Tag: Aleutian Islands

We wake to find ourselves moored close to Kodiak as expected.  What is  not expected is blue sky and sun shining so after a number of drab days it feels more like holiday and holiday weather.

Kodiak is an island famous for particularly bears which are native to the island.  We are taken, this time in a “First Student” bus, around the town being shown the main highlights (including Safeway) as well as a couple of very attractive views.   No bears are spotted.  Kodiak is a large island compared with many others off of Alaska mainland and it is an attractive spot – at least with the sun shining as today.

Just opposite the town is Near Island – a simple name for the next nearest piece of land!  We can watch the planes landing and taking off from Kodiak Benny Benson State Airport which is away to the right as we look out at the sea.

On return to the ship it is sufficiently warm for us to sit by the pool and enjoy the warm sun, indeed I end with a touch of sunburn on my nose, although I am not tempted to remove many layers – but it is nice to be out of doors and feeling some warmth.

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.