We hopped on our Carnival cruise ship in Seattle and were at sea the first day. It was pretty rocky. You know it is rocky if the crew keeps commenting on it. Rich and Lily didn’t feel so great, but decided to sleep it off during a daytime nap. Our first stop was called the Icy Straits, which is actually near the small native Alaskan town called Hoonah. There we went on an excursion to try and see bears in the wild. There were eight of us in a van being driven by a substitute driver…who happened to be the Eagle clan leader in Hoonah. Jack was very knowledgeable and chatted about how things worked within the Native Americans in Alaska. The tour was supposed to last 3 hours but he felt really bad we hadn’t seen anything during our long drive on trucking roads in a national forest that he kept driving. It paid off when we saw a momma bear and her cub walking along the water’s edge. We were very excited to see them. We had a very tight squeeze getting back to the ship. There may have been some running involved. We mentioned to Jack several times that if the ship left without us, we were going to be staying with him. I am not sure how serious he took us. Anyhow, enjoy the photos…
Messina Musings 