Thursday, June 24, 2010

Days 6, 7 & 8. Prince Rupert to Skagway


Well fan, I bet you guessed I had deserted you and given up the ghost - not that easy I'm afraid. We departed PR on the 22 June and have been at sea for a couple of days. Unlike our old friends at Princess Cruises (heads together & cheesy smile), the Alaska Marine Highway vessels do not carry internet. So, we have been rather like Apollo 13 on the dark side of the moon for the last couple of days.......... This afternoon we got into our B&B, connected to the internet and were able to make contact with 'Houston' once more!

I discussed with my dear wife how to best encapsulate the last couple of days. Given that I am likely to make this part of the trip into a veritable 'tomb', I sought her advice and some comments. Here is her suggestion: Left hotel at midday, pissing down with rain. Sat in pissing rain with the bikes for nearly six hours - got on boat. Next day, pissed down with rain - Wrangle Narrows was high point. Got up early this morning, pissing with rain and low cloud. Got to B&B, parked bikes, went to spend shed loads of money!!!!! Not sure I can better that, however I will try to 'flesh it out' a little.

We'd met a chap in the hotel the day before we left, who appeared very knowledgeable about the process at the ferry terminal. His advice was to take an early lunch, then head to the dock and get into line. Thus ensuring a place at the front - or bow as we call it - of the ship. We had a leisurely morning, bought a couple of books for the trip, but ignored the advice re lunch. We were still pretty blown from dinner the night before, so we skipped lunch. Earlier I had been out to 'Gertie' to see how she was fairing, and she duly fired up like a 'good un'. I was a happy camper! We checked out and loaded the bikes, and yes, it was as reported earlier, still pissing down with rain. We were at the terminal before the ticket office opened, so had to wait. After a while waiting in the rain, we were told to drive a few 100m to the ticket office, which was also the location for US Customs. At least were were back inside for a while! Then the Customs Officers were ready to begin processing.

I confess to being a little apprehensive of this part of the journey. Not because of any contraband, but my experiences with coming into the US were not all that good! I'll say no more. However, I really to have to say what a great pair of Officers were on duty that day. Courteous, pleasant, polite, even managing some 'banter'. In no time, we had the bikes and ourselves processed and back into another line. At this point I recognised one of the Officers as the guy in the hotel who advised us to get in line early. I resisted the burning temptation to thank him so 'feckin' much for his crap advice - seemed the smart thing to do. Ohh yes, it was still pissing down!

More vehicles joined us, and by late afternoon, there was quite a throng waiting to board. There were also several bikes, but they had been directed straight past the cars to the front of the lines - ahead of us!! Now we were pissed off & pissed on! Anyway, the crew eventually started boarding the vehicles which seemed to take an inordinate amount of time. One of the crew finally directed us onto the ship. Thank God, out of the bloody rain! We were directed to the Starboard (or right) side of the single car deck, and secured the bikes two abreast. All of us two wheelers had to use some sort of lashing. Wend just jumped on 'Sydders', applied the foot brake and was done. Even the crew looking after parking were impressed with 'Sydders'. One even knowledgeably called to his coworker, 'it's got reverse, great'! Parked and tied down, we unloaded the bags and made our way to the cabin deck.

Thankfully one of the deck crew directed us to the elevators. We both have 4 bags a piece, so getting up a few flights of narrow, steep shipboard stairs would have been purgatory it's self. We popped out of the elevator by the Pursers office & got out cabin keys. Now when I say cabin............... Bare in mind that the last time we ventured too sea, it was aboard a cruise ship, in a suite! We now had the keys to our broom closet, a closet with bunk beds at that! The cabin would be about 10' long by 7' wide - no room to get the cat in there with us, let alone swing it! We also had a narrow space to hang coats etc, and our own bathroom with shower. All very, VERY basic, but at least we had privacy. We decided to do as we usually did when boarding a ship - go and explore. This took 10 minutes.......... The MV Manuska is a lot smaller than we had become used to, but she was perfect for the job she was built for. I'm sure her first Master - a Mr Noah - had no problems getting the animals in two by..................... Exploration complete, we got some dinner and retuned to the sanctum of our cabin. We both read for a while, but it wasn't long before we were both sleeping - knackered!

The following day, there wasn't a huge amount to report. We headed to the canteen and had some breakfast, then pretty much spent the day in the observation lounge. There we either took in the scenery, or read our books. The ship called into a couple of small towns along the route, which incidentally took us through the inner passage. This pretty much ensured that we had a smooth time at sea. The ship carried a US Park Services guide, who every now and then, popped to the front of the lounge and told us a little about the town we were about to dock in, or other interesting facts - such as the Wrangle Narrows. We had called into the town of Wrangle where cars and or passengers got off/on, then we headed off again. North of Wrangle, the ferry passes along a 22 mile long channel, which in places is at best 1/2 mile wide. The weather was none too pleasant, and as my wife capably assessed, was pissing down! However, it was a very interesting stretch of the journey and I have many photo's. Some of which I'll download onto the Blogs slide show. At the far end of the Narrows, we docked at Petersburg and we decided to stretch our 'sea legs' and venture ashore. However, the hour long lay over was now cut to 30 mins and with the town being a good 30 mins hike away, we altered our plans! We got to the car park at the small terminal, where we discovered a delightful bakery! We felt obligated to assist with the local economy, so popped in, got a couple of cakes & headed back to the ship! Apart from dinner, that was pretty much day 2!

And so to day 3, our arrival at Skagway and the end of our little shipboard adventure, within an adventure. The ship called into Haines and then onto Skagway. It takes a little over an hour to make this part of the journey. While the ship is 'in port', passengers are allowed down to the car deck. This gave us a great opportunity to take some luggage down to the bikes before we arrived in Skagway, and to prepare the bikes. It also meant I had the chance to 'fire up' Gertie. Once again, first stab of the start button, she fired into life - I was getting my confidence back in the bike! After securing bags into the panniers, we headed back upstairs and some breakfast. Fully fed, we cleared the last bits of luggage from the 'stateroom', and went to the observation lounge for our first view of Skagway - well we had a ruddy long wait! Nothing to do with the distance we had to cover, the valley was pretty much full of low cloud - down to the water and of course the ever present rain.

When we got a decent view of the town, the first thing that came into sight, were 3 big cruise ships, two we certainly identified as being Princes Line. As we edged closer to the dock, I saw the name on the first, the Sapphire Princess. Wendy & I gave a combined sigh, remembering the month long cruise we enjoyed on the Sapphire's inaugural cruise from Los Angeles to Sydney Australia. The two vessels were worlds apart, but we were on this one for a totally different reason. We eventually docked in Skagway and it was a miserable bloody morning. The heavy clouds hung to the steeply wooded hills/mountains, coming almost down to house top level. It was impossible to see the mountains which surrounded the town. For me, the overall impression was of arriving in a Norwegian Fjord.

On the car deck, we readied the bikes, lashed on the remaining bags and I fred up 'Gertie' once again - she didn't miss a beat. There weren't that many vehicles for Skagway, so in no time we were beckoned forward to the door and ramp. I followed Wendy down the car deck, turned sharp right, exited the ship over a very slick ramp and onto the dock. Here I popped past Wendy & proceeded up the final ramp. As the tide was out - a loooong way out - this ramp was quite steep and slick with rain. There were two perforated sections on either side of the ramp, intended to aid traction for cars. I picked one of these & made way way behind two other bikes. At the top of the ramp, an RV (caravan) was making painfully slow progress as a dock worker peered underneath to ascertain the clearance over the end of the ramp. This caused the 4 bikes to come to a halt on the slippery surface. With the RV cleared, I followed the two bikes & popped over the end of the ramp. It took a while for Wendy to appear, I later found out why. When she tried to move off, 'Sydders' slid sideways down the ramp, until Wendy managed to get traction on the back wheel. She tried to tell me, but I'd not connected my radio because of the short journey............... Anyway, all's well that ends well - so I'm told - and we made our way the few blocks to the B&B, 'The White House' and our accommodation for the next couple of nights.

We arrived quite early, certainly before most 'establishments' allow you to check in. We pulled up outside the B&B, right by another BMW GS and a young guy from Mexico about to head south on the ferry we just arrived on. We swapped stories about our experiences to date, and he told us we'd probably be able to leave our bags inside until we could check in. Not only could we leave our luggage, but we were able to get changed. We registered for our stay, then headed out to look round town. The 'White House' is only two blocks over from the main shopping area, so we didn't have too far to walk. We spent the remainder of the morning & early afternoon, walking round Skagway and doing a little shopping............! We returned to the B&B about 3pm, got to our room to find all of our bags had been moved for us. After a little rest, we showered & changed & headed out for some dinner. Wendy had already discovered the 'Skagway Brewing Company' on-line, and having found it in town, decided to have something to eat there. We were not to be disappointed, the burgers were home made, full of flavour and enormous! These were washed down with some of Skagways own ale - wonderful stuff. So it was we got to bed, knackered & very, very full................

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