Alaska and then some …
So living in a tourist town, Ketchikan Alaska, we receive many cruise ships almost every day from May until September. As a local photographer we have amassed many hundreds of pictures of cruise ships coming and leaving the area. So we created a ebook on some of them. This book displays pictures of over 25 ships, and provides some info on each ship. It’s on Amazon at:
Also we wrote a brief article awhile back on some of the ships, published in May 2018.
Someone recently asked me to make a short video about Ketchikan Alaska about a minute or two. This is what I came up with. Hope you like it and feel like visiting SE Alaska sometime.
Living in a tourist destination, we encounter yachts all the time, some time they are the mega yachts that the true top of the top travel in. Usually we only receive one of these visitors every few years, but when their here they are the talk of the town. Many people try to get the first pictures then share them in a FB page or group. Others post the where about sand track the yachts destination to destination. Still others try to find out the owner by searching for “M/V” then the yachts name. There are several sites out there for these traveling palaces, many show pictures of the inside of the ship. Pictured above is the mega yacht “A”.
M/V Serene
M/V Ice Bear
Some mega yachts can be sail boats also, like the one above.
M/V Luna
We have lived in Ketchikan Alaska for over ten years. The only way to get here is by a boat or a plane. Ketchikan is on an island. If you want to fly here, our airport, Ketchikan International Airport (KTN) is on another island.
So whether you coming or going to or from a plane, you have to catch a ferry. You can not drive directly to the airport without riding the ferry. Usually its about a 4 minute ride and it leaves both sides twice an hour. This is where there was so much talk about building “the bridge to no where” that was in the news many years back. It never passed so you must ride the ferry and work around its schedule. There are only two airports in the U.S that you can not drive directly to, one in Mass. the other in Alaska, this one.
Once at the airport the view is the best of any airport. There are incredible sunrises during the fall/winter months from it.
During the spring and summer months cruise ships pass right in front of it.
You can watch float plane take off and land in front of it also.
Alaska Airlines is the main air carrier, and Delta brings in a plane during the summer months.
From there you can also see the Ketchikan ship yard as well as Ketchikan.
There are some hiking trails also on the airport island, as well as a lake that you can hike back to if you have the time.
Also both Orcas and humpback whales can be seen in the channel from the airport as well as various birds like bald eagles, Great Blue Herion and others.
So now you know the rest of the story about the bridge to no where.
In SE Alaska about 40 miles East from the city of Ketchikan is Misty Fjords National Monument. It is the second largest wilderness area in the U.S.A. and is composed of 2,294,343 acres. You can either get there by boat, floatplane or a combination of both. Tours usually start about $200 a person, though if you plan ahead and contact the Ketchikan visitors bureau they may have deals going on that they might suggest. Misty Fjords has 3000 foot granite walls straight up out of the ocean. It has long waterfalls. On the trip one can often see whales, mountain goats, deer, eagles and much more.
On the way there is a good chance of seeing Eddystone which is roughly the entrance to Misty Fjords.
Some float plane tours land at the bottom of the granite walls and you can get out onto the plane’s floats, if you choose. If you take a plane, one word of advice, try not to look too much into your cameras viewfinder, as things zip by, or you may be leaving your lunch with the other passengers. Very beautiful, and is highly recommended if you make it to Ketchikan on a cruise or a vacation.
Our tourist season in SE Alaska has begun. It usually goes from May until Sep/Oct, this year it will end in Oct. When taking pictures of cruise ships, I try to not only get a picture of the whole ship, I try to get various angles or views.
Most of the time I try to get pictures without people in the way. A way that I found is once they are boarding and getting ready to leave or when they are pulling into port. Cruise ships, to me are really fun to take pictures of. I enjoy seeing and watching them. If you haven’t had a chance for a cruise, maybe this could be your year. As always, I would recommend one to SE Alaska on the inside passage.
Videos and pictures 