Alaska - Sitka

Okay here is one of my favorites - Sitka. Sitka is a beautiful little seaside town on the Southeastern part of Alaska, sprinkled with tiny islands. Another place I could totally live, without the cold. The ship wasn't able to dock here due to the size of the ship. We were anchored off shore and the life boats tendered us in. It was a different experience. I think our driver was driving for his first time. It took him about 20 times to dock the little think, no joke! At Sitka, we saw an amazing number of Eagles and baby Eagles. We visited a Raptor Center, a Salmon hatchery (part of the Sheldon Jackson Museum/Aquarium), did a little walking around the Sitka National Historic Park and downtown and some shopping. This was probably one of the most expensive places as well. We went into the local grocery store to purchase diapers and they were exactly double what I pay here as well as wipes and a few other items.

Here are a few pictures of Sitka. We didn't get too many!

Okay, Here's our ship anchored in Sitka. That little tiny boat beside it was the tender or lifeboat that shuttled us to the dock. Below is the tenders at the dock.

Here's some pictures of us at the Sheldon Brown museum/aquarium/salmon hatchery. Ashlyn wasn't cooperating for our family picture but later decided to join us for the group picture. With us is our friends Cheri, Mike, & their son Ryan.

These are the Eagles that were perched all over the rocks just outside the hatchery. You have to look closely and you can see a few white heads on the rocks and some on the polls.

Wait a minute... aren't Eagles on the endangered list??? Actually, they aren't anymore. I wasn't aware of this. But after visiting Alaska for the second time I was informed. It's amazing to see so many of them.

Here we are getting ready to walk through the forest. Again we had to drag Ashlyn into the picture with us. She has all these stipulations to appear in our pictures. She wants them taken when she is ready.

The kids each found hiking sticks and used them to climb and bang on everything. There were some really cool trees and logs in the forest. Here's one of them. Here we are at the Raptor Center. This center has a minimal contact area where most of their birds go. There is one way glass so we were able to see in but they could not see us. The majority of the birds here are able to be returned to the wild after rehabilitation.

The kids were passing around and actual bird foot. Yuck! This is Cheri's mother Marriel (sp), Ryan and Ashlyn, proudly displaying it.

Seth wasn't quite so impressed with it. Can you tell???

Here is the one an only Harbour seal we saw this trip. He was teasing us. He kept swimming up to the ship and taking off. So this is the best picture I could get.

More to come. I skipped around a little bit. I think I'll do Juneau next.