Spending the Solstice in Sunny Ketchikan

We got nicely settled into our berth at Bar Harbor Marina in Ketchikan, and decided to "do"a bit of the town. Being a Sunday night, the town was basically shut down.....but we were able to pick up some quick groceries at the Safeway nearby, and then to walk toward town, checking out the occasional bar on the way. (Okay.....we did a pub crawl into town).







This bar has an interesting theme!








By 0200, we were done - literally - and crawled our way back to the boat.












After several hours of pub crawling in Ketchikan, this is what we look like!









Monday morning was a very slow time on the boat, as no-one was feeling too frisky. But with a nice sunny day, I couldn't waste it. I left Kelcy and Shane to sleep it off, and hiked into town for a bit of a self-guided walking tour of the town. The Discovery Center has a good presentation of Alaskan wildlife and history, and the town itself is quite interesting. Many of the old brothels have been left in 1800's style, but are now shops and restaurants (I'm pretty sure). The main marina/boat basin has some very skookum-looking tide grids, and is well set up for the fishing community here.







Some of the old brothels, now shops.











During our pub crawl the previous evening, we'd learned about a local celebration for honouring the Summer Solstice - we couldn't miss that!
So following a bit of dinner at Godfather's Pizza, we took a free shuttle from town, to the small fishing port/pub called "Hole in the Wall", a trip of about 12 miles south of town. Many hundreds of locals (dare I say perhaps close to a thousand?) come out here to party and celebrate the longest day of the year.....here in Ketchikan, the sun sets about 10PM, the skies stay "twilightish" for a few hours, and then the sun is back up again at 3AM. There were so many people crowded on the floating docks, that at times they were awash with seawater as the docks sank with the weight. A rock band in the pub, and then fireworks, made it an interesting exdperience. We caught the midnight shuttle back to the boat, although the party was only just getting going.








Fireworks for the Solstice
















The dock is getting heavy!








Today is Tuesday, the 22nd of June.....we've been luck up to now with the weather (sunny, and nice - perhaps a bit cool).....but today the rains have reappeared - actually, this area is famous for it's plentiful rainfall of over 300 inches per year. We have topped up the fuel tanks and are now about to stock up the groceries from Safeway. A bit of exploring to do, and then tomorrow morning we'll be off for Meyer's Chuck, a small place about 34 miles north of here, and about a third of the way to our next town of Wrangell.