2022-05-16: Icy Strait Point

We woke up around 7:30am this morning. We relaxed in the room and got ourselves showered and dressed while we waited for the ship to arrive in Icy Strait Point. It was another overcast and foggy morning. We watched the ship pull into port from our room before heading up to the Oceanview Cafe to grab some breakfast. We returned to the room after breakfast to get ourselves ready to head ashore. We watched some seals swim around in the bay while we got ready. We also saw a whale surface in the distance.

We headed on shore and explored the area. Icy Strait Point isn’t a big place. We were here on a cruise in 2008 and it has probably doubled in size since we were here last. The main point of interest is an old cannery that has been converted into shops and restaurants. It’s located about 1.5 miles from the town of Hoonah which and is a Native American area. They still have some of the old canning equipment on site and they have signs with information on the history of the cannery. They have added a couple of gondolas. One is free and takes you to “Wilderness Landing” where you can take a nature walk or some tours from that location. From there, you can take another gondola to the summit of the mountain. It cost $40 per person to take the second gondola so we decided to pass on that. We explored the shop at the Wilderness Landing and then took the return trip down the first gondola.

We continued on to the cannery and explored the shops and exhibits in that building. By the time we made it through the cannery we were getting pretty cold. There wasn’t much heat in the building and it was a chilly day. We grabbed some mini donuts and hot chocolate from their mini donut stand. They have a bunch of different flavours available. We tried the huckleberry, cinnamon, and birthday cake flavours. The huckleberry donuts were DELICIOUS. We decided to make our way back to the ship to get warmed up.

We spent an hour or so on the ship warming up with some tea and blankets. Around 1:00pm we decided to head back on shore so we could get some crab. We wen to the Crab House and ordered some snow crab. It wasn’t cheap, but it was very yummy. We returned to a couple of stores to pick up a couple more souvenirs before returning to the ship.

We relaxed on the ship until it was time to leave port. We headed up to deck 10 15 minutes before we were scheduled to depart to watch the ship pull away from the dock. We waited… and waited… and waited. After half an hour there was still no sign of the ship getting ready to depart so we gave up and headed to the restaurant to grab some dinner.

We ended up sitting beside the same couple from Florida that we sat beside last night. It was an interesting conversation. The other couple aren’t the sharpest tools in the shed. Around 8:00pm, an hour later than scheduled, we watched the ship leave port through the dining room window. Darrell had a caprese salad, braised veal wrapped in phylo, and a peach clafoutis for dinner. Amanda had butternut squash soup, turkey parmesan with spaghetti, and tiramisu this evening. As we were leaving the dining room the Captain made an announcement. We were late leaving due to a medical situation with one of the passengers and they were debating how to proceed. The decision was made to proceed to Juneau as fast as possible to offload the passenger in a place more suited to handle the situation. So, instead of arriving in Juneau at 7:00am as planned after sailing for 13 hours, we will now be arriving in Juneau around midnight. The actual travel time between ports is only about 4 hours. They just sail around for the extra 9 hours usually.

After dinner we headed to the evening show. Tonight’s show was a duo called David & Dawn Meyer. David played some music using very unique instruments. He has a xylophone synthesizer that looks like a xylophone but can mimic the sounds of many different instruments. Then he did a song using a laser synthesizer. It shines lasers in a fan pattern vertically. When he put his hands over the lasers, it would translate it into a musical notes. It was pretty cool to watch. His wife, Dawn, came on for a couple of songs to dance along with the music. She had some fun visual tools that were fun to watch but it was odd that she only showed up for a couple of songs and was absent for the rest of the show.

After the show, we headed up the Sky Lounge to watch the Fred Bevill, the comedian from the first night’s show, do an adults only comedy show. It was just as enjoyable, if not more so than the show he did the first night. He expanded on some of the jokes he used for the first show and he had us laughing a lot. After the show, it was time to call it a night. We have a tour booked for Juneau in the morning.