Arrive am in Ketchikan and decide not to take any of the numerous tours on offer. Instead we take a stroll around town, especially the area around the creek feeding into the bay. What we saw at the creek was both fascinating and very confronting as literally thousands of salmon tried to get upstream to spawn. So many do not make it and the creek banks are littered with dead and rotting bodies. It was particularly hard to watch fish in their death-throes gasping to take their last breath in the shallow water. Apparently the salmon die,not because of the effort of swimming upstream but because their bodies react adversely to the freshwater after spending so much time in the salt water of the ocean. Obviously some are taken by bears when they have almost reached their spawning grounds- life just ain't fair sometimes.
Visit to salmon hatchery ok but the young guide was Alaska's answer to Kylie Mole,only less articulate.
Ketchikan generally rather unsavoury and Bert apparently viewed a blood-soaked body through the window of house on our way back to the ship. The attitude of police outside the house seemed to suggest that this was just another everyday occurrence.
No lunch during the day as we have been building up to a special dinner( another formal dress occasion) in the very up-market Olympic restaurant. Olympic was a 1920's sister ship to the Titanic and the wooden panels from the original ship now adorn the walls of the Olympic restaurant.
All in all a memorable evening topped of by a very impressive 'Broadway' show in the Celebrity Theatre.
Someone has to do it!
Cheers
The Rapidly Beoming More Obese Ferret
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