Alaskan Adventure - Day 6 - Monday, June 5, 2006

Icy Strait Point, AK
Overcast, temperature in the high 50s


Slept in until 0715. Hit the gym at 0730 and worked out as the ship dropped anchor in Icy Strait near Icy Strait Point. We have sailed 908 nautical miles from Vancouver. Today we didn't plan any special shore excursions. Instead, we planned to have a relaxing day, go ashore and just wander around Icy Strait Point. We had breakfast in the Rotterdam dining room. That's the way to go. Everybody seems to head for the Lido Restaurant to stand in line and eat cafeteria style. At the Rotterdam dining room, you sit a a table with linens, get served by a waiter in a calm, civilized atmosphere.

After breakfast, Cindy did laundry (she is, after all, the Laundry Queen) and I spent some time in the Explorations Cafe, updating this journal, organizing photos and again trying to get on the internet. Again, it wasn't working. The ship must be having a problem, because the TV comes from satellite, and although we lose some channels occasionally, the TV is up fairly reliably.
In late morning, we took a tender to Icy Strait Point. On shore is a complex of fairly new buildings that are set up for the tourist industry. There are shops, a canning museum and native dance theater. We took a bus into the only town on the island, Hoonah. Hoonah is a native town, with a population of about 860 people. It is a very poor town, very isolated from the rest of the world. The ferry only comes to the island twice per week. The people here live on fishing and canning, and supplement their existence with hunting and berry gathering. We stopped for lunch at Mary's Inn and had hot wings and an Alaskan Summer Ale. Cindy caught the bus back to Icy Strait Point and I wandered around for a while more, taking photos of bald eagles. They were everywhere, with 5 or 6 of them visible at all times. I was amazed by it at first, then just got used to them being all around you. When I returned to Icy Strait Point, I found that Cindy had already taken the tender back to the ship. I browsed around Icy Strait Point a while before catching the tender back to the ship.

In late afternoon, Cindy and I did a thermal spa. The thermal suite at the spa on board the ship was empty, so we had it to ourselves. We spent about one and a half hours in the hot tub, sauna, massaging showers and hot ceramic lounge chairs; all with a view of the water and misty mountains. It was fantastic! Soooooo relaxing. In fact, it was so relaxing that I fell asleep on the thermal lounge chair.

Dinner was informal. After dinner, we just relaxed in the stateroom, before turning in.