Land ahoy... Haines, Alaska

Welcome to Haines
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This morning the ship docked at Haines at 6am before we woke up. I had arranged to have breakfast delivered to our room between 8-8:30am, thinking that we would be up and dressed and ready to go into port. However, those cocktails last night must have taken their toll as our cabin steward woke us up with breakfast at 8am. We headed off at 9:30 into Historic Haines and found out that it is quite a small town, full of cultural information about the early Eskimos that settled. We had hoped to catch the hi-speed ferry over to the larger port of Skagway, but found that the timings of this 40min one-way journey did not suit us, given we had a scheduled tour departure at 2:30am.

Totem Carving at the American Indian Centre
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We wandered around the small town, visiting the American Indian centre where totem sculpting is done. It was then on through local artist and souvenier shops. We found out that 4 other large ships were docked in Skagway, with 10,000 people infiltrating that town, and because of this our smaller ship was forced to dock in Haines. This small town gets about one ship a week docking, and all the local shops are independently owned by locals. The shops in Skagway, however, are mostly owned by the cruiselines, and the entire town basically shuts town once the last ship passes through. We stopped for coffee at the Rusty Compass Cafe, which had the best coffee I have tasted in over a week. This port was worth stopping at just for the coffee. The coffee on the boat is a poor substitute for us daily expresso coffee drinkers.

Ghosts and Madams...

Saw Mill Falls
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We headed back to the ship and had a light cheeseburger lunch before meeting our tour guide at 2:45 for our Historic Skagway tour. This started with a 40min Ferry ride over to the main port of Skagway. I dosed myself up with sea-sickness tablets only to have a very eneventful trip down the Fjord/channel. We saw some small waterfalls (nothing exciting). On docking in Skagway we boarded a bus with our driver Donovan who drove us first to the historic cemetary. Here he related stories of old, incluind the story of "Soapy" Smith who was a conman who conned money out of a lot of people in town, only to be shot to death by a local man called Reid. They gunfight also took Reid's life one week later. The town buried Smith in the Cemetary, then moved the border of the Cemetary to ensure that Smith was not on consecrated ground - so now he sits 3ft outside the cemetary. Each year after he died, then men of the town would come on on the anniversary of his death and urinate on his grave - so much was their ire for this man.

Red Onion Brothel Madam
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Our next stop was the Skagway overlook which gave us a view of the small town and the enormous ships in port. The ships have to keep their motors running as there is not enough power generated in the town to jump-start the ships when it comes time to leave! With the four ships in port they really overpower the view of this small town. After this it was down to the Red Onion Saloon and Brothel house. Here we were afforded a colourful commentary by a costumed madam with suggestive narrative about the times of old in the gold rush and the goings on of the Ladies of the Night. After this tour we walked around the town, checking out the many souvenier shops. For some reason jewellery shops are in abundance here - nearly two for every other store in town. Thousands of diamonds to choose from - makes you wonder how many people are in the market when on a cruise.

Skagway Visitor Centre - made totally of driftwood
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We boarded the final ferry back to Haines and the ship. With the weather and ensuing sunset it was getting dark by 9pm, and once back on the boat, we were coralled down to the dining room for our dinner. This was our first experience in the dining room - where we were seated with an older german couple from New York and two couples from Boston. Conversation was quite stilted, but the food was great. Everyone was very tired and just wanted to head back to their rooms to sleep. We decided this was a great idea!!