We departed Ketchikan on the ferry in the early afternoon and had about a 6 hour sail to Wrangell. It was beautiful and sunny out. It tends to be quite chilly out on the side of the boat without sun so most people gravitate to the sunny side. We had seen this happen day after day. We were following the boat track on GPS so we knew the boat would be turning so we quickly went out to the shady side and got a nice seat so that when the boat turned we would be in full sun. It worked perfectly! We ended up sitting out there for hours. It was fabulous!
Our arrival into Wrangell was scheduled for our 7pm and we were pretty much exactly on time.
It was a short stop with just enough time of off load and reload. We were only in port for 45 minutes so not enough time to really walk into town and explore. We opted to stay on board and have dinner while others quickly (I mean RAN) departed and went into town. In the meantime, the local kids put on a show for us with their Slip-n-Slide.
We quickly left port and headed north towards Petersburg. It would be a 3 hour sail with the setting sun and through some very narrow passages. There was always someone on lookout as the ship navigated the narrow channels.
It was interesting to see the many houses that dot the shoreline. It is actually quite a bit more populated on Mitkof Island (where Petersburg is located) than I realized.
Petersburg looks like a charming town and is known as “The Little Norway” of Alaska. The town was founded by Peter Buschmann of Norway in 1897 and has attracted many Scandinavians over the years. It ranks 15th in the US in terms of value brought in by the seafood industry. It is outside the large cruise ship lanes but a few smaller cruise lines come in making it still a quaint and charming area unencumbered by the large cruise ships.
We didn’t arrive until close to 11pm and it was again, a quick turn around, with about 45 minutes so we opted to stay on board. We headed off to bed to get some sleep as we intend to disembark at our next stop in Sitka tomorrow morning!
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