07 June 2012, Skagway; Alaska.

During the night we over took the Disney Wonder and lined up in the parade going to Skagway. As requested by the agent we all came in 30 minutes apart and by 06.30 we were safely docked at the Broadway Pier at Skagway. Right in line with the main street “Broadway” of Skagway. It was wind still, real wind still, the wind meter read 0o and 0 knots and low clouds were hanging over the bay. It looked like a scene straight out of the Lord of the Rings, with young Frodo going into the Misty Mountains. By 08.00 a very gentle breeze came in and that blew all the haziness away. Which was good as it meant that all the helicopter tours could go for there sightseeing. The trains were being brought into position and because each dock has a rail road track next to it, or in front of it, the guests can just walk off the ship and board the train right there. There are several departures during the day, and the early morning ones which are normally less full, are combined in one train even if there are guests coming  from different ships. The longest train goes to the Railroad dock where it parks right in front of the gangways of the two ships there. Coral Princess and Star Princess completely fill the space at the Rail Road dock and with 7,000 guests on board they also fill a lot of train carriages. 

With two of these big white ships docked there, they are obscuring some fascinating history of Skagway. In the good old days, the Railroad dock was the first dock built as it in the shelter of the mountain and out of the strong afternoon winds that normally blow here. Right from the beginning the ships crews started painting company logo’s and captains names on the flat surfaces of the rocks to commemorate their visits. That tradition has continued into the current day. The oldest one I could decipher and still visible is from 1909. But most are from the 80’s and 90’s with some going into 2000. There is one against the top of the mountain from the Royal Viking Sun from 1988 or so, for which they used a helicopter to get it there. Nice to do, but nowadays a captain would get fired for squandering money on something like that.

Ships’ graffitti on Skagway rocks. The Prince George and the Xanada are some of the older ones still visible,  so are the Prinsendam ‘s.  Some of them are so high up that it must taken the ships crew quite some acrobatics to achieve it.

Still my ego required it that my name was going to be there as well but my sailors could do it with a step ladder. So after obtaining permission from the captain, the Noordam (III) appeared on the wall, denoting the first call by a HAL ship to Skagway since the demise of the Prinsendam (I) in 1980. Since then they improved the rail road dock and it is now a lot harder to get to the wall, as they dug away the soil between the dock and the rock wall. A cherry picker has to be used now to do it and thus the interest is fading. I think it is a nice tradition and if one day my ship will dock at the Rail road dock, I will gladly add an addition to it.

We had the most peculiar weather today, courtesy of a strong frontal system moving into the Alexander Archipelago. (That is the whole area of South East Alaska) As a result it remained wind still all day long while the standard pattern is that in the afternoon the Lynn Canal funnel wind starts blowing. This was a sort of silence before the storm so to speak. It made everybody a bit wary; we always are if things are not going according to the accustomed pattern. By 18,00 the wind started to pick up and by 20.30 it blew 20 knots. I just pulled out on time as by the time I was swinging the Statendam around, the wind increased to 40 knots. I could not get out any earlier, as there was the one passenger who decided to come back exactly on the minute of the all on board time. By the time we could see into Lynn Canal, we saw the dark rainy clouds of a frontal system moving closer. 10 minutes later we were in torrential rain. If I had been delayed for another 30 minutes then I would have been stuck alongside for at least two hours. The heavy rain and wind lasted to 11 pm and then settled down to drizzle.

So we have to see what that brings for tomorrow in Glacier Bay. I am not that concerned about near the Glaciers as they have their own micro climate but it might be less pleasant in the lower bay.