Alaska by the sea

After leaving Vancouver Island we travelled to Vancouver we drove straight to Canada Bay to board our ship for Alaska, the checking process took just under an hour, then it was all aboard our ship, Volendam.

Our stateroom looks comfortable and will be our home for the next 7 days.

Off to explore the ship and have some lunch.

Canada Bay where board our ship the Volendam

Our stateroom on the veranda deck

Inside passage

We set sail at 4pm, our first two days will be at sea, so a little rest and relaxation with our time at sea, will be welcomed. I went to a couple of workshops on how to get the best out of your didital camera, saw a couple of movies and got some time to sew, also read two books.

Our first stop in Alaska was Juneau, the capital city of Alaska , we docked at 1300hrs and we had a tour booked to go dog sledding 

, the weather was not great,  overcast and a soft drizzle, but we were determined not to let the weather dampen our fun.

Off we set on our tour to the dog sledding camp up in the hills.

The dogs are mangy mongrels and 50 bitza's, very thin and just love to run, the wheeled sled is pulled by about 20dogs and my heart just went out to how thin these dogs were, but they just love to run, they get fed a very high protein diet and a lot of pig fat, apparently the dogs get better looked after then the dog handlers, look after themselves.

The puppies were quite cute and cuddly.

This is one of my favourite photos, look at all the moss on the logs, taken at the dog sledding camp

In the afternoon I did a town tour on my own as DH, had also caught the bug and was unwell. 

The famous Red Dog Saloon.

Dollar notes and dirty undies on the wall,  quite and interesting place

We set sail at 2130hrs that night, tomorrow we stop at Skagway,,where we have the White rail and Yukon train trip planned.

Skagway

The weather is still raining and poor visibility 

After out 2 1/2hour train trip,  we went to Liarsville for lunch and a show.

We had a salmon bake and side salads, entertainment and some gold panning.

After Liarsville we were back into Skagway to do a town tour, this is the visitors information centre, it has over 19,000 pieces of driftwood and the most photographed building in Skagway. We also didnthe Red Onion Brothel tour.

And of course the biggest bonus of all was the discovery of the quilt shop, where a few dollars were promptly spent,  I bought heaps of american wildlife prints, so I hope to be able to do an Alaskan quilt.

After a great day spent in Skagway, time to get back on board to sail for Ketchikan.