Day 25, ferry day 1 Haines to Ketchikan with stops in Juno and Petersburg

22 July 2015

Exploring the ship in the morning we find another deck that allows tents, two down from the solarium deck that we pitched our tent on.  This location is much better protected from the weather (being under the dining room), exhaust, and engine noise.  We quickly decided that this would be our new home, so we moved the tent to the lower deck and re-erected it using previously used Gorilla Tape scavenged from the deck.  Even previously used Gorilla Tape is better than the tape that we brought.  Gorilla Tape is RECOMMENDED for use on ferry decks!

Ours is the Marmot

At the Juno stop some more marine campers joined the impromptu Hooverville.  Soon our little enclave is well occupied.

At this point we felt that we needed to establish an HOA to keep the riff-raff out, and to make sure that tents that didn't conform to our color palette not be allowed to move in.

Despite being accessible only by air and water, Juno appears to be a fair-sized city.  The ferry terminal is some miles away from the city, precluding our ability to just walk off the dock and explore, so we just hang out while cars unload/load.

As we pull away from the ferry terminal and make our way out to the inland waterway we can see the Mendenhall glacier just to the east of the city.




Continuing on our way, we are notified of sightings of porpoises and whales.  Out come the cameras to shouts of "Thar she blows"  "Over there, a breach"  "I see two of them!"  As is usually the case, by the time one clicks the camera shutter, all that is caught is a splash.  We do, however manage to capture a few whale images.

A whale of a tail

Petersburg is a picturesque working town of fishermen.  Since our stop here was very brief, we didn't go ashore here either, but we did take some photos.

I've never seen a dock for float planes before

As we make our way down the inland waterway the water is very calm, and the views typically fabulous.  We learn from one of the ferry employees that we will be traveling through the second most narrow passage approved by the US Coast Guard for large vessels such as our Ferry, the M/V Columbia.  I think he said that the ferry is the only ship of its size approved to go through the narrows. When we reach this passage shortly past Petersburg we see that it is indeed quite narrow, and the ship has to make quite a number of turns through the narrow passage.  There are many parts where it would not be possible for two such ships to pass each other.

As evening arrives, some of our Hoovervillians are prompted to play a little music.  One couple from Canada on their honeymoon play mandolin and fiddle, while a third from New York brought along a guitar.  These musicians had never met before, but like the true professionals that they are, they soon were making great bluegrass music together to the delight of their audience. Some of the tent people offer to buy them dinner for their entertainment and we are asked to join (we just had pie and coffee). It was a fun evening all around.

Bluegrass on the Inland Waterway