Jammed up in Juneau

We are anchored in Juneau , the state capital. We've Now gone over 1000 miles since boarding the H/V Kennicott in Bellingham, Washington three days ago.  

Never really did see Juneau because the actual city is twelve miles up the road from the port.  So we took about a three mile walk in a drizzling rain up the road to another tiny little harbor called Auke Bay.  

Our sleeping quarters are reminiscent of an old "I Love Lucy" bit where Lucy and Ricky have to dance around each other in their tiny sleeper car. There's about room for two people to stand up and even change positions if they work together and practice it a little.  I (Jim) have the top bunk and enjoy the gymnastics of climbing up into it each evening.


What's really spooky though is that there's a couple in the berth next to us who look a lot like Fred and Ethel Mertz.

They show films on the ferry, and the first night was one about how an enormous Boulder was blown up in 1958.  The Boulder was just under the water along our route, which is often called the Inside Passage..  Many lives were lost when ships struck the troublesome rock.  And so the proper authorities put their heads together and blew the thing to smithereens.  It was, we are proudly told, "the biggest non-nuclear explosion in history.!

So that's yet another reason we Americans can and by God should be proud. We own the record for both kinds of enormous explosions, nuclear and non.

The place where the nasty Boulder once did its evil work is still pretty hazardous, however.  A guy in a pilot-looking uniform told me that the water rushes through that narrow pass at up to 20 miles per hour when the tide is going in or out.  This creates all manner of crazy whirlpools that keep ship pilots on their toes.

Speaking of speeds, our ship travels at around 15 to 17 knots.  A knot is actually very close to one mile per hour, so it's easily convertible.  But this does beg the question: why the heck don't they just say "miles per hour"?  I guess it's for the same reason we have to say " port side" for "left side of the ship" and "starboard" for the right side.

If you get caught saying, say, "whales on the right side of the ship," Instead of saying " whales to starboard," you get lashed by theCaptian with a Cat O' Nine-tails, which hurts.

Discipline is key at sea.