18 July 2015; Icy Strait Point, Alaska.

By 07.00 hrs. the Statendam was at anchor at Icy Strait Point anchorage for a ¾ day call. The ship cannot really stay much longer as it is a high speed run to get to Anchorage. The city’s port area is tucked away deep in a (wide) fjord and the ship has to sail all the way up.

Icy Strait Point was created by the local Indian Tribe who live nearby in Hoonah. It is the only privately owned Alaskan Tourist destination. The Huna Totem Corporation is in turn owned by the locals, many of whom are Tlingit people, a tribe which has always lived around the Glacier Bay area. Originally it came in existence as an alternative for ships that did not have Glacier Bay permits. They could stop there and send local tourists boats in; which they still do.  As it was very successful, Hoonah & Icy strait Point developed into a destination of its own.  It is great way to immerse oneself into the Native Culture. Apart from that there are whale watching tours, (Sightings Guaranteed), Bear watching tours (Sightings Not Guaranteed) and there is even a zip line experience which lays claim to the fame of being the longest and highest in the world.

I mentioned already before in my blog that Holland America operates this cruise to offer an extra option to the cruise guest, many of whom are Mariners…… and have already bought the T shirt.  Thus on this cruise we do not call at Glacier Bay but at Hubbard Glacier and the cruise is a full 14 day round trip Seattle – Seattle without a changeover of guests half way.

Thus the guests can immerse themselves in the local folklore, either by staying near the tender dock, where there is a museum, restaurant and shops, and from where also the tours are leaving, or walk the one mile distance into Hoonah itself. This is not a tourist town but a fully operational regular town – all year around -. Although as half the local economy revenue comes from the Tourist Industry, the town is a bit busier and active in the summer months than in the winter months.

As the regular dock was not available to day, the ship anchored and it was a 10 minutes ride to the Landing Site

My interest was more professional as I had never seen the dock; always having been on the ships on the other routes. So I took the last Tender over to have a quick look at the situation. Of course as the tender dock was designed with cruise purposes in mind it was perfect for the job. More or less the standard that we now find everywhere in Alaska. No doubt partly due to the influence of our Agency who knows what the ships need and –good- standardization is a blessing for our operation.  It makes things go a lot smoother if you do not have to re-invent the wheel each time.

The old Fish packing factory, now the local museum, overlooks the tender dock.

Even a perfect tender dock has one glaring omission and that is not being able to deal with the tidal variation. A lot of water is pushed in from the Pacific and a few hours later pushed out again and the tender dock goes up and down accordingly. Also today a few guests were surprised. On arrival the ramp from the dock was nearly flat, by the time they came back from shore, it was quite steep. For those who have left their mountain climbing days behind, we have helpers on the dock side to give the supporting arm and /or carry the shopping so the guest can use both hands to make his/her way down the ramp.

Long time ago in Sitka, one of the guests came back with a scooter was scared to drive down such a steep ramp and asked the helper to do it for her.  He was really excited about doing that, too excited; he gave full gas and raced down the ramp and was carried by the continuing momentum over the edge and straight into the icy Sitka waters.  No doubt a very sobering experience which cooled his excitement considerably. We were able to help the lady with one of our rental scooters which we had on board and she was so impressed with that model that she bought it off the rental agency. So it all worked out in the end.

We had a nice a dry day while being here and a full day call would have been fun. But the captain could not wait to get the pedal to the metal and race into the Gulf of Alaska to keep the schedule.

The weather for the crossing looks quite good; overcast but no rain and wind and maybe even sun later in the day. But it has been breezy in the last few days and thus there will still be some swell left and that means that for one day we will feel like being on a real ship again.