Traffic for 2006 June 4

We arrived in Sitka Friday morning. Sitka is a tender port, meaning that going ashore is a pain. The boat stays a couple of miles out and smaller boats take us into port. We got onto land around 10 am and walked around town. Sitka was the Russian capital of Alaska, and is where Cap'n Seward bought Alaska.

Just by setting foot on land, we knew Alaska was better than Mexico. The town was five minutes away, and thus did not require being taken advantage of by taxi drivers. Anything and everything is within walking distance. We went to the Russian Orthodox Cathedral and went shopping and wandering through town.

It was overcast all morning, but cleared up around noon and the skies were very blue. In the afternoon, we went out on a boating expedition to see sea otters and sea lions. The sea otters tie themselves up in the kelp and just kinda hang out. They are very cute sitting there cleaning themselves, but they hate humans so the only way you can see what they are doing is through binoculars. The Russians practically killed them all off for their pelts, but the otters are doing better now. The sea lions were perched on the end of Jacob's Rock, the last rock between us and Japan. The water was swelling a lot out there, and Susie had to take a vomit break.

We still couldn't believe that we had no rain. But we were not complaining!