Rockwell Lighthouse Sitka

... to do a daily update. Next surprise. They
advertised WiFi but when I tried to connect I found I needed a
password. That was our room number and I would be charged $0.75 per
min. or $100.00 for 250 min. Well I thought I could afford to just
put the computer away until I got home.

Saturday was spent at sea and the sea's were rough-weather not good. Many sea
sick. Got more surprises. Every one was told that alcohol was extra
money. We were not ...

... Episcopal Church (St. Peter's by the Sea). Next, we toured the Russian Bishop’s House on a park service ranger led tour. This house is particularly interesting because of the Siberian Construction methods that were quite useful in Alaska. There were furniture and clocks made by the Bishop, an accomplished cabinet maker.

We got to St. Michael’s Russian Orthodox Church, but it was closed. They open it daily ...

... cruise ship comes along each day in the warmer months. There's lots of rules about ships not dropping oil slicks everywhere and the locals even voted against building a special cruise terminal (where the ship pulls up) in case it ruined 'the look' of Sitka. So, it's what we in the biz call a 'tender port', where they park the ship out a bit and zoom you into shore in the (rather posh) lifeboats. This is really cool because the wildlife ...

... years of school. He looked about 21, at most, to me. What do I know? He was very pleasant and I did forget his name, I'm sorry. After the coursework, we went to do pool work. The divemaster was very pleased with both of our buoyancy control and the pool work went very quickly. Shannon was invited the day before to join us on the boat ride, so she came down to the shop around 11 AM. She came out on the boat with us, and she also took most of ...

... their carving, Hudson Bay blankets and little white mother-of-pearl buttons to make ceremonial regalia. Typically entire blankets are worn as robes, with the clan crest appliqued on the back and outlined with buttons. We saw this regalia both in the museum and worn in action at a performance of the Sheet'ka Kwaan Naa Kahidi Performing Arts Theater. The troupe consisted of about twenty ...

... fluke in my picture, but I did get the humpback!) As we approached St. Lazaria island, we saw many adorable puffins swimming about and learned that they hardly ever go on land. The island is volcanic in origin, and as we peered into one of its caves we saw a technicolor display of orange and purple starfish and green sea anenomes. A wonderful introduction to Sitka.

... them if we got wetsuits as well and she informed us that as we would be floating on the water not going in it, we wouldn't need them. We weren't quite so sure about this remembering previous kayaking escapades, most of which involved ending up in the water but the temperature of the alaskan water proved quite an effective deterrant from tipping our kayaks and we all, amazingly enough, managed to stay dry. We were incredibly lucky that it was glorious sunshine (alaska ...

... were composed of the: Inupitat and Yup'ik Aleut and Alutiiq Athabascan Northwest Coast (Tlingit, Haida, Tsimshian) and the Alutiiq My visit to Sitka was a mad rush to get in as much as possible in the three hours available to me but I think I succeeded in maximizing the time. A short 15 minute taxi ride took me back to the waiting Alaska ferry which was to carry me to my next stop - Ketchikan. Footnote: In my recent trip to Hawaii we toured the island of Kauai. Along the ...

... subscribe to my blog you may have to become a TravelPod member. If you don't want to do this I don't blame you. You can just check back every once in awhile to see if I've added anything new or email comments to me. If you have any problems let me know. Feel free to share the location of this blog with anyone I have forgotten (I don't have a very comprehensive email list). Thanks, Heather

... ready, I was able to walk the ship, check out the library & DVD library & enjoy the La Verandah restaurant until 1:30 p.m. when my room was ready. 4. Be sure to take several of the free "Alaska Destination" booklets in port before boarding the ship as they contain both worthwhile coupons, freebies, and information on each of the ports & their stores, tours. 5. Make reservations for either Signatures (French cuisine) or Latitudes (Indo ...