Ketchikan, Alaska-We are here at 0730 local time Sunday May 23, 2010

We boarded the ferry in Bellingham, WA on Friday at 6:00  PM. It was a 37 hour passage here with the trip being made mostly through Canadian waters with the exception of the first 3 hours and the last hour and a half. We crossed into Alaska @ 4:30 this  AM.We were off loaded at 8:00 AM this morning.
We had an absolute ball on the ferry!!! While we were waiting in line to board one of the ferry staff was talking with us. He looked a lot  like Henry Winkler. (The Fonz) Turned out he was the first mate and since Garry was wearing his Coast Guard cap he and Garry got to talking about the Coast Guard. the upshot of all this was that Garry asked about the possibility of getting a tour of the bridge. So on Saturday morning we heard our name over the intercom and "The Fonz" (Mike) met us up on the bridge for a tour.
We met some great people on the ferry.  Many of them were Alaskans and gave us all kinds of hints and suggestions. Several of them have invited  us to come visit, park our camper in front, etc. One gentleman has offered to take Garry fishing! We met a couple traveling in a Roadtrek who we have become very friendly with. They live in Pittsburgh and we will be doing some touring along with them. This morning we actually met a man who lives in Whiteford, Md. Only @ 10 miles from us. His daughter was with him and she lives in Fairbanks. So now we have a place to leave the camper while we are on our trip to the  Oil Fields.
We booked a cabin for the 2 nights we were on the ferry. Very small with bunk beds (guess who had to take the TOP bunk - it's a height thing!) but we had a private bathroom and someplace SAFE to leave the camera, etc. when we were doing other things. We took our binoculars up to the cabin and I am glad we did as we used them a lot. We also packed breakfast and lunches but we ate  dinner with some friends in the dining room every night. We were impressed by how good the food was onboard. A lot of people traveled without vehicles. Many of them went to the aft upper deck and pitched tents for the length of the trip. There was also an aft solarium that was covered and many people spent the  nights sleeping on lounge chairs there. The ship showed a lot of  movies in the theater but I don't know why you would coop yourself up in a dark theater with all of that magnificent scenery right outside. We were blessed with sunny days and moderate temperatures. It would be a little cool at times when the wind would blow.

I could spend the rest of my life sitting in the front seats in the forward upstair lounge just watching the magnificent scenery pass by! We haven't seen any whales yet but did see dolphin, bald eagles  and lots of waterfalls. The sunset the first night was glorious. We have set our watches back another hour and we are now far enough North that the sun sets around 9:30 at night and is up at 4 AM.

We had to turn off the propane for the refrigertor while we were on the ferry so our first stop this morning was to Safeway for groceries. We are sitting outside a Super 8  motel to post this update. We are going touring and exploring and will try to sort through the 100+ pictures we have taken the last few days  so we can then post some of the best on the blog.