Picture of our route on the MS Amsterdam. Master of the vessel: Jonathan Mercer

One of my favorite captains. Retiring in 2020 I believe.

The day by day

We overnighted in Seattle before the cruise

The place famous for tossing fish about.

One must get some Beecher's Mac and Cheese while you're here

The Market Theater Gum Wall

The Rainier tower in Seattle. Office and retail space.

The Rainier Club. Seattle's preeminent private club.

Smith Tower. Iconic 1914 Office tower with a speakeasy-style cocktail bar and 35th floor observatory.

The Seattle Great Wheel at Pier 57

Our HAL ship WAY WAY out in the distance.  This was a 5:30 am walk.  :-)

Closer view

Pike's market early in the morning before the rest of the world wakes up

Early am pics of the Gum Wall before all the tourists arrive.

The street corner by Pike's is interesting. People walk diagonally across the intersection as well as the normal ways.

Almost unheard of to see it dead like this.  I love mornings.

Traditional photos of our cabin

Mount Rainier way out in the distance

The marina next to the ship pier

Looking back at downtown

Sunset from the Crows Nest

Welcome to Ketchikan

Our tour takes us out to the George Inlet

The Cannery

Eagles nest complete with Eagle

There were two boats and some fish was being tossed out to get the Eagle's attention

A crab demo

Standing guard

This was the other boat with us and the area with the eagle

Gotta look close in the middle of the picture

Got the fish

Back to the George Inlet Inn

We did a pretty good job on the crab.  There was a contest to see which table could get the highest stack of shells

Back to downtown Ketchikan and a restaurant with an interesting sign.

"The World" residence ship.  It has 165 residences and usually about 150-200 people on board.

From articles I find, a studio will run approx $3 million up to $15 million for a 3 bedroom.

We were able to get out on the Bow.

One of the Alaska Ferry Boats.

Seal having fun

Some split pea soup out on deck.  A traditional thing Holland America does in Alaska.

Yummy

Coming into Juneau.  Disney ship already docked.

Downtown as viewed from the Mount Roberts Tramway

Eagle hanging around in a tree on top

The tram you ride up

Top view of the Disney ship

Another HAL ship approaching

Lady Baltimore. Story on the next page.

Long way down

Looking left

Looking right

One more pic of Lady Baltimore

Great place for everything crab

As indicated, we're now in Icy Strait Point

Out that exit awaits my ride. The Ziprider

On the bus on the way up to the Ziprider

Not the best day

Here we are

Sign says it all

Normally a beautiful view of the mountain and ship. 

A video clip borrowed from the video our captain took the following week when he want on the zipline in decent weather. Hope Capt Jonathan doesn't mind. 

At the bottom

I'm the far left in the red raincoat.

A closeup.  Not a big smiling face cause the weather sucked and my camera malfunctioned and I couldn't get my video on the way down.  Should'da bought a GOPRO.  We'll go back again and I will ride it again with a GoPro or similar.

See you later Icy Strait Point

This was taken at 10pm.  Pretty wild.

And this at 10:20pm

Pilot boarding at 10:50pm

Welcome to Anchorage

A little bite to eat in Anchorage

Coming into Homer Alaska

Docked out on the peninsula.

Low tide.  The promenade is even with the pier.

Seagulls everywhere

Even though they're flying rats, the little ones are still cute

A super cool place to shop.  They had EVERYTHING you could want in there. Like a mini Meijer or mini Walmart.

Homer City Hall

Home original post office. See next Pic for sign.

All the comforts of home overlooking the marina. I have no idea what this is.  Home, business? 

Feeshing boat headed out

Some of the shops along the peninsula

More shops

We had a fish dinner from this little place.  Outstanding.

Per Wikipedia, the Salty Dawg was originally one of the first cabins built in Homer in 1897 soon after the town site was established. In 1949 is was hauled out onto Home Spit on Skids. Opened in 1957 as the Salty Dawg Saloon.

There are thousands of dollar bills signed by visitors and tacked to the ceiling and walls.

View of the Spit

Little friends playing in the area near the ship

Coast Guard dock out on the spit.

Walking around the upper deck of the ship waiting to see if the fog was going to clear.  This is the oasis kids area.

We're waiting to see if the fog will lift so we can tender into Kodiac.

Top deck in the front of the ship.  Nice and wet from the fog.

This is as close as we got to being able to go into Kodiac.  There was a boat/ship hogging the pier and it was too foggy to tender.

We didn't need any assist but the tug was hanging out anyway.

Onward to Hubbard glacier

Patty waiting for weather to warm enough to use the pool.  :-)

Captured a sequence of some small amount of calving 

Rapid fire photos of some calving 

Fashionable Alaskan tourist

Nice little boat docked in Sitka

Sitka pier

St Michael's Cathedral

Our tour organizer brought her new little puppy to work to greet us.

The Fortress of the Bear is a home for orphaned bears both brown and black.

They rely on donations and tourists visiting to sustain the place.

When we were there we were told a story of how the bears ate REAL well.  There was some kind of power outage which caused the freezers at a packing house to go out.  So the bears dined on beef steaks and prime meats.  YUM.

Their environment is old abandoned pulp mill waste water tanks adapted to be an environment for them to live and play.

You would NOT want to meet up with a swipe of one of these paws.

Some black bears that live here too.

Channel buoys serving a dual purpose.

Eagle just hanging out.

Munching in the seaweed

Cutie looking for some food

More water doggies. :-)

Home base

A little choppy as we head toward Victoria

Time for the parade of chocolate treats.

It's like drinking Hershey syrup.  YUM!

A chocolate filled chocolate cookie

Chocolate tootsie pop. (sorta)

We ran through a pod of whales as we approached Victoria.  Didn't get any close-ups

HAL does an On Deck for the Cause cancer walk.  a 5K walk around the deck and all proceeds go toward cancer research.  At the end of the walk, we all demolish the cake and cookies.

Inside my fav Victoria restaurant. Pagliacci's.

The bay area in Victoria where seaplanes take off and land.

Downtown

Bay area again

Seaplane in the middle of the picture "taxiing"

Hard to see but there is a seaplane just above the water mid picture

The seaplane base

Little water taxies

The Fairmont Empress hotel

The Legislative Assembly of British Columbia

Marina looking back to town

Cool form of topiary