Day 10 – 11 June 2014

All the families with kids got off the ferry at Juneau. We found out there was a big celebration taking place the next day and that was why there were so many people on the ferry to Juneau. It is now ¼ full and we have plenty of room to move around and set once again. We also upgraded to a 4 bunk cabin with bathroom and shower for the last two nights. We have much more room because one bunk lifts up and forms a couch on one side of the cabin with our two bunks on the other side.

We spent several hours yesterday evening with some workers heading to Whittier and had a great time talking about what they were doing in Alaska. Went to bed around 1000 pm and woke up at 3:30 am. It was already getting daylight and we were about an hour from Yakutat. Jim and I were some of the few folks up that early but we got to see the ferry go down a narrow channel towards a glacier and then turn around to go back up the channel to the small fishing village called Yakutat. Not real sure why the ferry did this side trip to the glacier since most of the passengers were still asleep.

The trip to Yakutat was almost all in open water but the weather is pretty nice and the seas caused no excessive rolling of the ferry.

After docking at a fishing pier we got off to walk to the general store about 2 blocks away while they unloaded several vehicles from the ferry. They handled this in a very unusual way with cranes and elevators since there was not a ramp at this pier. We just pulled back out at 9:15 am and going the last leg in open water to Whittier. We arrive in the morning at 6 am so we plan on repacking our bags this afternoon in anticipation of loading the bike in the morning and getting off the ferry.

Very weak cell service at Yakutat so was unable to post my Day 9 and Day 10 inputs. Will probably have to wait till we get to a hotel on the mainland somewhere around Fairbanks tomorrow evening.

Our plan for tomorrow is ride through the Whittier tunnel then on to Anchorage about 60 miles away. We will gas up including our spare tanks for the 365 mile to Fairbanks. Both Jim and I are anxious to get moving so do not plan to stop anywhere till Fairbanks for any significant length of time.

The further north we go the more daylight we have. Here at Yakutat sunrise was at 3:59 am and sunset around 10:30 pm; lots of riding time. We are counting on this when we attempt the Arctic Circle run.

This is a couple hours later (11:00 am). As we left Yakutat the captain stated that they had extra time because they had built in delays for weather and we had not encountered any so he was going to take the ferry down to the glacier (most everyone didn’t know he had already done that earlier). There were at least three cruise ships also passing close to the glacier so I took several pictures using a cruise ship as a size reference. We are now heading out to the Gulf of Alaska and open water and passing several small ice bergs on the way.