August 17th 15th day OTR 8th day OTS

We are in Anchorage today.  We docked at a cargo port and had to take a bus to town.  Anchorage is about 300,000 people and the sun is shining today.  However, it is cloudy on the horizon and we cannot see Mount Mckinley (Denali).

We saw a very well done film about the  Aurora Borealis.  We are not likely to see it in real life right now - we seem to be in the wrong season.  Will post some Anchorage pictures at my next opportunity.

Tomorrow we are in Homer and on SUnday we are in Kodiak, as far down as we go on the Aleutian Islands.

More later.

Anchorage: We took the HAL shuttle into town since we are docked at a container port and no one can walk out. We had a retired school teacher as our guide for the ride in. She pointed out various things and did a good job on the short jaunt. Once we got into town, someone ran in front of the bus and the driver had to brake quite hard. Our guide, who was neither sitting down nor holding on, was thrown into the driver's well. Thankfully she was not hurt and also, thankfully, she fell on her good hip, not the one that had the hip replacement

There were flowers everywhere and they were so beautiful. Obviously, Anchorage had had enough rain for them to grow and it got just warm enough to keep them beautiful. What we didn't see were birds. Not sure where they were but we didn't even see them in the port.

Tides in Anchorage run about 40 feet. They are second only to the tides in the Bay of Fundy, New Brunswick. When the tide was out, we had 12 feet of water under our keel. You can believe we were sitting on mud. The tidal flats here are like quicksand, not like the Spanish Banks in Vancouver where you can walk on them at low tide. In the early evening, we watched the tide come back in very quickly, several feet every few minutes.

The Filipino Crew put on a song and dance show at 11pm. They did a good job. This was a smaller cast than we have seen on other crew shows, but then not everyone wants to perform, nor should everyone perform!

Late show = sleep in tomorrow. We are not due into Homer until 10 am anyway so that should be OK. We left Anchorage late, about 10:45pm. Six people came back by taxi at 10 pm but I think there was also a HAL tour that was late. I watch these late people and just marvel at how they think the world owes them the duty of waiting for them. One couple stopped on the gangway and carried on a conversation before entering the ship. The other group got off the taxi, yelling “we are so bad” - yes, you are. All aboard time was 9:30pm. Last bus from downtown was at 9pm. How is that not clear??