After five days at sea we have arrived at Alaska. It was very calm sailing last night as we hugged the Aleutian Islands between the Bering Sea and the North Pacific Ocean. Our captain had us docked at the Dutch Harbour Port by 7am. We were advised late last that Regent had organised Hop On Hop Off buses (school buses) leaving from the dock and calling at three places of interest - Museum of Illusion, WW11 Memorial and the Russian Orthodox Church. We had to register our interest and were allotted a departure time. Ours was 12.15pm so that gave us heaps of time to take a walk off the ship. We were pointed in the right direction for "downtown" Dutch Harbour. Trouble is, there is no "downtown" Dutch Harbour! We walked for almost 4kms before we found a Safeway where I was able to purchase a couple of medicinal items and decided that we should turn around to make it back to the ship for a quick bite of lunch before our departure on the bus.
The Hop On Hop Off bus tour took around an hour and we only got off the bus to take a couple of photographs as the weather had closed in to light drizzle with cold winds. Surprisingly our tour guide told us that Dutch Harbour gets very little snow but a lot of rain - around 66 inches/year. There were a few snow capped mountains in the distance that made a lovely back drop to this quaint little harbour town.
The population is around 3000 but grows to 10,000 in the fishing season. Dutch Harbour is known as the best fishing port in the nation and is renowned for its landings of fish and shellfish. We have probably all watched the tv series "Deadliest Catch" that showed the boats in the Bering Sea hauling in lobsters. Brave men!
Last night we had dinner in the asian restaurant - Pacific Rim. The food here was excellent and I would go so far as saying it has been our favourite. The staff, as in all the restaurants, are extremely attentive and if I had any complaints at all it would have been that our three courses came out a little close to each other. But that is a minor complaint. After dinner we took some photos in the ships atrium. This ships decor is exceptionally lovely and there also seems to be fresh flowers laid out every day. Heaven only knows where they get them from.
Tomorrow is another day at sea before we reach Kodiak Island where we have a tour booked. We have to move our clocks forward another hour tonight. It is so hard to get to sleep at night as apart from the time changes Alaska, at this time of the year, has around 18 hours of daylight!
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