Jokes aside, Alaska did meet my expectations. In summer it is a great wild wilderness. At times a lonely place with a vastness which stretches forever. Luckily when you are bobbing about in an office like mine loneliness never grips you.

Our first stop was the cruise ship town of Ketchikan. Ketchikan was pretty small. With three cruise ships berthed you could not see much of the town. Landfall in Ketchikan meant visiting the homeland security office to verify my fingerprints and eyeballs. America if you want visitors to feel a bit better about your fine country. Please remove the word Alien from your immigration slip. Being part Alien I do not like being lumped in with rest of the earths populace.

If you are not making way by sea, Seaplanes are the best transport going. We used them frequently for organized trips. They can come alongside like a tender does and were very handy. Why are there not more sea planes everywhere?

As is often the case with exotic destinations most of my viewing was a bit of hurried glancing as I made my way around my day to day tasks. Needless to say I did get to see some stunning vistas.

All taken from the same spot near the crew entrance on main deck.

Of course I am not a professional photographer. Luckily and unluckily we had one on for our second trip. He was an immense pain the ass. He did take nice photos however, I will give him that. I expect to be able to share some of them at a later date. He did not leave any with us but he lives in Seattle where we are heading next.

We were lucky to have a couple of excellent pilots and a real bushman of a guide. They were knowledgeable, professional and most importantly flexible as our plans often changed by the minute.

We did visit a glacier and when we were not dodging ice bergs we did get up nice and close to see ice being calved off.

My one and only real excursion ashore was on the day we left Alaska. I needed to visit a lawyer to have some documents notarized. I got collected by the taxi driver of Juneau, a lovely lady who I jokingly said I would see when I needed my ride back to port. She did collect me and she talked about how they had had a great year for berries with the warm summer. She obviously had some indigenous blood as she also talked about having done a cultural exchange with New Zealand. It was a nice human interaction in a place where you might go days without seeing one.

We are now steaming to Seattle. I have a few friends in Seattle. I have a few things I would like to do.

This should be good.