No, not the regal screech that has become shorthand for American patriotism, but the laughter of children. They’re leaving their classrooms for the American equivalent of morning tea. I put down my binoculars and re-examine the website that had been hastily skimmed on my way off the ship.
Yikes.
It turns out I’m standing on a nondescript school property on a Tuesday morning. And although my binoculars weren’t pointed at the classrooms, it’s not an explanation I wish to test after being summoned to the principal’s office. I stuff my binoculars into my backpack and scurry away, relieved to have avoided an international incident and placement on a local “stranger danger” list.
Ketchikan, Alaska, know for its former red light boardwalk turned tourist attaction and its bald eagles, is a common stop for Alaska Inside Passage cruises. Photo composite / Craig Kapitan / Princess
My misplaced confidence that I’m smarter than the average tourist vanishes instantly, replaced by an embarrassed blush and a nervous sweat.
But not all is lost.
Sunrise at sea
I had awakened in my sea-view stateroom just after 4am that day, surprising myself with a happy-go-lucky mindset for such an ungodly hour. After going to sleep the night before on the open sea, I’d rolled over hours later to find beautiful glacier-cut islands passing by illuminated by the slowly rising sun.
I had left the cold Auckland autumn for the colder Alaskan spring, but the arrival of 18-hour stretches of daylight stirred the soul regardless and there was no way I could go back to sleep. I laced up my running shoes and went up to the outdoor track on the 19th deck for a routine I had initially planned to reluctantly grind through hours later.
Sunrise in Alaska as the Star Princess cruise ship nears Ketchikan. Photo / Craig Kapitan
I ended up recording one of the slowest jogging paces of my life as I stopped at every corner, entranced again and again like a goldfish with a 10-second memory as I watched the sun’s glow over the placid water from each possible angle.
It was then I realised that I might, despite my initial trepidation, be a cruise aficionado after all. I’d only been on one prior journey a few years earlier and had come to the conclusion that it wasn’t my jam.
Previously, my wife and I got to experience two and a half of the four planned shore excursions before the captain pulled up anchor and returned home amid rough waters to outrun a storm. The surge of humanity was especially unescapable on sea days, of which there were suddenly many. So yeah, not a cruise person, I’d insist whenever the subject came up after that.
But when the opportunity arose to report on Princess’ newest starliner class ship and visit Alaska, it seemed like a downright asinine idea not to reconsider my assessment. And I did like it, quite a bit, it would turn out.
A whale is spotted from aboard the newly commissioned Star Princess during its maiden season in Alaska. Photo / Princess Cruises
Princess’ seven-day Inside Passage cruise is just the right amount of time for someone with my cruise ship reservations, boasting four shore excursions in Alaska and Canada and only two full sea days. Because of the route, the water is calm most days and the views remain striking throughout thanks to the changing shoreline.
Best of all, because of the chill in the air, there are public spaces on the ship where one can have peace and solitude. The running track on the morning of the Ketchikan sunrise was mine alone, aside from a Princess employee swabbing the deck.
For anyone hearty enough to brave the initial chill, blankets are as readily available on the top decks as towels for the all-but-abandoned pools. My travel partner and I spent one evening sitting on deck chairs at the front of the ship during sunset, alone as we scanned the ocean in front of us for whales. It was open air but transparent barriers blocked the worst of the wind to the point where, with the aid of a jumper and the blanket, there was no trace of a shiver.
There are similarities between cruises through Milford Sound and Alaska’s Endicott Arm en route to Dawes Glacier. But only one has room service. Photo / Craig Kapitan
My identity crisis as a cruise sceptic reached full fruition the day after the sunrise scene, when I ordered room service on my deck after a 6am wake-up and stared for hours at the Milford Sound-like fjords of Endicott Arm as we made our way through small icebergs to the otherwise inaccessible Dawes Glacier.
Where eagles soar
That’s all to say that not all was riding on my Ketchikan eagle hunt, although it was a demoralising turn.
Growing up in America, bald eagles were endangered throughout all of my childhood despite their presence on US emblems and currency. Although they were taken off the endangered list in 2007, spotting one remains as big a deal as spotting a kiwi in the wild in New Zealand. But that’s in the lower 48 states. In Ketchikan, they’re supposed to be abundant.
While I fled the school grounds, some new friends I had met aboard sent a photo of an eagle in flight that they had snapped while stepping out of the cab at the Saxon totem pole park. I curmudgeonly shook my fist at them in envy, chastising myself for not having invited myself along when passing them en route to the school.
Great Alaskan Lumberjack Show founder Rob Scheer holds an axe-throwing competition aboard the Star Princess. Photo / Princes Cruises
I also lamented not checking out the town’s popular Great Alaskan Lumberjack Show. Rob Scheer, a former lumberjack games champion, had allowed me and other volunteers to throw an axe at a wooden target the day before during an on-ship preview of what the show would entail. I thought about writing a piece about “bad ideas on a cruise ship”, leading with allowing amateurs to throw a sharpened axe on a circular stage surrounded by an audience while a ship sways. But he’d obviously done the demonstration many times before and had the routine down, so there wasn’t much to report other than the fact I’m a mediocre axe slinger.
One other event is on the schedule for Ketchikan, though. It’s a trip aboard the Aleutian Ballad, a crab boat featured in reality TV series The Deadliest Catch that has now been converted into a stadium-seating tourist boat. Former fishermen turned tour guides share salty stories and reel in sea life before throwing most of it back. It came with a free 1/2 lb (330g) crab meal.
A tour guide on the Bering Sea Crab Fishermen’s Tour in Ketchikan, Alaska, pulls up an octopus before returning it to the depths. Photo / Craig Kapitan
Now I need to make a somewhat controversial triple confession: I don’t like crab. I also don’t like fishing. And I find most fishing stories tedious. But it is a group booking and, with my earlier failure at rugged Alaskan independence fresh on my mind, I’m more than content to tag along for the ride.
And I have to admit they really are top-shelf fishing stories. These guys are literally the pros, after all, with a deep back catalogue of adventures that climax with the recounting of an 18-metre rogue wave that nearly caused that very boat to roll. Video of the wave plays on a loop in the ship’s snack bar galley, certified proof that not all fishing tales are tall. Besides, I remind myself, who am I to judge other people’s fishing stories as I ruminate on the eagle that got away?
Then, as if in answer to my question, there’s excitement about the boat as people get out of their seats and look towards the horizon. It’s not just one bald eagle – a glorious mob of them! These local experts know their fish, but it turns out they also know their eagles. Importantly, they know the eagles covet their fish. As chunks of bait are thrown overboard, dozens circle overhead, sometimes as many as three swooping down at a time competing for the same scrap.
It would be befitting of this awe-inspiring moment for the US national anthem or an upbeat John Philip Sousa march to be played in the background, perhaps with some light fireworks. What the moment gets instead is me muttering under my breath as I point my phone at the sky and take so many blurry photos in quick succession that its storage – already overburdened with sunrise and car park images – quickly poops out.
A bald eagle swoops past the Aleutian Ballad crabbing-turned-tourist ship near Ketchikan, Alaska. Photo / Princess Cruises
As I’m standing there, reluctantly forced into reverie due to my camera being in time out, something familiar tickles my brain. The eagle swarm giving up the thrill of the hunt to instead contentedly jockey for a catered lunch is almost analogous, I realise, to cruise ship passengers queuing for the perfect photo opportunity in Ketchikan’s beautiful seafront. Except there’s no doofus flying off in the opposite direction towards a primary school.
I wish I knew the feeling.
DETAILS
Seven-day Inside Passage Alaskan voyage (Seattle roundtrip) on Star Princess.
www.princess.com
New Zealand Herald Travel travelled via Princess Cruises.