Alaska '08 Day 63, Ketchikan

Wed Aug 13, 2008

On the Orca whale watch boat in Juneau Cheryl heard from the one deck hand that there was one of the Deadliest Catch TV show boats in Ketchikan (Aleutian Ballad) so she wanted to check it out for Tommy since he is a huge fan of the show. We looked into the tour (www.56degreesnorth.com) and it looked like something the kids would like.


They demonstrated long lining and pulled in rock fish. They fed one of the rock fish to an eagle.


They pulled a large king crab pot full of crabs. I didn't know this but the female king crab looks nothing like the male, the females have stubby legs.


They pulled a dungeness pot, a tanner (snow) crab pot

a line of prawn pots (full of prawns and seaweed crabs).


They had an octupus they had previously pulled from a pot and kept in a keg. Nobody got to hold the octopus, I think they're a little feisty.


Everyone got to touch or hold just about everything. The kids just loved this (although the audience was mostly adults)! Each of the deck hands and the captain told at least one story and walked around asking for questions about commercial fishing. By the end they handed around king crabs, red king crabs, dungeness crabs, box crabs, seaweed crabs, prawns, rock fish. It was interesting talking to the deck hands and the captains wife about how they got this idea rolling. One important aspect is they have an agreement with the indians so that they can fish indian waters because they are not allowed to set any of their gear in Alaska State near shore waters. Indian waters are not subject to Alaska law so they can do whatever they want (like feeding eagles).

3rd day of heavy blowing rain. We got soaked coming walking back from the Bearing Sea boat ride.

It was windy and blowing rain when we got on the ferry at 8:30 PM. The ferry went 9:15 PM to 4:15 AM so we got a room and slept the whole way. Around midnight the ferry hit open water and it pounded in the rough sea. I got up and watched out the window, it was pretty cool.

- Jon

The cats got sea sick and puked.

I want to live here when I grow up and go on the crab tour and ride the ferry everyday!

- Emmy