Day 17 - Fri - 10/02/26 - Prince Rupert

 At 2:00 AM this morning, the ships clocks were moved forward one hour to put our clocks on the same time as Prince Rupert, Vancouver and Seattle. So last night, I did what everybody should do in those circumstances and stayed up an hour later than I should've. When we arrived at 7 AM this morning, I never felt the thrusters as a ship came into dock. It wasn't until around 9 o'clock that I stirred and got ready for our day in this port.

The fried egg service in the Lido this morning was very disorganized and quite slow but eventually, I received my two eggs over broken and two pieces of link sausage and two pieces of bacon. I supplemented it with a smoked salmon sandwich that I prepare each morning. We then gathered up all of our things and made our way off the ship in this new port town to us. The port has a nice set of ramps leading up to an immigration building which we did not have to do anything inside of. We then went out onto the boardwalk where there was an information booth and I was able to ask a few questions of the local guide about his recommendations for seeing the city. Armed with a local map we decided to take the Rushbrook Trail out to Seal Cove. It's about A 20 minute walk to the start of the Rushbrook trail at Bob's on the Rocks, a small restaurant. Essentially, the trail follows the route of an old railroad bed. Occasionally the tracks appear, but the trail itself is compact gravel and is quite nice. It's pretty heavily forested and one can see the waters of the bay. There was quite a bit of marine construction activity out in the bay, and I couldn't figure out what they were actually doing, but there were several very large barges with cranes and other equipment there. Once we reached Seal Cove there was a seaplane base, heliport, and small marina there. They have also preserved a salt marsh and the trail can be taken around that. Adjoining the marsh is a construction project where they are building 61 units for the indigenous people.

Rather than retrace our steps along the trail, we decided to walk up the hill and down seventh Avenue and then dropped down to sixth Avenue to walk back towards the city. Just before reaching the bridge over Hayes Creek, we went down the hill to the start of the Hayes Creek Trail. We then hiked up that trail beside the creek quite a ways until it reached the McClymont Park in McBride Street.  The trail has modest elevation gains, and is extremely beautiful with lots of old growth, trees and moss and scenic mushrooms. It is, however, not suitable for those with mobility issues or walkers. After I climbed the steps from the walking trail up to the street, I noted that we were less than a block from a McDonald's. So since it was after lunch, we decided to take a break and have a final Canadian meal at McDonald's. It was very relaxing and after the meal was finished, we headed back down McBride Street towards third Avenue, which is one of the two main streets in town. 

We first walked up Third Avenue and stopped in at a couple thrift stores and then took a connecting street down to 2nd Ave. where there was a shopping mall which had a pharmacy. I've had one ear plugged with earwax for the last few days, and I went in the pharmacy to find an earwax removal kit as I didn't bring one from home. They had one and so I purchased it. We then walk the mall on both levels exiting on the top level and can you walk down 2nd Ave. back towards the ship. There was a little park just above our ship's berth that had a I love Prince Rupert photo opportunity so we took it. We then saw that there was an entrance to the Sunken Garden across the street and so we visit is that also. I should mention that in the little park there's a memorial to a fishing boat that was lost at sea in Japan in 1985 and washed up on the shores of Prince Rupert. The fishing boat owner was never found and the Boat was restored as memorial here as the boat owner was from the sister city in Japan to Prince Rupert. We wandered down to the dock level in search of a Prince Rupert sticker as Angela has been putting together a collage of stickers for this voyage and the various ports we visited. We found one and purchased it and then strolled back to re-board the ship a little bit after 5 PM. After I boarded, there were only 10 people to come on board after me with a 5:30PM all aboard time. I did joke with the security officer that it was always our challenge to be the last one on board. And on this voyage, we were actually able to do that once in the tender port of Valdez earlier in the cruise.

Back in our state room I did the first treatment for my stuffed ear canal (I tend to generate ear wax) before heading out on deck three to watch our departure from the dock. Not long after 5:30 PM the mooring lines were released and thrusters were applied, and the Zaandam moved away from the Pierre and slowly backed up and began to rotate clockwise face ship on a course direction heading out to see. It was a pretty sail away and sailing along the coastline outside of Prince Rupert surprise me a bit. Prince Rupert is a major terminal for British Columbia and there's a major rail line that brings in containers to be loaded on to or removed from ships and hauled away. There's also a large grain terminal and a coal terminal and miscellaneous other industrial buildings along the coast outside of the town proper of Prince Rupert. But all too soon darkness was upon us and one couldn't focus on what was on land. I met Angela up in the Lido for dinner, but I was not hungry after our large McDonald's meal some three hours earlier. So I just enjoyed some cantaloupe and other melons and an apple for dinner while watching the pretty scenery go by. Angela, too, wasn't hungry and she eventually ended up going back to the room and changing in order to soak in the hot tub.

Tonight was a dressy night and also the black and gold ball, but I wasn't interested in dressing up so I just sat in the Lido and watched YouTube videos and then came down to the room to update my blog. Angela did go to the World Stage to listen to some of the music being performed.

It's sort of hard to believe that our cruise port stops have now all been completed. I have absolutely no misgivings about booking the trip. It's been really fun and interesting to visit all of these small ports and to be able to walk around and take in some of the local scenery and culture that they all have. Issues with the Zaandam''s speed performance were never an issue on this cruise because the ports were relatively close together and we were able to easily make our required passages on time. Tomorrow we have a sea day before reaching Vancouver early Sunday morning.

























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