Day Ten - at sea

It’s so foggy outside they have to keep sounding the horn. I'm glad I took a "leaving Ketchikan" picture earlier. The “Princess Patter” gave us a long list of bodies of water and landmarks – Hecate Strait, the Queen Charlotte Islands, Vancouver Island, Blackney Passage, Johnstone Strait towards scenic Race Passage, Seymour Narrows, Discovery Passage, the Straits of Georgia and finally the Lion’s Gate Bridge to our berth in Canada Place. It looks like we may not see many of them. I’ve heard it’s also very rainy in Vancouver. We have to be completely out of the cabin/stateroom by 7am and at the disembarkation point by 7:30. The bus leaves at 9am and I hope the entire 90 minutes in between isn’t taken up with the embarkation and inspection process. We should at least be able to take some pictures of Vancouver, since the park is directly across the street. I know it’s a business and they have to have time to make ready for the incoming passengers but it makes the last day much too long for us.

The fog started to lift after we left Vancouver Island (I only know we were there because we stopped to pick up Canadian pilots. There must be some legal issues with having ships piloted in Canadian waters by other than Canadian nationals) and now we can see foggy, snow-capped, tree-lined mountains, very much like the Alaskan coast.

I’m putting off packing because I just learned that Canada doesn’t allow ANY liquids in our carry-ons – not the 3-ounce bottles we bought specifically to comply with the US regulations, not even my tiny bottle of hand sanitizer. I don’t know how I’m going to do this. I may have to check my carry-on. Sigh. This is way too much trouble to go through for a country I’m not even visiting.

I’m going aft now to check out the last sunset of the cruise. I hope to get online from the airport to post this before I get home. I’ll have to wait to sort out my 350 pictures.

Oh - we did pick up the people we left in Juneau. I never spoke to them, but that must have been quite a story.