We joined right in, in the early morning parade of cruise ships sailing to Ketchikan. Everybody was on time, cruise ships and pilots alike and like on clockwork we all sailed past the pilot station and picked up our respective pilots. 03.45 for the Star Princess, 04.15. for the Statendam and 04.45 for the Sea Princess. Each with a 30 minutes interval to allow each ship to be tied up alongside and then the linesmen can move to the next dock to repeat the tying up process. It worked as expected, without a glitch and by 06.45 we were happily sitting alongside Berth 2. Right opposite downtown. It does help to be a smaller ship once in awhile. It will be of advantage to us again tomorrow as well. The Star Princess was already docked at berth 4 and the Sea Princess was hard on my heels and putting the first line ashore when our last one came tight. She docked right behind us with about 120 feet clearance from our stern to their nose. I had good hopes for the Ketchikan weather and I was not disappointed. Apart from a bit of drizzle around 11 am. (That is NOT considered rain in Ketchikan) it remained dry all day. Things were well in the world.  

 
By 11am  The Silver Shadow arrived and she docked at berth 3. Because she is so much smaller, they wanted her at berth 3, so they could have the gangway on the floating – centre – pontoon. With the high tides of this moment, they might have had to put her gangway on her top deck otherwise. Thus roughly 9,000 cruise guests invaded Ketchikan and the shops were having a field day. Those not shopping went mostly on shore excursions and also here a little change has occurred. In the past we would sell tours and if it did not get the minimum number of participants required, then that tour would be cancelled. Now we combine tours with Princess where possible and thus we have to disappoint less people as it is now easier to make the minimum number. Holland America and Princess jointly operate the “Alaska Tours” in the various ports, as long as the tours are identical.

The tides are very extreme at the moment. Due to a full moon and Venus moving past the Sun today (a one in a 103 year occurrence) the planets are in conjunction creating a large pull on the water on earth. It helped to create the strongest current in Seymour Narrows a few days ago and it is responsible for extreme tides in the ports. Today we went up and down 15 feet and tomorrow in Juneau we will arrive on a minus tide; 4 feet under the “zero” of the normal harbor chart depth. Then the total amplitude will be 6.3 meters or 19 feet. That is very high for Juneau. These higher tides are more the norm for Anchorage which is located at the end of an estuary and I wonder what tides they had there today.

That meant a challenge for the gangway, although it is a ramp all the way, it was still quite steep during the middle of the morning. Luckily with the tide being so high, our B deck break door appeared above the dock by 12.45 and thus for the last two hours, the lower gangway could be used, which was almost horizontal during that period.

Our Ketchikan stay is until 15.00 in the afternoon and then it is always interesting to see which ship has the most punctual guests coming back on time and can pull out first. We have very well behaved guests on the Statendam and by 14.45 I could let go the lines and pull out, while the Sea Princess was still dealing with long lines up the gangway. I know she had hoped to be first, as she has a much tighter schedule to make to Juneau. In the end she came charging by with 23 knots around 17.00 hrs. as she has to be in Juneau at 08.00 hrs. tomorrow morning while we are scheduled for 10 am. I can go much slower therefore but will have the challenge to wriggle my way past the Sea Princess as she will be at anchor and then squeeze in between the already docked Oosterdam and the tender float. It is going to be interesting.

However the weather forecast looks quite good. They are talking about some showers but if I read the wind right, then the rain will remain away in between the mountains until at least late in the afternoon and maybe will not show at all.