A short trip today as we only had to cover the few kilometers from the hotel to the Fairhaven Ferry Terminal where we were booked onto the MV Columbia for 5:00 to take us to Juneau but we were instructed to arrive at the terminal three hours prior to departure. Even so we had some time to kill and found a delightful sidewalk café for espresso, as well as banana bread and clam chowder. While there we met a couple from South Dakota who recognized us from the border crossing and the investigated whether we were in fact the group they had seen.
A quick trip to the grocery store for some ‘onboard provisions’ and then it was on to the terminal. Experience with BC Ferries – where motorcycles are prioritized – left us hopeful that Alaska Ferry’s would treat motorcycles with the same deference. Turned out not to be so. We waited in the hot sun for three hours. Almost the last to board we ended up being placed in a forward section just behind pallets of goods that were to be offloaded at Ketchican. We were told we had to move our bikes when in port at Ketchican so that the forklift could access the pallets. Not so great as it arrives at 5:00 am. What was galling is that there was that we could have been parked much sooner as we had no other vehicles in place ahead of us.
Our indignation quickly dissipated upon meeting Anthony the cook. He gave us excellent tips on life aboard the MV Columbia and later provided us with a custom pasta dish when we visited the restaurant for dinner. Our four man berth had plenty of room and served us well when we hunkered down.