Leslie Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Ketchikan equals rain. Yes, we had hours and hours of pouring rain today.I wasn’t sure we’d ever get out to do anything but by mid-afternoon the weather finally broke and we were able to go into town. Our campsite is 14 miles north of the town of Ketchikan. Ketchikan is a town of 8000 inhabitants that can be increased by a similar number when the cruise ships are in town. The cruise ships only remain during the day so that after the 6:00 pm departure of hte last cruise ship the town pretty much closes up shop. Ketchikan is the 4th largest town in Alaska but that isn’t really saying too much. Ketchikan, like most of the town on the southeast coast, is accessible only by boat or by air. Ketchikan is 6 hours by ferry boat to the next town, either Prince Rupert, BC to the south or Wrangell, AK to the north.
From my research many of these towns don’t have a municipal water or sewage disposal system. Ketchikan, like some of the larger southeastern Alaskan towns, has a municipal water system only in the borough itself. Outside of the borough of Ketchikan, individual homes have cisterns filled by rainwater. See the rain gutters from the roof running into the metal cisterns.
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Our campground has a large cistern. The water has a lot of iron oxide. The color of the water is light brown (ugh) and it tastes pretty bad (ugh, ugh). My hair can’t wait for clearer water. One of our errands today was to take several 5 gallon containers to the Ketchikan Waterworks to fill with fresh water. The water spigot had a strange handle. While we were filling the container, I attempted to turn the water off – unfortunately I didn’t get it exactly right and both Robert and I ended up with unexpected showers of very COLD water! Obviously we survived our showers and we are pleased to have some clean water to drink. I’m a bit concerned about what facilities we’ll find in Wrangell, a much smaller town. The only commercial RV park on the island has only 7 sites. That’s a record in smallness for us.
My other project today was to capture a picture of the Aleutian Ballad. Fans of Most Dangerous Catch might recognize the boat from the show. We were told that after a bad experience crabbing on the north seas the captain decided that although he’d make much more money crabbing, he really would prefer to survive. He had the boat retrofitted as a tour boat demonstrating the business of crab fishing.
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Last evening shot of Ketchikan. I took this picture at 10:07 pm.
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off to Wrangell—
more later,
Leslie
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Getting Ready for Wrangell
Robert, Tuesday, June 3
When you are on the road for a while, going "home" becomes going back to the trailer. And just like when anyone is at home, not every day is filled with exciting things. Today was one of those days. It was gray and overcast in the morning with occasional rain so we didn’t get out until late afternoon. Then the sun came out and it was nice albeit cool. We wanted to get a picture of a boat at the docks in town that the person in the visitor’s center said was one of the boats on "Dangerous Catch." We did get the picture although I don’t remember ever seeing a boat with this boat’s name on the show. Of course, there are a lot of things I don’t remember. We did stop at the city water plant to get some water. We carry several of the collapsible plastic water jugs with us. As we wouldn't drink the campground water we wanted to have several gallons of water we would drink. At the water works, there is an outside water tap that can be used. As you can image, the water pressure at the water works is about as high as it can be. Leslie said she would take over turning the water off. I started yelling, "Off! Off!" but by the time she got it off we both got sprayed. The water came out of the spout like a fire hose. Late in the day, we started to get ready for the ferry tomorrow. We have to be in line at 7:15 am for a 9:15 departure so it is easier to get ready the day before. That means things like draining the tanks, disconnecting the water, and hooking up the truck. Once we finished all of this we ate most of the rest of the crab for supper. It was still great. Tomorrow it is off to Wrangell.
When you are on the road for a while, going "home" becomes going back to the trailer. And just like when anyone is at home, not every day is filled with exciting things. Today was one of those days. It was gray and overcast in the morning with occasional rain so we didn’t get out until late afternoon. Then the sun came out and it was nice albeit cool. We wanted to get a picture of a boat at the docks in town that the person in the visitor’s center said was one of the boats on "Dangerous Catch." We did get the picture although I don’t remember ever seeing a boat with this boat’s name on the show. Of course, there are a lot of things I don’t remember. We did stop at the city water plant to get some water. We carry several of the collapsible plastic water jugs with us. As we wouldn't drink the campground water we wanted to have several gallons of water we would drink. At the water works, there is an outside water tap that can be used. As you can image, the water pressure at the water works is about as high as it can be. Leslie said she would take over turning the water off. I started yelling, "Off! Off!" but by the time she got it off we both got sprayed. The water came out of the spout like a fire hose. Late in the day, we started to get ready for the ferry tomorrow. We have to be in line at 7:15 am for a 9:15 departure so it is easier to get ready the day before. That means things like draining the tanks, disconnecting the water, and hooking up the truck. Once we finished all of this we ate most of the rest of the crab for supper. It was still great. Tomorrow it is off to Wrangell.
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