Taking the Alaska Marine Highway!

We took the Matanuska from Prince Rupert to Juneau

     We departed Prince Rupert at 0430 hrs in the morning. The ferry schedule depends on the tide tables in order to get in and out of various ports. We waited in line from around 7 at night. We climbed into the camper and slept or tried to at least until they started checking us thru security around 1230 or 1. After that we waited in line some more down in what ever lane they assigned you until boarding started around 3:30am. It was just starting to have a hint of sunrise when we departed around 4:30am. We had rented a stateroom that could sleep 4 for this leg to Juneau. It was a 37 hour trip so it gave us a good place to store our coolers along with catching some sleep occasionally and taking hot showers.

The Matanuska was huge and areas to hang out including a large cafeteria.
We made stops in Ketchikan, Wrangell, Petersburg, Kale and Sitka. We spent between 45 and 90 minutes in each port. We saw a nice variety of wildlife as we sailed along. Of course our favorite was spotting whales. We saw several humpbacks along with an Orca, porpoise, bald eagles, sea otters, deer, etc.

Ferry terminal in Prince Rupert at sunset around 11pm

Inside the ferry parking...there were 3 more lanes on the other side

There were more than a dozen bald eagles on this beach not too far from Petersburg, AK

Float plane landing at Ketchikan AK

Joyce at Petersburg

The super fast cat ferry passes us 

The views were nice...especially when the sun came out

Steve and Leanne 

An Orca (Killer Whale) putting on a show for us

    I will cover our time in Juneau on my next posting.