Once again, we were up bright and early. We got up and ready and then headed for the Windjammer for some breakfast. This was the first port day, and the Windjammer was pretty busy. Graham had some fruits of the forest juice, oatmeal with brown sugar followed by fried egg, bacon, and baguette. I had congee with chopped boiled eggs, soy sauce and sesame oil. As there was no meat with the congee that morning, I had some pork sausages. I also had a pink donut.
We had no firm plans for Ketchikan. I had downloaded a treasure hunt app that offered treasure hunts in most ports. I figured we may do a treasure hunt in Ketchikan. However, it was raining cats and dogs. We took a turn around deck 14 and deck 5 to see if we could find the photographers, but we were out of luck. On Alaska cruises, they are not allowed to take photos outside the ship. We headed back to the cabin so that I could get changed into my swim stuff and then we went back upstairs to have some hot tub time. Once we were about to grow fins, we dried off and headed back to the room to get showered and changed.
Then we went to the Schooner Bar for morning trivia. We scored 14 out of 20. The winning score 19. There was another trivia an hour later that we wanted to do. As we did not have anything to do, we stayed put. Graham went to get some coffee at Café Promenade and brought it back. It was worth staying. The trivia was city nicknames, which we quite enjoy doing. We overthought one question and talked ourselves out of the correct answer. We still scored 17 out 25, which was the winning score. We got two bags in the bag. I won a bunch of them on our very first cruise on Ovation in 2016 and I have always loved them. Sadly, over the years they have worn out and I have not seen any since. I was thrilled to get some more.
After trivia, we headed up to the Windjammer for some lunch. Graham had salad bowl. He then had some coconut ranger cookies and a custard slice for dessert. I also had a salad bowl followed by a burger with fried onions and provolone cheese and fries. For the whole cruise, the burgers were really nice, but this time the burger was really undercooked. I just had the fries. I then went to get myself some Chicken Tikka Masala with rice and popadom instead, which was lovely. I had a Nanaimo Bar for dessert.
Things outside started to look a little brighter when we had lunch. We went back to the cabin afterwards and put our coats on. Then we headed out. I wanted to get a photo of the Thundering Wings statue. I had to smile. There was a shop just opposite our ship that had a sign that the shop was a shortcut to docks 3 and 4. I thought they were a little cheeky with that claim, but we still had a quick look. Then we headed to Eagle Park so that I could get my photo. Graham wanted to head for the marina as there are usually interesting birds around there. We got about halfway and it started to rain again. There was bench underneath a roof in from of one of the shops. We decided to sit down for a while to see if the weather would improve again. It did not show any signs of improving. I had a quick look at a shop selling quirky jewellery and then we went back to the ship.
Graham headed straight up to deck 14 where he found a seat near the indoor pool. I went back to the cabin to put away my coat and get my iPad. In the short time that it took me to go to the cabin and then make my way up, I had missed some whale activity. I did manage to see plenty of bald eagles though.
Around half an hour before afternoon trivia was due to start, we headed downstairs to Sound Cellar to get some seats. It was not particularly busy that day. We scored 8 out of 20. I was not too happy about this result until I found out that the winning score was 9.
After afternoon trivia, we headed back upstairs as we expected to be leaving around that time. The sail out from Ketchikan is very pretty. However, there was no sign of us going anywhere in a hurry and soon it was time for us to get ready for dinner. We headed back to the cabin to get changed. Then we went downstairs to get some photos before heading to Grande for dinner.
The menu that evening was A Taste of Asia. We both had a glass of Chateau Ste Michelle Riesling. Graham started with the chilled shrimp cocktail with a classic horseradish cocktail sauce. He then had the grilled chicken breast with roasted potatoes, carrots, spinach and thyme jus. For his dessert, he had the vegan lychee tart with raspberries and vanilla- basil drizzle. I started with the pan-seared dumplings stuffed with chicken and cabbage. I did not fancy any of the main courses that were part of this menu and went with the curry of the day, which was chicken biryani with dal, roti and popadom. This was a crazy amount of food. I had some of the chicken biryani and then tried the dal. I ended up chewing on some dried chilli. After this, I was done. I could however not resist the mango tapioca pearl for dessert.
While we were having dinner, the captain made two announcements. The first was an explanation why we had not left yet. Ovation had only just returned to the USA after spending the winter in Singapore. This meant that the crew had to go through US immigration and they also had to have the coast guard drill. This was still going on when we were supposed to leave. However, everything was now taken care of, and we were due to leave shortly. We actually had started to move away from the dock while we had dessert. However, the captain then made a second announcement just as we were about to leave the dining room to let us know that we had a medical emergency and were waiting for a helicopter to come for a medical evacuation. Our plan had been to head up to the solarium. However, as the helipad is just below the solarium, we figured that this was out of bounds. Instead, we headed to the Pesky Parrot for a drink. Graham thought that he heard a helicopter as we headed along the corridor. I had Pesky’s Peanut Butter Piña, which consisted of Skrewball peanut butter whiskey and piña colada mix. I had this on Allure in September and really enjoyed it. Graham is not a fan of anything peanut butter and had a Monkey Business instead. This consisted of Bacardi Gold Rum, Creme de Banana, Mr Black coffee liqueur, half and half and banana purée . This ended up being Graham’s go to cocktail for the rest of the cruise.
Once we had finished our drinks, we figured that the coast was probably clear. We were close to the airport when we got up to the solarium. Shortly afterwards, there was yet another announcement by the captain explaining that after consultation between the ship’s medical officer and the paramedics, a medical evacuation was not required, and we would be on our way again shortly. The various hold ups would mean that we would get into Sitka about two hours late the next day, but that our port stay had been extended. I am just a little suspicious when a medical evacuation is suddenly aborted as this does not sound like a happy ending. However, in this case, it was. The person in question was actually on our Facebook group. He posted an update the next evening that he had remained on the ship and was then transferred by ambulance to the hospital in Sitka. After a day of tests, he was cleared to return to the ship and to continue his cruise. This was some great news.
With the various hold ups out of the way, we were finally underway properly. I had another drink from the Sunshine Bar. I had watermelon margarita, which is normally one of my favourites. This one was not very nice though. Graham had made the right decision to pass on another drink. It was nice to just relax in the solarium after dinner and enjoy the view. Once the sun started to go down, we headed back to the cabin and got ready for bed. Soon, we were fast asleep.
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