June 18 - 22:

Travelled back through Vancouver to drop off our car and hop aboard a Greyhound bus, for the first time ever, for a ride to Bellingham. It was like being on the road again when you have no idea of how a system works and no idea of exactly where you are being dropped off - and slightly more difficult because we had a bag of camping gear in addition to our backpacks.

But the system worked and after a long stop at the US border where one unsmiling face was processing a line of full buses, we discovered to our delight that the Bellingham bus depot was exactly where the Alaska Marine Ferry Terminal was located. Our online reservations were all good and so after going through yet another set of security to get aboard, we we settled into our new home for the next three days and were sailing by 6pm.

It was exactly as we remember it from 1986, and we did all the right things to secure a prime location in the solarium on the after deck and quickly laid out our foamies and sleeping bags on the same white plastic fold down chairs and claimed a space. We did not however put up our tent as many did.

Mt Baker was splendid in the sunrise as we left port and sailed north along the trail of the 1880's gold rush miners who were on their way to the Klondyke. A long and narrow intricate waterway that must have originally taken forever to explore and navigate that runs along the inside passage of Vancouver Island and up through northern British Columbia to our first port of call at Ketchican, Alaska.

We had fine weather and took the time to catch up on some sleep and reading and meet new people. We even used the bar and the cafe from time to time, but had to hide our cardboard box of cheap Californian wine from the newly installed "watchman" as we lay beneath the sign that said that anyone caught consuming alcohol on deck would be put off at the next stop.

The trip was broken by a full day in Ketchican where we had the only rain so far, and despite the presence of several large cruise liners and their ugly loads of tourists, we found a small local cafe for a big breakfast and walked the length of town several times and even managed to get most of our Xmas shopping completed there - so watch out for cans of smoked Alaskan salmon !

The trip continued through some passageways, where you could almost touch the forest on either side of the "MV Malaspina", and where occassional humpback whales spouted and dived, orcas and dolphins rode the wake and fishing boats trolled bye.

It took us three nights to reach our first layover at Sitka

..... from where we shall continue next time ....