Friday July 25, 2014 Skagway, Alaska

We were awakened at 2:56 by a heavy rocking and jarring of the coach.  An earthquake!  It was a long one followed by several smaller ones. I got up and looked outside, there were no lights on in the other RVs.  I turned on the radio and found a station broadcasting from Juneau.  The news said the quake was estimated to be about 6.2 magnitude and was centered 92 miles west of Juneau.  The announcer also said that because of the depth of the water at the epicenter, no wave action was expected.  What worried me was that just after that little bit of news the station went off the air.  I couldn't find another station so I tried the computer and couldn't get online.

Since no one knocked on the door with warnings and there were no warning sirens we went back to bed.  It took awhile to get back to sleep, there were a few aftershocks.  And, it was raining all this time.

Even though we were awakened and could have slept in we were up at 7.  I fixed coffee.  We had no internet or phone service and worried that family would be worried about us needlessly.  We had no way to get news out that we were ok.  It had rained heavily during the night and was still raining when we got up.

I regretted not doing more last night to get ready for travel today.  I lucked out and by the time we wanted to go the rain had cleared up so I got the utilities unhooked without getting wet.  After Skagway we go back into Canada for a few days so I wanted to fill the fuel tanks before leaving Haines.  I went to a nearby NAPA store which had fuel pumps.  Yesterday evening I had driven by to check prices and I was pleasantly supriced to see that prices had dropped 5 cents per gallon.  Of course that still left it at $4.72 a gallon.

Queued up for the ferry

We drove the approximate 5.5 miles to the Ferry terminal and arrived there before 10:30.  One of the rules was that we had to be unhitched from the tow car.  Cars and motor coaches were assigned different lanes for loading on to the ferry.  This ferry wasn’t one of the super ferries like we had taken across the Delaware bay or to Victoria.  It wasn’t even double ended like the one across the Yukon River at Dawson City.  From the looks of it, I didn’t think it would hold all the coaches and tow vehicles in out caravan.  Getting on the ferry involved entering on a ramp through a door near the bow on the starboard side, and then turning left into designated lanes toward the stern.  Some of the cars were parked facing the bow and some facing the stern.  All the large vehicles were facing the stern.  The crew had everything figured out from long practice and was very adept in guiding us in.  There were four rows of coaches and two rows of cars.

No one was allowed to remain on the car deck during the passage to Skagway, which took about 40 minutes.  Of course that didn’t include loading and unloading.   I think that was to get passengers to the gift shop, bar and cafeteria.   Our passage was very pleasant in spite of the cloudy weather.  The sea was smooth and the ferry traveled at about 18 mph.  When we got in sight of Skagway there were two cruise ships in port,  a Carnival and a Norwegian cruise liner.

Unloading the ferry was the reverse of loading.  The cars and smaller vehicles drove off first.  They were the outside lanes.  The motor homes were in the four center lanes.  The motor homes were staggered and as one backed up a crew member gave instructions to the next. I had to back nearly the length of the ferry and make 3 Y maneuvers to line up with the exit ramp which was the same one we had entered by.  Again, the crew was very adept with their directions.

First sight of Skagway

Once off the ferry it was less than a half mile to the RV Park.  The RV Park had had some flooding problems due to the rain.  Water had not been restored to many of the sites.  We were one of several that weren't parked in the RV Park proper.  We were in a paved area outside the fence of the park.  These sights had water and power.  I didn't hook up to the water since I had a full tank of fresh water and we are only here for two nights.

Looking out our front window

After getting set up and eating a late lunch, we walked into town.  We took a few pictures and went into a few shops.  It was cold and threatening rain and we were tired so we returned to the coach.

The two cruise ships left port and headed south at a little after 8.

Gerri did some Sudoku puzzles and read until bed time.  She may have napped a little, I know I did.  It rained quite heavily most of the late afternoon and early evening.  Tomorrow we are scheduled for a train ride at 8 Am so I set an alarm again.

Forget Me Nots?

At bedtime we still had no internet or cell phone service.  Earlier I did send out a message that we were ok via my SPOT satellite communicator.  I have no idea if the message transmitted.  The SPOT unit doesn’t depend on cell service to transmit messages.  It is a satellite system.  Since we haven’t been able to receive DirecTV or Sirius Radio, I doubt it reached a satellite.  We will see when we get cell and internet service again.  I need to refamiliarize myself with the unit and get back online and see just who the messages got to.