Russian Orthodox Church
Our first landfall on this side of the Pacific is the tiny outpost of Dutch Harbor which can just about find room for cruise ship amongst the fish processing plants. The cruise port is on the small island of Amaknak which is Bridge linked to the main island of Unalaska and was named simply because there was a Dutch boat in the harbor! The main port was initially developed by the Russians and it was later one of the few locations in the USA bombed in WW2.
One of the stranger oddities is that we are on “ship” time which is an hour adrift from local Alaska time. We had not anticipated this and had advanced our watches to local time so until we discover our mistake we are running an hour early. However our planned breakfast restaurant was not open simply because we are too early, the first world problems of cruise ship passengers!
On disembarking before going completely cabin stir crazy the first sight is of an eagle sat nearby plus further examples soaring overhead. The second sight was a somewhat dirty school bus which constitutes the available local transport.
The bus takes us to the sights, a WW2 museum, the Safeway store, the Museum of the Aleutians and the Russian Orthodox Church. We do the last round trip simply because it was the only one planned to visit the church as earlier it would be in use. However we cannot attempt to see the interior as we are concerned about vehicle capacity to get everyone back on board as the bus timetable has become disrupted.
Time to move on and we swing back south of the chain of Aleutian Islands and continue heading West. Talking of time it is a 23 hour day and from tomorrow we shall be on true Alaska time.