Day 04 - Sat - 09/19/26

Our first port stop of this cruise found us in Sitka, Alaska. The ship arrived pretty early this morning and as is customary, we never felt any movement as the ship was berthed. Since we didn't have a planned shore excursion, we were not in any hurry to get up and get ready. We did have pre-booked shuttle tickets for nine to 9:30 AM. So we enjoyed a leisurely breakfast before scanning off the ship.

The official Sitka cruise terminal is actually located north of town about 5 miles and was fairly recently constructed. At the port, there are several gift shops and a number of food venues. However, this is the end of the season and a number of the vendors were closed. Despite the onboard hype of needing a shuttle reservation, none were needed, and we were directed to the first available shuttle. The shuttles are on former school buses and are quite utilitarian to say the least. We were quickly bussed into town and we headed for one of our favorite venues, which is a combination, thrift and dry goods store. However, it was closed so we continue a shopping trip through the heart of the Sitka business district. Angela and I separated as I tend to shop faster and I was able to walk out to the totem pole and the statue in front of the Alaska Pioneer's home. We met back up to walk to the National Historic Park visitor center building along the seawall. It's a picturesque walk with not only the boat harbor on one side but historical buildings on the other side. The most prominent was the Bishops House which was constructed by the Russians when they occupied and owned this area.

As we approached the historical park, there was an increasing smell of the dead salmon from the salmon run that is near its conclusion. There was a set of fish ladders, and we observed fish still trying to make it up the fish ladder to get to their spawning grounds. The historical park itself has a very nice visitor center with lots of exhibits and we enjoyed that. We then headed out off on the totem trail, which is a gravel trail. That's easily accessible by wheelchairs or other assisted devices. Once we reached the river, there were literally thousands of seagulls feasting on the remains of the salmon which had spawn and were dead and decaying. We walked past ruins of a Tlingit fort and crossed over a bridge. There are bear signs around warning walkers to be very bear aware. We then decided to walk up to the raptor center, which was nearby and we consulted with a local who confirmed that it was not far away.

The Alaska Raptor Center is used to rehabilitate injured raptors from throughout the state of Alaska and even down into the lower 48. Their primary objective is to rehabilitate and release back into the wild these magnificent creatures. They do have 12 Raptors in rehabilitation and 14 permanent residents. The permanent residents are those that are too severely injured that they could never survive in the wild. Those in rehabilitation have a wonderful closed in large structure that tries to mimic their everyday surroundings and has a running creek and waterfall through it along with places to perch, and the food is put out for them in such a way that they sort of have to forage for it. We were able to participate in a brief tour, which explained the operation of the facility before being released to tour the remainder on our own.

Leaving the raptor center we decided not to walk back through the forest would rather follow the Sitka Sawmill Road north and back into the city. Along the way we stopped in the grocery store that we had visited previously and bought a few treats before going down into town in search of some crab to eat. We found the crab restaurant, but the expense of eating crab was high so we explored a Subway Sandwich store next door. However, in the end, we decided to see what might be available back at the pier. We did note that an Hurtigrutan (Norwegian) expedition ship from Norway had pulled in to the little harbor. I looked up its itinerary and it appeared that it had come over to the pole from Norway and the last stop before Sitka was at Dutch Harbor It's a considerably smaller ship than ours and was built a year earlier than ours. We then walked back to the shuttle drop off point and got on the first available shuttle. While in downtown, we did find a second thrift store up by the Subway restaurant, and a third one (Salvation Army) was spotted from the bus on the road back to the port.

Back of the port, we shopped in the gift shops, which were on two levels. The only restaurant that was open was a food truck selling Indian fry bread so once again decided not to eat there and would eat once we got back on the ship. We looked around a bit in the Port area before deciding to simply scan back on the ship around 3 o'clock, which was an hour and a half before we were required to be on board. I took the opportunity once on board to download pictures from my big camera before going up to the Lido to have a little snack before eating a German themed meal in the evening in the Lido.

I probably should note that I am diabetic and going without a meal for so long after breakfast and doing the walking definitely dropped my blood sugar to the point I was feeling really tired and making questionable decisions in judgment. So eating a little snack brought me back to better sugar levels and decision-making ability.

With a 4:30 PM on board time the captain came on shortly after that and made his pre-departure announcement. After that announcement our lines were dropped and the Zaandam moved away from the birth and backed out into the Harbor and swung 180° counterclockwise to be able to head back out to sea. After our Lido German themed dinner, we listened to a cocktail chat between our cruise Director and Mark Kopitzke, the singer from the previous night. He was interesting to hear about his musical journey and how he got on cruise ships and it appears that there will be more of these cocktail chats in addition to the morning coffee chat on sea days.

Evening entertainment was a cello & guitar duo called the Shredderz. Wendy was from New York and Jim was from Australia. their musical style was called shredding and it was a very high energy presentation that was quite unusual, but very good to watch. They also had commentary in between each songs and even shared that they recently become engaged.

After this entertainment, Angela went up to the crows nest to participate in karaoke while I went and watched the most recent version of the movie call of the wild starring Harrison Ford. I previously have seen it, but it was cool to watch it again and was quite moving. At the end of the evening we met up once again in the room and prepared for the next day, which is scheduled to be a visit to the Hubbard glacier.