ALASKA - DAY 6

Day 6 was our last day visiting an Alaskan port so it was a bit of a sad day. We also were only going to spend until mid afternoon there due to the fact that we needed to sail quite a way down the Inside Passage towards Seattle in time for disembarkation. The last Alaskan port of call was Ketchikan. 

We spent the first part of the morning wandering around the port town. It had a similar feel to Juneau and Sitka as it was based on the water and just set into the hillside. There were lots of sea planes flying around and there was a huge marina section with the boats all lined up. 

Then just before we had to go back onto the ship we went to watch the great Alaskan lumberjack show. It was fantastic! They had four lumberjacks who were competing against each other. One team was supposedly the Americans and the others the Canadians. They did various challenges and competed at a crazily fast pace. I almost didn't want to look for some of it! They put on a great show building up 'rivalries' and little pretend arguments so it was highly entertaining. 

Our favourite bit though had to be the log rolling competition. For this they had one member of each team competing and it was best out of three. However just before they were going to compete the 'American' team brought out a new member to compete....it was the 'Canadian' team members Dad! Apparently he is 65 and still competing in log rolling competitions. He was so good. It was so close but in the end the son won, by 2-1. 

I put up a quick 14 second video on Instagram of the most painful part of the contest...

                                                                           

I also managed to get my photo taken with the lumberjacks afterwards. Just ignore the very stupid expression on my face! 

Once we were back on board the ship we spent the afternoon lazing around in the crow's nest watching the Inside Passage of Alaska go by as we headed back down towards Canada. The evening was the final gala night so we spent some time getting dressed up. Not quite as fancy as the first night but still we scrubbed up pretty well! (We did forget to take a photo in a nice spot though so you've got one from the end of the evening in our room with the camera propped up on the table! Sorry!)

So there we go, the last Alaskan day! The next post will be the stop in Canada and the day we flew home all rolled into one!
H