middle of the night in Australian time. The rest of the day was a nightmare of me searching for wifi and Megan relaying messages between us. She has roaming.

The wifi experiment is a big NO. I’m never doing this again. Plus the time zones were a nightmare, with Canada being 17 hours behind Melbourne time. There were very few hours where it was instantaneous to communicate.

The coach dropped us off at the hotel we originally stayed in, but our paperwork told us that we were booked in to the other Sandman hotel downtown.

A $20 taxi ride there – only to be told that our paperwork was wrong and we had to go back to where we started. Terrific. A $20 taxi ride back.

After all of that was sorted out, we sat in the room. I was beside myself with worry about Poppy and was checking my messages all the time for anything new from Georgia.

At the same time, this was a day in an overseas city. We needed to get out and about, for Megan’s sake. She was chilled, but I knew it wasn’t fair. So we decided to go to Canada Place and see where we’d be getting dropped off for the cruise in two day’s time.

I had enough anxiety about Poppy going on – I didn’t need any anxiety over the next stage of our trip to be hanging around as well! So we went for a walk.

Vancouver is filled with a lot of trees, like Melbourne. They have leaves imprinted into the footpaths, but they’re only under where trees are planted. I loved it.

Megan photobombed the shot of the sculptures.

We went down and made sure we knew where we’d be going on Monday. It looked idiot-proof.

This was reassuring.

Look at the size of this frog!

The wharf has lots of these boards documenting quirky stories about Canada. We walked slowly along the boards, taking them in and looking at the ships that were docked.

An overly large ship pulled away, music BLARING and a try-hard guy on the microphone urging everyone to “Get excited!!!”

I hope our cruise isn’t like this…

Later that night, Georgia sent me this picture of Poppy and Jeff at home, snuggled up in my dressing gown. It’s the second-last photo I have of her. I didn’t know that then.

This is the hallway of our hotel in Victoria, Vancouver Island. If twin girls holding hands suddenly appeared at the other end, I wouldn’t be at all surprised.

I spent most of the morning catching up with the blog, leaving the room just as I received an ecstatic message from Megan, who had gone on a whale-watching excursion: “We saw 22 Orcas!!!”

Wow.

As I was walking along the foreshore, bells rang out from a nearby Cathedral. They sounded absolutely beautiful. It was 1 o’clock on the dot and yes, it reminded me of the church bells ringing over from Kent when Deana, Kathleen and I were walking along the shore in Essex almost a year ago. 

I was wandering around, trying to find where I could book a water taxi to have a look at the harbour when I bumped into Bob, the man on the left.

He instantly became my new best friend. When he asked if I wanted to have a look at the yachts in the harbour, of course, I said yes.

There was a huge race due to start tomorrow, so the regular boats were booted off and the racing yachts were all crammed in, getting ready for the big day.

This one was beautiful. It was a wooden boat and the man had owned it for 25 years.

“She was left tied up in a yard and allowed to fill with rainwater for I don’t know how many years,” he said. “This was when we were able to afford her.”

He restored her and re-varnishes her every year. It’s a labour of love.

The people here venerate the wooden boats. It’s almost like they’re the ‘real’ boats.

Here’s another one. She’s called Martha.

She’s her own Foundation. She’s here to allow kids who otherwise couldn’t afford to sail to have the chance to get into it.

The next 3 photos are educational. Bob used the example of a ‘block’ to show me the differences between the yachts.

Martha is an old boat, so she has the original blocks, which are made of wood. Very heavy.

The more modern ones are made of metal alloys and are hollow, which makes them lighter.

Then he pointed.

“This yacht here is called Smoke,” he said. “She’s one of the fastest boats on the water. See what they’ve done here? They’ve just screwed the whole thing into the deck. Much lighter.

“This is a real racing yacht. On my yacht, I have a stove on gimbals with 3 burners. I’ll bet all they have is a propane flame. It’s all about conserving weight.”

This girl was doing some work on board. I asked her about the stove and she invited me to come aboard.

Bob’s eyes nearly popped out of their sockets.

He’s no fool, though. He scrambled aboard after me.

Chrissie led me below decks.

NOTHING was there that didn’t need to be. She also said that weight was the most important thing.

Bob was pretty much right. There was a flame to make water hot, but that was it.

Bunks.

The loo is a new addition. No walls, so, as Chrissie said, “You squat there and hope that no one comes down, but if they do… bad luck!”

Here’s the bottom of the mast, screwed into the bottom of the deck.

And here’s the whole thing.

I asked Chrissie who owns Smoke and she said, “Oh, my father!”

She and Bob got into a conversation where it was all about racing experiences.

“The worst thing, Chrissie said, “is when she tops over and the mast is in the water and it’s 3 AM and pitch black. The crew is calling for me to ‘find a lull” and I can’t find anything anywhere!”

It was an impressive racing yacht, but of course, most of the details went right over my head. It was a glimpse into another world, and I love having experiences like this.

When we walked away, Bob leaned close to me and said, “She’s the Skipper over that crew and she’s very good.”

(I just looked up the results of the race and unfortunately Smoke didn’t finish.)

We walked around a little more, then we said our goodbyes and I booked a seat on the next water taxi, leaving in 40 minutes.

The actual water taxi tour was a bit dull, to tell you the truth, but the captain told an interesting story about the statue on top of their Houses of Parliament.

“You’d expect the statue to be one of Queen Victoria,” he said, “But it’s actually George Vancouver. A while ago, they brought his statue down for cleaning and discovered that his left foot was completely missing. It had rusted clean away. So they took a cast of his other foot and repaired it. So there he is, standing there on two right feet. He’s no good at dancing anymore!”

This waterside restaurant is shaped like a whale’s tail.

These birdhouses on top of the logs are there to encourage the Purple Martens to stay. 

They’re migratory birds who will eat their weight in mosquitoes every day. I’d encourage them to stick around too!

Seaplanes are allowed to land in the harbour and the boats and planes have it all worked out. Whoever has their lights flashing is cleared to go.

There’s an air and water traffic control tower to keep everyone apart from each other.

As I said before, the harbour cruise was a bit boring but I’m so glad I got off at Fishermans wharf.

It is beautiful, so quirky, with all of the floating houses.

Every single floating house is a different colour and has different things around it.

Some of them are very welcoming, with flowers and everything. Others are obviously sick of people like me, milling about outside. Well,  I didn’t try and peep into any windows but apparently, some people do. Some of the houses had lots of ‘keep out’ signs and stuff like that, which I can quite understand.

I bought this pendant at a shop at the edge of the village.

It was fan fucking tastic! The bold use of colour was the best.

I was wandering around and I had two Aldi nut bars for lunch. I thought, ‘It’s not wine o’clock yet, but I just like the idea of sitting down, having a glass of wine and looking out over the water.’

Dammit! I’m going to do it.

I said to the girl who served me that I used to have that hairdo. As you could see she’s bald.

She said, “I have alopecia. I’ve got this haircut all the time.”

Anyway we chatted for a little while. She was so much fun! She got a hefty tip.

As I’m sitting here talking into my phone, it’s 4:15 in the afternoon. The sky is grey. There’s a light wind blowing and the water is a deep colour. People are talking all around me but I’m simply sitting here, sipping my wine and enjoying peace and quiet.

Beautiful bright houses are all around me, bright yellow water taxis are coming in. It’s a pretty nice way to spend an afternoon.

This day has been unexpectedly full of boats. I’ve learned more about racing yachts than I ever thought possible and have been so lucky to set foot into the fastest yacht of them all. What a day!

It’s been really lovely. Just quiet and peaceful and learning about new things and seeing new things. It’s really what it’s all about, isn’t it?

Dad joke of the day: