Whales and eagles

The ferry north was amazing. A couple of days of sailing through nothing but fir trees and narrow passages between islands. Man has a very minor presence here, and just seeing the place makes me feel very small indeed.

I hooked up with a few other overlanders whilst queuing for the ferry, one guy heading up to Prudhoe Bay in the north like me, and others touring around Alaska. The first evening I had no idea where I was going to sleep so I just wandered around aimlessly, then finally collapsed in a chair near the front of the ship at about 1 a.m. Others had pitched tents on deck or rolled out their sleeping bags where they could.

The following day dawned as we were passing up the coast of Vancouver Island. Standing on the port side of the ship I saw a huge dorsal fin pass close by, a male killer whale. Shortly afterward there was a small pod of what looked like porpoise. The water was so clear you could clearly see the black and white markings. Later in the day I saw a humpback whale stick his head out, so I got some video and he obliged by surfacing again, blowing and then raising his tail as he dived.

When we got into the tighter passages it was possible to see bald eagles in the trees. At one point an eagle flew right over the boat checking us out. The second evening I had made arrangements to meet Jim, Mike and Greg (the other overlanders) in the bar to discuss our various routes through Alaska.

Mike and Greg were planning to push south towards Anchorage, whereas Jim was planning to head all the way up to the Arctic Ocean like me. However he would be a few days ahead of me as I would be stopping at Wrangell.

We arranged to meet up at Fairbanks on Friday evening and then assault the Haul Road (the old name for the Dalton Highway) up to the Arctic Ocean together over next weekend. I'm fairly confident I can ride from Skagway to Fairbanks over Thursday and Friday, so this seemed doable, and it would be very comforting to have a little company on one of the remotest stretches of my whole trip.

In a short while I will be disembarking for Wrangell, which I'm hoping will be a quiet break for a couple of days. Then Wednesday I will pick up another ferry for Skagway. Hopefully I will be able to update the blog soon.

Fraser.