Our position today in Skagway. I do not like the ship's maps.
BACKGROUND INFO
SKAGWAY
Skagway is
the smallest borough of and a city in Alaska with a population of approximately
1240. This doubles in the summer tourist
season in order to deal with the large number of summer tourists.
Skagway was
an important saltwater port during the Klondike Gold Rush back in 1996. From then through 1998 it as a lawless town
described as “little better than a hell on earth”. The White Pass and Yukon Route narrow gauge
railroad, part of the area’s mining past, now operates purely for the tourist
trade running during the summer months and starts at the port of Skagway. Skagway is a popular stop for cruise ships.
Skagway is
located in a narrow glaciated valley in the Alaska panhandle some 90 miles
northwest of Alaska’s capital city of Juneau.
Skagway is just one of three Southeast Alaskan communities that are
connected via the road system, Klondike Highway, that was completed in 1878 and
allows access to the lower 48 states.
The median
income for a household in the city is around $50,000. Interestingly, Skagway was the setting for
part of Jack London’s book “The Call of the Wild”. The John Wayne film “North to Alaska” was
also filmed nearby.
Ok, you have read this already as we were here on the last segment.
COOKING CLASS YESTERDAY
As I mentioned in yesterday's post I attended a "Seriously Seafood" cooking class in the culinary kitchen.
My station with stuff I will be using to cook with.
Small class this time.
The first thing the chef made for us to start the class with is a drink called "yuzu sensu". Vodka, cucumber juice, uszu juice, and another liquor. I did not care for it. Class members did not make it.
Next we made an asian salmon wrap. It has poached salmon already cooked for us and granny apple, cranberries, almonds, honey,lemon, mint, cilantro, chives. The latter cut up in small pieces and mixed in a bowl (above).
Next we soaked a soaked a rice paper in water to soften it up for the wrap.
We then put our salmon mixture on the rice paper and wrapped the paper to make a wrap.
Final product ready to taste. I just had a couple bites but it was full of different flavors.
Ingredients for next fish dish
Cooked all this on medium heat.
Added a piece of cod to top and covered with parchment paper tent to cook and keep steam in to cook.
Final product. Could not find the name for it. I did not even taste it.
Last up was this spiced salmon on wilted greens. This is what chef made. I had to leave before I made it. I did not care that much for this class.
LAST EVENING
I wanted to use some of my ship board credit so order a "New York New York" drink that cost $42. I know, a lot of money for a drink but I had ship board credit to blow. It has a double oaked Woodford Reserve bourbon and special vermouth. Plus I wanted to add a nice tip for Arnulfo, our great bartender these cruises.
Very good but not worth $42.
Also jalapeno poppers at the bar
Since we now only need a table for two they saw this is our table now.
Nice view
Vegetable spring roll but I did not like the sauce. They brought a teriyaki sauce and I wanted sweet & sour sauce. Did not eat it.
Love this creamy corn & poblano chili soup. My favorite Regent soup.
I ordered this farfalle pasta with shrimp bits and tomato sauce as my entree. Pasta was over cooked and I did not care for it at all. Only had a few bites. Of course Joseph offered to bring me something else but I declined. So tonight's dinner was a weight loss one.
We had them send these desserts up to our suite. Malva pudding and apple pie. I went to bed but Rebecca watched tv until 11:00.
TODAY
Opened the curtains at 6:30 this morning to find water to be glassy lake like as we approached Skagway.
Rebecca had her room service breakfast at 7:30 while I worked on adding the cooking class and last evening to this post. When I checked our account on the tv it was not correct and they did not apply our Diamond discounts to the tours I booked yesterday. So I was at the Destinations Desk 15 minutes before they opened at 8:30. Nathan, destinations manager, said my account would be corrected later today.
I then went up to La Veranda for my breakfast. Eggs on toast. They always bring me fresh squeezed orange juice.
At 9:00 the Captain turned our ship around and backed it in the pier. Supposed to be docked by 10am and looks like we will be a little ahead of schedule. Another beautiful sunny day but quite chilly this morning as is 45 degrees. BURR!
A Princess and Holland America ship already tied up when we arrived.
As you can see it is a LONG way to shore. There will be a shuttle to transport us to our tour meeting places. I am to be shore at the tour meeting place by 11:05.
This was the shuttle to my tour meeting place. The tour group then boarded another helicopter company shuttle to the helicopters.
Couple photos before heading to helicopters shuttle.
Upon arrival at the heli base were were given a safety briefing and fitted with snow boots that fit over our shoes. Then given a life vest to wear around out waist.
This was the helicopter I would be on. Back at the pier they asked everyone their weight and by the time we got to the base they had made up a manifest of who would be on each helicopter by name and in what order we would be boarding the helicopter. There were 5 of us on my choper and I was #5. Our flight time to the glacier would be 20 minutes.
I had to take a photo of the instrument panel. Our pilot was from Austria but came to a helicopter school in Oregon to get all his FAA licenses including instrument rating (that means he can fly in the weather). I had along chat with him when on the glacier. Super pilot and even nicer guy. He said his 4 year US VISA was expiring in 4 days so he would be returning to Austria.
All 5 of had headsets so we could listen to and talk to the pilot. He was very informative during our flights saying names of all the smaller glaciers and lakes we passed by. I then told him I was a pilot so he had lots of questions of me.
The copter next to us lifting off. We were 3rd in line heading out and returning.
I will put these photos I took inflight but there is NO way to show you exactly the immense and spectacular beautiful of what I was fortunate enough to view today. The last one shows a small glacier. There are many, many small glaciers in Alaska.
Our pilot is on the left. I am seated on right side back. I had a nice window to view from.
Larger glacier below. This is Meade Glacier and we were making our approach for landing. Flying down the glacier to lose altitude before reversing course and landing the other way. We cruised from sea level (where we took of) and climbed to 6,000 feet to fly up the mountain valleys to reach this point.
Landing spot on Mead Glacier. The glacier is 15 miles long and 2 miles wide. There were several tour employees there to greet us and a tour guide to explain what we were seeing on the glacier. They did a very nice job.
This is my fellow tourists.
Again, photos do not catch the beauty of what I saw today.
You would not want to fall into one of these cracks as it may go down several hundred feet.
Hard to tell in this photo but below the top layer of snow is a brilliant blue ice.
This is a closer look of above photo showing a stream flowing down into the glacier.
We could walk up right to the edge and look down into where the stream was going. You see my foot in the photo. One of the guides was holding my shoulder while I was taking this photo. They did not know how deep this stream went. Depth of the glacier here was over 1000 feet.
View of this steam from another angle. Again a guide was holding my shoulder when taking this.
There was water under the snow. This was a maybe foot diameter place in the snow.
Looks like walking through water but you can walk on top of it as is iced over. Water under the ice.
We were on the glacier for 45 minutes before boarding the helicopters for our return 15 minute ride back. It was cold with some wind when on the glacier so glad I had layer my clothing. Good thing I discovered my jacket had a hood as that kept my little ears warmer.
More photos of my flight back. It was a different route than going. Bottom is of a small glacier.
Small waterfalls running all the way down this mountain as we made our landing approach.
The 3 cruise ships. We would be landing just next to the two on the left.
Our cruise ship, Explorer.
Upon return to base we removed our life vest and boots and hopped in a van for the ride back to the ship. The driver did stop in town to let most all the others off in town. It is only a 10 minute walk from town back to the ship and there are shuttles also.
I was back onboard by about 1:15 so headed up to the pool grill for a hot dog to tied me over until dinner.
I'M PUTTING THE REMARKS ABOUT MY HELICOPTER TOUR EXPERIENCE IN CAPS TO EMPHASE HOW MUCH I TRULY ENJOYED IT. IT WAS A PERFECT WEATHER DAY FOR IT AND WHAT I SAW OF GOD'S CREATION WAS UNBELIEVEABLE. YOU HAVE TO SEE IT TO APPRECIATE IT. I HOPE YOU WILL TAKE THE TIME TO CLICK ON THE PHOTOS OF IT TO ENLARGE THEM SO AS TO TRY TO SEE WHAT I DID. WOULD I DO THIS AGAIN? YOU BET AND ONLY COST ME $308 WITH MY DISCOUNT.
Ok, it is now 3:15 here and I will be finishing this post soon. I hope you will be enjoying it. I want to go down to Destinations and tell Nathan how much I enjoyed the tour. They open again at 4pm.
We will heading to Meridian Lounge at 6:00 for a much needed drink or two before heading to Compass Rose for our dinner. Here is tonight's menu which we had one night last segment. The Alaskan Salmon Chowder is to die for. I may pig out and have two!! Remember I did not eat much last night. Looks like chicken parmesan again for both our entrees. The farfalle pasta with pancetta and a creamy tomato sauce was Jeff's favorite last segment. Sorry Jeff!
Tonight's show is "Broadway in Concert" by the production cast singers. We saw this same show last week but may go again tonight as it was good.
We will be sailing again at 6pm for Juneau which is 94nm away. Scheduled arrival there is 7am.
