Day 06 - 17 July - Kodiak, Alaska

Shortly after 7am, the Maasdam glided into the wet but flat Kodiak harbor and did a slow counterclockwise pirouette before doing its slow sidestep into its berth at the Maersk berth. Later a Matson Line container ship (Matson Kodiak) would sail in and dock in front of us at the Matson terminal.

Today in Kodiak was about as fine a day as one could have. There was a free Walmart shuttle from the gangway to the front door of the WalMart located about 5 miles away. We provisioned up with more Coke Zero to last us most of the rest of the voyage.

After dropping our purchases off in our stateroom, we then hopped on the town shuttle which dropped us off at the visitor's center where we found a local fellow, Bill, who was selling excursions on his little tour boat for $75 per person. It was a nice 2 hour tour with 5 other people and we had Captain John. We saw sea otters, puffins, sea lions, and really nice scenery.

We walked to McDonalds for a quick lunch and some WIFI as the 3g Verizon was super slow. We met Erik & Marilyn there who were doing the same while looking for geocaches. They were successful. We walked up the hill to the library where I printed out copies of our Russian entry documents which we need to give to the Maasdam front desk. We then explored the Alutiiq native museum, the Holy Resurrection Orthodox Church, and the excellent Kodiak National Wildlife Refuge Center. This land preserve covers 2/3's of Kodiak Island and is home to the state's largest population of brown bears known as Kodiak bears. They are huge!

We finished our day in Kodiak by walking back the mile to the ship arriving there 15 minutes before the 5:30pm all aboard time. The final city shuttle bus arrived just before 5:30pm; the gangway was taken down by forklift and stowed for the next use. About 29 cruise ships visit Kodiak each year primarily during the spring and fall repositionings from Asia.

Promptly at 5:45 the mooring lines were released, the bow and stern thrusters engaged, and we moved sideways out into the shipping channel and began our journey to Dutch Harbor. Captain Jutten made an announcement apologizing that due to the US Coast Guard use of our proposed berth in Dutch Harbor, we will have to tender. Later we received a letter that we 4 & 5 star Mariners can meet in the Wajang Theatre with refreshments. I suspect there will be some sort of tender ticket distribution system for the other passengers.

After watching the sailaway, we ate dinner in the Lido with Roger & Caroline. On the way out I saw more sea lions and a pod of orcas. The evening entertainment was the BBC film Alaska in Concert which was accompanied by live music. It was really good, but I'm biased due to my Alaskan heritage. Gloeta gave another high energy EXC Insight talk, this time on crabs. We wrapped up the night watching the movie, Breakthrough, which was really good.

After departing Kodiak we sailed for 5 - 6 hours along the island coast and during the night will pass through the Aleutian chain into the Bering Sea. Tomorrow is a sea day that's not as packed as yesterday, so I hope to do more wildlife watching. Stay tuned.